Adelaide alt-rock four-piece Swapmeet's noisy explorations of young adulthood have already touched many hearts in Australia and beyond.
As far as homegrown rock bands go, few have had the magnetic pull that Swapmeet has.
Multi-instrumentalists Venus O’Brion, Maxwell Elphick, Jack Medlyn and Josh Doherty met in high school, steadily perfecting their craft within Adelaide’s tight-knit music scene.
Their intimate 2024 EP, Oxalis, first left them as a best-kept secret. As the buzz grew for their debut album, Mount Zero, which was released in July, so did their stature. Its coming-of-age tunes recall Melbourne’s Armlock, and indie juggernauts Sonic Youth, Pavement and Alex G.
That combination is delectable and has universal appeal: Starting September, Swapmeet are taking on Australia, the US and Europe with heaps of dates, following massive achievements like Winspear signing them as the LA label’s first international band.
Swapmeet
- Northcote Social Club
- Thursday 17 September, 8pm
- Tickets here
Check out our gig guide, our festival guide, our live music venue guide and our nightclub guide. Follow us on Instagram here.
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The newfound urgency on Mount Zero, then, is something they just fell into.
“We just wanted to have more fun when playing live,” Jack says. “We’ve been doing it so much, and having really fun songs to play live was just like, ‘Wouldn’t that be fun?’”
“I feel like we’re all a little bit ADHD and perfectionists where we need something to grab on to,” Venus adds.
“We can’t really stand being bored when making our own songs.”
The blown-out riffs across Mount Zero show such, like those in earworms I Know! and 2 C U, which will leave anyone floored. Venus credits Maxwell’s “knack for great guitar riffs, hooks and being loud” for granting them that energy.
They’ve obviously performed a lot to be so in tune with each other. Their ascension has already led them interstate and to the US, but getting comfortable enough circles back to playing in Adelaide.
“There’s an element of being from Adelaide that has definitely prepared us,” Venus says. “We’re always going to feel a bit of, ‘Oh, what are we doing here? We’re not supposed to be here,’ even if it’s Melbourne.”
They’ve remarkably ended up between music scenes. “It feels cheeky, like, how are we getting away with this?” Venus asks with a laugh.
Yet when I ask about their place in the Adelaide scene when they turned old enough to go to pubs, Venus interestingly points to COVID: “The relevancy of where you lived wasn’t really there anymore.”
“Having the internet as a source of community and access to music that you weren’t seeing in pubs before naturally informed what we like and gravitate to as artists.”
Speaking from his perspective at the time, Jack felt that few Adelaide bands were making the music he really liked.
“I love so many bands from Melbourne, Sydney and overseas, but I wanted to work out how to make music that sounds like all that crazy cool stuff,” he says.
“I feel like that really pushed me to try to do it with Swapmeet.”
Their broadened musical horizons are within their sound. Mount Zero isn’t only hooky alt-rock for days, but an exercise in meticulous sound collaging in DAWs like Logic and Ableton. Maxwell and Jack take on that responsibility, drawing from everyone’s love for electronic music.
“A lot of those weird ways that you can make weird electronic sounds become the only ways you can add interest to your music sometimes,” Jack explains.
Venus agrees, citing the contrast between the studio and live versions as what keeps everyone “feeling excited about the songs.”
“We treat the recording more as the meticulous art project and the live thing as the fun expression. That’s probably why we like to experiment more.”
Even where they recorded Mount Zero, in a serene Port Noarlunga beach house, it accommodated all their needs. Though Jack quickly reveals that the weather was horrible while they were there in the dead of winter.
“It wasn’t like we were surfy legends. It was miserable. It was the music that kept us warm,” Venus deadpans.
That paradox, embodying young adulthood, is fitting for Mount Zero. Perhaps that’s why Swapmeet have struck a chord with young people worldwide – they move them physically and emotionally.
Venus has her two cents on why they’ve been so embraced: “I feel like we’re quite accessible, but not intentionally. With songwriting, we all care about being ourselves in a lame way, whether or not that’s cringe.”
At the end of the day, it’s nice to see a person behind the music, which feels more important than ever today. With Swapmeet, four people get to be seen.
Get tickets here.
