The New School: Swapmeet Interviewed | Features

Australia’s newest alternative hopefuls Swapmeet have had nothing short of an emphatic rise in the last couple of years. Since the release of their debut EP ‘Oxalis’ in 2024, which won the group more nominations than any group at the South Australian Music Awards of that year, the group has steadily built a hefty reputation, most recently culminating in a standout performance at this year’s SXSW and securing a record deal with Los Angeles-based label Winspear.

Their debut full-length album, entitled ‘Mount Zero’ – out now, in fact – pre-empting a mammoth tour of Australia, the USA, Europe, and the United Kingdom beginning in September.

Venus and Jack, making up half of the act, joined CLASH to speak on their new record and upcoming world tour.

—

CLASH: Hello Swapmeet! Thank you for joining us today. How are you doing?

Venus: Couldn’t be better!

CLASH: As we speak now, your debut record is a mere three days away from release…have the nerves gone or is there still a lot of anticipation?

Jack: It’s unreal. It feels fake.

Venus: It kind of feels like when you’re really excited about Christmas, and the week of Christmas you’re really confused, but then it gets to Christmas Day and you’re like: Yippee it’s Christmas!

CLASH: To go back to your roots, you began the band in 2022 in Adelaide, Australia, yet you’ve recently signed to a label based in LA, Winspear. How do you describe that journey from being a local band on the scene to a band signed by a label on the other side of the world… that feeling must be weird!

Jack: It feels so natural, what happened to us. It doesn’t feel weird or out of place. But I get that it’s maybe surprising, or something.

Venus: It’s definitely one of the things that in retrospect is unusual.

CLASH: I suppose you wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t feel natural.

Jack: Yeah! But I guess when we look back, if you had told us this would all happen, we probably wouldn’t think it would.

CLASH: Throughout your time as a group, has there been a shared philosophy or attitude that has guided you through your career so far?

Venus: I think we take it really seriously without taking it really seriously. The dynamic will always be about a friendship and what we create together. It’s the people first. We really care about what we’re making, but it’s ninety percent human interaction.

Jack: I feel like we’re all really naturally good at managing how our egos interact. Everyone is good at like taking a backseat to let whoever’s cooking take a step forward. That’s something I realised the other day.

—

CLASH: Were there any rules set for the band in that way?

Jack: We didn’t have to make any rules, it was just getting used to each other. Seeing each other’s ideas to be as important as everyone else’s.

Venus: No missing band prac! No matter how hungover you are.

Jack: If one of us is sick, all of us are sick.

CLASH: You first released an EP, ‘Oxalis’, in 2024. If you were to listen to that EP and your album one after another, what would you say have been the biggest changes or developments in your music?

Venus: The attention to detail, and knowing the parameters of experimenting. Feelings wise it’s more pessimistic but more mature in that way.

CLASH: Even though it’s a cliché, your first release is often quite angsty because you just want to get it out there… but since then you’ve probably been more able to hone it in.

Venus: We figured out our process, to some extent.

Jack: Yeah, and we were able to write whilst recording some of the stuff. Which I think makes the final product more connected to what we were trying to do originally. The first EP was songs we had for a long time. This one was really, like, eyes on the money.

CLASH: I read that you have experimented with heavy track layering in production… how did that style come about?

Jack: Everyone has so many ideas. We had so many instruments lying around as well. When you get to a part and you’re trying to make it different to everything else, why not put some accordion in this one part? It might have hundreds of tracks, but one track is like three seconds of sound on it. We would do that then cut a bunch of things back.

CLASH: Am I right in saying you guys are self-produced? The album too?

Jack: The EP was. This album we worked with Hamish from Armlock, who mixed the record. He was just like an absolute brother, guiding us through.

Venus: When we first brought it to him, he thought he wasn’t going to do very much, like it was just a little lo-fi thing, like our EP. Then he saw all the tracks and how big everything was, and was like, okay, let’s do this properly.

CLASH: In addition, I’ve read of your swapping of roles, from songwriting to instruments to production, which makes the group extremely versatile by nature. What would you say are the biggest pros (and cons) to that dynamic in a band?

Jack: The cons would be like, there is a slightly higher number of compromises to be made. But, the pro’s is that it’s just way more fun for everyone. There is no boringness of playing guitar all the time, no getting sick of stuff. At least for me.

