tunesday – swapmeet's stories of their hometown

Ahead of the release of their debut album, Mount Zero, we caught up with Swapmeet's Maxwell Elphick to get the scoop on where they’ve come from, where they’re going, and all the stops along the way.

Tell us a bit about how the band came together. I met Josh (Doherty) when we both started high school together in 2016. We were not friends for the first few years of school but we weren’t not friends. I found Josh pretty annoying for a while, which I think he can admit was for good reason, and he found me weird. My earliest memory of interacting with him was him getting punched during Italian class after poking someone for 20 minutes, but I somehow was the one that got in trouble.

We really became friends when we started taking music class together in 2019. It was great because we were in a split class with the year above so we went unsupervised for a whole year with access to speakers. This came to form our first band we ever played in together. This band was originally called Swapmeet but the name was fortunately voted out by the other members. Fast forward to early 2020, this band that we formed recorded its first song and we decided we needed some cover art and something cool to post on Instagram. One of the other members of the band was fortunate enough to know someone that did film photography through some mutual friends outside our high school. This person ended up being Venus (O’Broin).

The day of the photoshoot we had to split the band between two cars so we could travel to the shoot location (Melbourne Street, North Adelaide). I was lucky enough to be in Venus’ car for a short leg of the trip, and we had the chance to competitively compare music tastes. After meeting for the first time doing this photoshoot and at a friend’s party (where we had joked about becoming a band), Josh, Venus and I began to hang out most weeks. This was during COVID so the only options were to go for drives or hang out in small groups. This led to hanging in either mine or Venus’ basement. Both had an assortment of guitars, amps and a drum kit.

We naturally fell into jamming together all the time, and only ever playing stuff that we had written. It wasn’t until later in the year we met Jack (Medlyn). As an end-of-year high school tradition, kids from Venus’ school and other schools in the surrounding area would travel up a hill to party and sleep for the night. It was at this event where Venus met Jack. We had all heard about Jack because he was also in a high school band that existed in the same world. I remember seeing a video of this band before meeting him and being jealous because they were significantly better than the band I was in at the time. Jack and Venus went to a friend's house on the night of their end of school celebration and – luckily enough – this friend owned a guitar. Venus took a bunch of videos of Jack playing guitar and said, “Jack has to join our band” (which didn’t properly exist at the time). The next week Jack came to a practice at my house and brought a synth. It was the first time I had seen someone use one and actually know how to play it. Only two weeks after our first practice we landed our first gig offer at the Hotel Metro. Since then, we’ve been a band.

Mount Zero is named after a mountain in between Adelaide and Melbourne/Naarm. What is it about the mountain that encapsulates the album’s sonic journey? The drive between Adelaide and Melbourne is pretty uninteresting. The first few hours of the drive look the same and have no significant landmarks to distinguish the last hour from the next. It isn’t until you hit the Grampians that the landscape begins to change. The first indicator of this is the big Mount Zero sign on the southern side of the highway. It’s a good symbol of our “leaving home” moment, that everything is about to change. The album captures this feeling of everything passing by and realising that things can’t go back to the way they were.

How does being from Adelaide shape Swapmeet’s sound? Like anywhere, the local scene shapes how everyone performs – whether you like it or not. The first local shows we went to were on the back end of COVID, where they were either seated or there were heavy restrictions on dancing. Unfortunately, this meant that a lot of the local bands we were excited to see once turning 18 all ended before we got the chance. This meant a huge reset for the local scene. A lot of the bands we played with and still played with never got to experience what was before them, so everything felt like this big amalgamation of stuff we had found on the internet as kids. From playing live together, we all started to pick up nuances from each other that we could incorporate. Many of the live shows became a healthy competition of who could move around on stage the most or be the loudest. Because no one was allowed to dance in the audiences, your only option was to do it when playing. People were definitely listening harder than before, which meant bands could get away with live antics.

Can the band see itself leaving its hometown to make music elsewhere? Yes, we can. When we have the opportunity, we will. I don’t believe we need to be in a different place to make the music, per se – we can make the music anywhere as long as we have a laptop and there's the four of us. It’s more so what happens in-between the making of the music that influences it the most. That’s why we can see ourself leaving our hometown, abandoning comfort to experience new things and new chapters to write about.

If there is one place in Adelaide that has been vital in the story of Swapmeet, what is it and what goes on there? A few of us grew up around Belair and it had become a bit of a hub for us as a band. A lot of what we have written, recorded and rehearsed has all happened in Belair. Mainly because we have the freedom of not having to deal with noise complaints from neighbours. Living close to each other also gave us the opportunity to be more involved with each other. For the past two years, we have hosted a New Years’ Eve festival in Belair as well. I think both have been the favourite shows we have played.

How does playing live shows outside of Adelaide change the way the music is performed? Playing outside Adelaide doesn't really change how we perform, only how it's perceived. It’s not necessarily the city that changes the way we perform, but more so the environment on the day of the show. We will always try to play with as much energy as possible and have the most fun that we can. It’s more so how can we bring everyone that's at that show into our little world for the night.

Mount Zero is a guitar-driven road trip of an album that cascades horizons and sweeps over landscapes. Where are you all heading? As far away as possible.

Feast your ears on Swapmeet’s Mount Zero this-a-way. For more rad tunes, take a gander at our chat with hanbee or have a squiz at our chinwag with Ella Ion. Plus, sign up to our newsletter to stay in the loop.