From Melbourne, Australia to Austin, post-punk quartet Radio Free Alice took to the Miller Lite Stage at the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Friday. With more than 450,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, the band crushed a hot and sweaty set. The Daily Texan sat down with guitarist Jules Paradiso and drummer Lochie Dowd to discuss their travels and upcoming album, What’s In Between.
The Daily Texan: How did it feel performing on stage?
Jules Paradiso: I find the festival energy is good because it’s nice. It’s in the day and everyone’s having a nice time and everyone’s in the sun and everyone’s drinking. You feel like you’re complementing the day as a performer, which feels nice to be a part of.
DT: How does the Australian music scene compare to the Austin music scene from what you guys have seen?
JP: Austin and Melbourne are quite similar in a few ways, in particular with a good, thriving music scene, whether it’s underground or alternative or indie. In Melbourne, there’s such an amazing scene right now, and I feel like it’s (also) in Austin.
DT: What’s the story or the inspiration behind the album?
JP: There’s not a sort of a specific story. The way we write music is we just throw as much shit at the wall and hope that something sticks eventually. We’re constantly writing and the album came together over the last couple years based on everything we’ve written and we picked the best stuff. What’s in between? It’s the title. There’s a track on the album called “What’s in Between,” and we liked the idea of it. We thought it was a good phrase. “What’s in between?”
Lochie Dowd: It can take on a lot of meanings. I keep finding new ways to apply it to our lives. These days, what’s in between actually does reflect how we write songs. We’re so busy traveling or doing whatever we have to do that’s not really music. Anytime we have apart from that other auxiliary stuff is what’s in between.
JP: There’s something nice about the role that music plays in between people. Sometimes music can say what words can’t, and sometimes music can be seen as what’s in between words.
DT: Do you guys have other meanings that you feel you really connect with?
LD: It’s a good phrase to think about generally in day-to-day life and in the way that you don’t want your thinking to divulge into black and white. (Where) everything’s either this or that. Any decision you make, any decision that’s ahead of you has a lot of complexity and a lot of nuance to it, whether you want to investigate that or not. Getting into what’s in between can be very enriching for your life by understanding the nuances of what you do.
