Spacey Jane: Caleb Harper on getting vulnerable for third album If That Makes Sense and Australian tour

West Australian

09-05-2025

When Spacey Jane announced their return to live music after a 14-month hiatus, the response from hardcore fans was wild.
An impromptu gig at the Rosemount Hotel, where it all started for the band, saw people snapping up limited tickets within minutes.
'It was our first time playing at the Rosemount in four years or something. And, yeah, I lay down on the ground after the show, just like, smiling. I was so happy. It felt really good. And we all missed it so much,' lead guitarist and vocalist Caleb Harper told Play via video call from his Fremantle home.
It was a full-circle moment as the Rosie was one of the many smaller venues the band played at throughout 2016, which helped them build their cult following.
'It's funny, like Jim, one of the in-house engineers, is still there. Seeing him again after years was just really cool,' Harper said.
'I think we just are very lucky to have come as far as we have, and to be there felt like a really beautiful reminder of where it started.'
And oh, how far Harper and his bandmates Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu, Kieran Lama and Peppa Lane have come since establishing themselves as one of Australia's hottest homegrown talents.
Spacey Jane released their third album If That Makes Sense on Friday, and are about to embark on an Australian and New Zealand tour showcasing the body of work that has the band feeling the happiest and most proud they've ever been.
Perth fans will get to hear the 13 new songs when they take the stage at Freo.Social for a whopping seven consecutive shows starting on June 26.
'It's ridiculous,' Harper admitted. 'It's been crazy to see how well everything's sold.
'And having been away for so long, we just didn't know if people had forgotten about us. Are they bored of us? Are they like, 'you're old news?' But to feel the love has been really special.'
'Fremantle is home, and it's like five minutes from my house, so I'm just gonna drive to work every day.
'The whole goal of this tour is to not go out and play the biggest rooms we can, but to play (rooms) that still feel like we're connected to people watching the show.'
With Harper tapping into vulnerability lyrically, the 28-year-old found himself feeling isolated from the world during the writing process.
'It's not until the record is out that you're like 'Oh, whoops, I put everything in this and now everyone's going to hear it',' he said.
'But I don't mind. Songwriting is an extension of myself and my feelings and experiences, and I just want to capture those as simply as possible.'
Perhaps Harper felt most exposed and was at his rawest when recording songs Through My Teeth, Whateverrrr, and Falling Apart.
Harper described Whateverrrr as a 'wound', as it explores a brief snapshot of childhood joy that collides with sadness as he reflects on how he was raised.
On Falling Apart, Harper focuses on harrowing memories, singing: 'I've got a story you would like/It's one where I'm forced to sleep outside/ It was pretty cold, I was 12 years old.'
Lead track Through My Teeth delves into cutting ties with the strictures of church, heading to university at 18, and getting 'blackout' drunk.
After leaving his musical aspirations for a while and instead partying in excess, flunking his engineering course and dealing with a breakdown, it was then Spacey Jane became Harper's purpose and solace.
'I personally credit the band, but particularly Ashton and Kieran, because Peppa joined later, for showing extreme grace and love and forgiving me over and over again,' he said.
Harper also reflected on the three-year creative process of making their album in Los Angeles and the strong bond they share as a group, describing their relationship as 'somewhere between siblings and a four-way marriage'.
The group decided to head to the home of some of the world's best music and the industry's brightest minds to 'shock the system and pull ourselves out of our comfort zone in a way that we hadn't before'.
After whittling down the album from nearly 40 songs, the band headed to the studio with Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, Wolf Alice, The 1975) for 12 weeks of recording.
They also worked with new collaborators Jackson 'Day Wave' Phillips and Sarah Aarons, who has worked with Childish Gambino and Miley Cyrus.
'It felt like the right move to step out and see what could be done,' Harper said.
'And I think in the end, we got a record that we couldn't have made here or on our own.
'I love this project and I want to play it for people, and I love my bandmates and this thing we've built together. We stepped off the cliff every day and loved it, and we have never been happier with our work than we are now.'