A Free Man

A Free Man’s Antipodean Musical Safari is in full swing this week with another Australian pop outfit - Adelaide’s Radio Spectacular!!! A partnership between Harry Whizkid and his lady love Pheebs, Radio Spectacular!!! is making wonderfully clever synth-pop Partners in more than music Harry and Phebe met, in true 21st Century fashion, online a couple of years ago. Harry was lured to move to Adelaide from Brisbane to join Phebe in South Australia where the started up Radio Spectacular (among other things, presumably). They released a self-titled EP in 2006 and have continued to record quirky and clever pop songs. There’s a lot of variability in their sound, suggesting that they are a band still finding their voice but with a scary amount of raw talent.

Harry and Phebe sat down on A Free Man’s virtual couch this week for a chat about Queen, photography and radio songs.

AFM: It’s hard to pin down your style - kind of ranges from this film-soundtrack instrumentals to dark 80’s synth-pop. How do you describe your sound? What are your musical influences?

Harry: I think even we find it hard ourselves to describe our sound because it changes from song to song! We don’t like sticking to any particular style, it’s just whatever mood we’re in at the time. Our first songs were written as a joke so they have a real cheesy childlike feel to them but now with the addition of a synthesizer, our style has progressed to a more electro-pop sound, but that will most likely change down the track when we get bored of it!

Phebe: Our influences are quite broad as Harry is a huge Queen fan and he loves doing his fancy guitar solos and harmonies and I listen to a lot of The Polyphonic Spree and other pop bands like Architecture in Helsinki, New Young Pony Club and CSS.

AFM: You guys are both capable of playing multiple instruments. Where’d you learn to play them all?

Harry: I did about six months of piano when I was a kid and a bit of viola before that, but then I got a guitar for my twelfth birthday and I stuck with that. We’re pretty much self taught, Phebe learned recorder at school for a few years but that was about it for her. We just make it up as we go along!

Phebe, it looks like you can ‘play’ the camera as well - nice photography! What do you shoot with?

Phebe: Thank you! Most of my work is done with a Polaroid or Holga (lomography) camera. I’m not too keen on the whole digital revolution as yet (mainly because I don’t have a good digital camera) but I prefer the unpredictability of using film. I’ve just started studying photography this year so I’m looking forward to expanding my skills.

AFM: Radio Spectacular!!! is the second band in a week that I’ve interviewed that pays real sonic homage to the 80’s. Is there a revival of the music from the most shallow decade going on?

There’s always a revival of something or other but we don’t really pay attention to it, we like to think we’re fairly unfashionable when it comes to music styles. The 80’s had so much strange and fun music come from it like Split Enz and Blondie which we both can appreciate and enjoy. We even whip out a bit of Blondie on stage sometimes, it’s good fun.

AFM: Harry, you play with at least one other band and do some solo music as well. Can you tell me about the other projects? How do they differ from Radio Spectacular!!!?

Harry: I have another band called School of Two with a guy called Jason Sweeney which is a lot different as Jason is the primary songwriter and he’s very much a child of the 80’s so our sound is a much darker synth-pop sound. My solo stuff is really just me fooling around, helping out on film soundtrack projects every now and then.

AFM: You guys make big sounding music as a pair, but if you were going to put together a dream band what artists (living or dead) would you sign on?

Vocals: Freddie Mercury!!! Best voice ever.
Guitar: Brian May (hello, Queen?)
Bass: John Entwhistle
Keys: Mozart (hahah this band is awesome)
Horns: The entire Polyphonic Spree horns section
Drums: Meg White … just kidding! Mitch Mitchell for real.

AFM: I’m building up an impression of the Adelaide music scene based on some of the interviews I’ve done. It seems like pretty fertile ground for musicians to get started but I get the impression that there’s a ceiling that bands hit after a while. If you want to ‘make it big’ you have to go east or even overseas. Is that a fair impression?

I think for more pop oriented bands, there is definitely a ceiling. If you’re a rock band there’s more of a scene here for you but we’re hoping to change all that around with a monthly indie-pop night organised with We Grow Up called Popsicle. We hope to encourage more people to embrace pop and start their own pop bands!

AFM: What other Aussie bands should folks overseas pay attention to that we’re not?

Well definitely We Grow Up, Belittle League and BrotherSister are some awesome Adelaide bands to watch out for! Also our buddy in Melbourne Mildsparrow has some wonderful songs everyone should check out.

Three best places to while away a sunny afternoon in Adelaide?

In the summer months we spend a bit of time at Christies Beach, haven’t seen any sharks there yet so that’s a good thing. Rundle Mall/Rundle Street is always good fun when you’ve got money and we love going to Glenelg for ice-cream and coffee.

You guys released an EP back in ‘06. What’s next for Radio Spectacular!!!?

At the moment we’re recording a handful of new songs that will serve as a demo that will get us signed hahah hopefully! If not, we’ll just keep chipping away and keep having fun with what we’re doing.

Bonus: R.E.M.’s ‘Radio Free Europe’, The Buggles - ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ or Elvis Costello’s ‘Radio, Radio’?

Actually, none!
We choose Radio Ga Ga by Queen as that song was how we came up with our band name. But if we can’t choose that song then Video Killed The Radio Star for sure!

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Hmmm, the “None of the Above” option - controversial. We’ll let Pheebs and Harry slide because they were great sports. Check out two tracks from Radio Spectacular!! Contact the band directly to buy their self-titled EP.

MP3: Radio Spectacular - “Instant Love”
MP3: Radio Spectacular - “Ghosts and Ghouls”

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