“'Square' is a seriously good record… the songwriting is fresh.” – triple j Unearthed
It’s safe to say that most music fans would be blind-sided when they first hear Radio Free Alice.
For a band whose basic bio reads, “four teenagers from the Eastern suburbs of Sydney,” odds are you would be expecting the same semi-drunk, semi-stoned, semi-surf, slacker party pop punk that populates so much of the local alt-music landscape.
Instead, what you hear is a post-punk outfit that takes heavy cues from an era and sound rarely explored in modern Australian music – melding influences from the ’80s that include Talking Heads, The Cure, The Smiths and The Go-Betweens, as well as being guided by contemporary rock stars like Parquet Courts, Ought and The Strokes.
The band’s members, Noah Learmonth, Evan Chee, Jules Paradiso, Matt Drielsma (all 19) met in the age-old fashion - through high school music class - discovering they shared similar tastes. It just so happened that those tastes were uber fucking cool. Deciding to start a band to make the type of music they wanted to listen to seemed like a natural move, and as it turns out – they’re naturals.
Their angular sound feels fresh and immediate – guitars with clean tones and clever notes, melodic bass lines, urgent drumbeats, and an operatic swagger that should have been honed in a New York art school rather than the beachside suburbs of a relative cultural wasteland like Sydney. Indeed, front man Noah Learmonth sings with the same smooth, melodramatic croon as a David Byrne or a Tim Darcy, belying his and the band’s relative young ages, while also instantly offering up a sense of maturity and grace.
Unconventional sound and all though, Radio Free Alice has clearly hit a nerve early, with their debut single ‘Square’ quickly racking up to 130K streams online (an impressive feat for relative unknowns) and capturing the attention of some of the most sought after tastemakers in Australian music industry at triple j and their Unearthed platform.
Ask them their opinion of themselves and they show a quintessentially Australian tongue-in-cheek sensitivity to talking their music up, cheekily suggesting their lack of cricket skills was what lead them to, “start making songs to compensate for a single digit batting average and bowling figures in excess of 13.” They take that joke to the length that even some of their promo shots are of them standing outside the fence of their local oval, the roped off pitch in the background.
However, with their next barnstormer of a release in new single ‘Fire Warning’ just around the corner, they might have to focus less on their stats and more on the stage, as the demand for Radio Free Alice only looks set to see them climb the order.
TICKETING INFO
- Do not attend if you are feeling unwell
- Shows will be seated and limited to 30 per sitting, patrons will be seated to allow for social distancing. There will be select seating in accordance with the venue’s Covid Safe Plan with a 1.5m distance between groups. Guests must be seated at all times of the show unless moving from one section of the venue to another - i.e the bar, toilet, smoking area etc. There is to be no standing and mingling among guests especially between different groups and alcohol can only be consumed by seated customers.
- Artist to perform two separate sittings, 6:30pm & 9:30pm
- Upstairs kitchen will be open and running a $15.00 burger + schooner of beer or cider deal for those who have purchased a ticket to the show. Present your ticket to the bar staff when ordering to redeem.
- Tickets will need to be pre-purchased due to Covid -19 capacity restrictions and select seating arrangements enforced by the venue in order to comply with Covid safety measures and to ensure guests are protected and are as safe as possible at all times. All customers entering the premise must sign-in by providing accurate contact details via the venue's QR code sign in registry at the entrance of the venue which is designed specifically for contact tracing if necessary.
- Tickets will need to be purchased as a minimum of 2 pax to assist with venue seating plans and if you wish to be seated in a group with friends who have purchased tickets separately you will need to email the names of your group to hello@thechippohotel.com.au
NOTE: Groups cannot exceed 10 people.
The venue will be taking a number of precautionary measures to ensure patron safety, including:
- Hand sanitiser dispensers on entry and at tables
- Signage and social distancing markers throughout the venue
- Regular sanitising of the venue and full clean between sittings