Venus: It keeps things playful when there aren’t set roles and identities within the roles. Whoever’s playing the instrument will just play the instrument. That kind of flexibility is really important for us. Luckily, Jack and Maxwell are both so good at playing drums, guitar, singing, and songwriting. I just feel lucky and that there could be no other way.

CLASH: In various interviews, you’ve named plenty of influences and artists you admire. If you were to concentrate the record’s core influences to three acts, who would you pick?

Venus: Wilco – ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ was playing every single morning.

Jack: Ninajirachi? (laughs)

Venus: Wings!

Jack: That’s very true. Wings is like a general inspiration. I got reminded of the band Duster the other day; I forgot how actually integral that band is to us.

Venus: For the first two years of Swapmeet, it was all just Duster ripoffs.

Jack: And a little sprinkle of Twin Peaks.

CLASH: Besides your brilliant songs, I was certainly intrigued by the album artwork. What’s the story behind it?

Venus: I mean, there were themes in the album about heaven and doors unlocking. We were doing a photoshoot for the album cover, and then afterwards, my friend and I went into Melbourne and filmed a whole music video for ‘My Heart Breaks II’. I was going through the footage and took a screenshot; the cover for the album is the screenshot, which I fucked with more than the photoshoot. It was originally meant to be like an angel through a keyhole, but I kind of just got bored with that, to be honest.

Jack: It was meant to be like the Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez album that came out, and it’s them through a keyhole.

CLASH: Which song on the record grew the most to jump out and surprise you when recording it in the studio?

Jack: Probably ‘I Know’. We didn’t really have a demo for it. When we recorded it, I was still making up drum parts for it. I didn’t expect it to keep the energy of playing it live. Our recordings tend to be a bit different. But that one worked very well.

Seth: Do you guys record live in the room together? Like kind of old-school style?

Venus: Hell no! We do the opposite; everything is very new-school around here… We’ve tried to do it old-school, but we just found it a bit boring. We like to separate the live experience from the recording. They exist as different entities. We’re not shying away from our live playing; we’re just interested in making music in a different way. We do everything quite randomly.

CLASH: All very spur of the moment?

Venus: Yeah, very experimental. We have no idea what we are doing ever. We like to play around with the form of all the songs.

Jack: You can do some crazy shit in Ableton. You can transform a song.

CLASH: It is a credit to you guys that you can go into a song, add a thousand things, and still come out of it with a finished thing that sounds brilliant.

Venus: Going mad with it is a part of the process for us.

—

CLASH: Are there any songs you got stuck on?

Venus: ‘2 C U’ was tricky. That’s because we needed every second thing to be different.

Jack: I’d say Bonny. We came to Hamish with that song, and it wasn’t done at all.

CLASH: This debut album is supported by a whole calendar of tour dates… from gigs in Australia to a full US/UK/EU tour later this year… it must be so exciting to get the new record on the road!

Jack: I’m so keen! I can’t believe that it’s happening, especially in the UK and Europe. Amsterdam! I’m so keen for Amsterdam. I have a mate who just came back from Amsterdam; he said it was the best. I just wanna ride a bike.

CLASH: Supporting Wolf Alice as well in December! Dream come true perhaps? Big fans?

Jack: I am now! I’ve been listening to lots of Wolf Alice and have been loving it.

Venus: One of my first bands covered a Wolf Alice song!

CLASH: Just as a final question – if you could bring out one artist on stage with you during the duration of this tour – who would it be?

Venus & Jack: Addison Rae!!

Venus: Or Julian Casablancas, because that would just be funny.

CLASH: Opinions on Julian Casablancas’ autotune?

Jack: I don’t mind it!

Venus: I fuck with it, I mean, I was into The Voidz in high school.

CLASH: Yeah, The Voidz is all about that.

Jack: I was obsessed with this one Voidz song called ‘Pink Ocean’.

CLASH: Yes, that’s a great one.

As the interview drew to a close, Venus produced a guitar on the Zoom call and attempted ‘Headphones’ by Addison Rae. Which about sums up our chat with Swapmeet. Unpredictable, but thoroughly entertaining and authentic. Their debut record, ‘Mount Zero’, is a must-listen for any self-respecting indie fan of today. Even better, if you’re sold on it, you can catch them out on the road later this year.

—