Australia's Spacey Jane Lands in Denver for First Stateside Tour

Spacey Jane has officially landed stateside. The Australian indie-rock quartet has found a constant home on the Aussie charts since forming in 2016, but hadn’t made the trip to North America to properly play until this year.

“It’s our first time touring out here, which is really cool. I spent a lot of time out here writing with people and hanging out. But to actually be playing, it’s pretty surreal. It was crazy to get up on stage in Toronto [the first night of the tour] and feel like we’re finally doing it. It has been a dream for a long time. We’re really happy,” says lead singer and rhythm guitarist Caleb Harper, the day after playing a show in New York City.

"It wasn’t necessarily like a five-step program or anything, but just to get overseas to play places around the world is something that has always been at the forefront of our mind," he continues. "The idea of even just leaving your hometown and traveling to another city in Australia is special, but to take it a step further and take it abroad to be in New York or Denver, that’s a wild thought to have — that people around the world listen to the music and want to come to our shows. That’s crazy.”

Based on the reception so far, including several sold-out shows, audiences are happy to see Spacey Jane live as well. The band plays the Gothic Theatre on Saturday, October 22.

“The Denver show is one of the biggest shows on the tour, and that is like so mind-blowing to us. We think about, as Australians, like New York and L.A., where the Aussies are. … Denver isn’t a place that we necessarily know much about, so seeing the support coming out of Denver makes us feel so grateful,” Harper says.

When Harper and his bandmates officially began Spacey Jane, there wasn’t much of a musical subculture in their hometown of Perth — a place where “scenes sort of come and go pretty quickly,” as Harper puts it.

“I think what’s cool about it is there isn’t the infrastructure, necessarily, and facilities to make these dime-a-dozen sounds and bands that you get in bigger cities, where there’s one particular type of music that takes hold and there’s a group of producers and venues that are pushing one thing, so people conform to that,” he adds. “For us, there was no mold to fit into, so we just did whatever felt natural and comfortable. There was no one there doing the same thing. We weren’t aspiring to be a particular act or group of people we were around. We were just doing what we liked.

“Also the pace is slower, so you had a little bit more time to figure shit out and cut your teeth before being thrust into industry and stages. You sort of figure it out and slowly make your way out of Perth and other parts of Australia.”

But there must be something going on in Perth, which has also given the world Tame Impala and Pond, because Spacey Jane’s 2020 debut, Sunlight, landed at number two on the country’s ARIA chart and went on to become certified Gold. The band’s follow-up record — 2022’s Here Comes Everybody — debuted at number one on the ARIA chart. Harper remembers those early days fondly, and talks about how the band’s sound has changed since then.

“We had mosh pits in the crowd — it was pretty wild. I think the more that we progressed, there hasn’t really been a conscious effort to move away from that as much as it’s been a conscious effort to sound different and always be moving forward," he explains. "I don’t know which direction that is, in particular, but I think the biggest thing is like, ‘Why don’t I write a song on the keys instead of guitar this time?’... Thinking about each part of the song in the music with a really intense lens. The music has gotten softer and more poppy in some ways, but there’s more space in that, and that’s what I always wanted, too: Add more space into the music.”

While there might be “less mosh pits” now, it’s still an energetic live show, Harper adds.

“We probably have a far too intense live show, because we throw ourselves around all over the show and have as much fun as possible. I think we feed off the crowd’s energy and going ballistic,” he says. “It’s sort of a precedent we set for ourselves a long time ago. As soon as we could move around with our instruments, as soon as we were good enough to do that, we would be thrashing around on stage. … It feels like the ultimate manifestation or final form of what we’re doing in the band.”

Spacey Jane, 8 p.m. Saturday, October 22, Gothic Theatre, 3263 South Broadway. Tickets are $20-$23.