From left Chris (guitar), Jamey (drums), Jai (guitar), James (base), Jake (vocals) *All photos by Mitch Chamberlain (@mjchamberlain)*
We caught up with Australian five-piece Between You and Me at the beginning of the month in Philadelphia, PA during their tour with ROAM, Like Pacific, Bearings, and The Story Untold to discuss all things music and tour related!
This is your first tour of the U.S! How’s it been going?
Jake: We’ve never been on tour this long. The longest we do back home is probably two weekends and it’s probably 5-6 shows max; we’ve done probably thirty shows on this tour. It’s wild, it’s definitely different than touring back home.
Jai: It’s definitely something that we haven’t experienced before, the drives in between going from state to state.
Jake: Also with these kinds of shows, you get into a groove, and then you’re like ‘okay this works, this didn’t work’ and you can kind of slip into a groove a little bit, whereas back home, it takes you half of the tour, which is like 5 days, to get into it, and then you’re like ‘oh I know what to do now’ and then it’s done.
Jai: It takes us 5 shows to basically talk to the 5 bands. Now after the first 2-3 days we knew we still had a couple days to get to know them.
Jamey: There’s days off, we get to go camping. We camped out in California with Bearings, nearly died going up there. A lot of small, winding roads.
Jake: So tour has been great!
Since tours in Australia are relatively short, do you guys fly to each date?
*All Collectively* “We all drive back home”
Jake: It was cheaper here for us to get an RV rather than a van and trailer. So we’re the opening band with an RV riding in luxury.
You guys have said that this show had a really good crowd reaction; have other shows had that same reaction?
Chris: We’ve been pretty well received at most shows, especially the big cities. In general, we’ve been very happy with people knowing our songs and stuff.
Jake: Regardless of how many people are there, we always play a show as if it’s sold out, so those people have something to remember. Even though we play to 10 people some nights, we hope people see us and think “they were sick“.
Jai: We’re the opening band, we’re out here just to get our names out there and then building to get a following for when we get back here; coming over here and hearing people say “oh we’ve been listening to you for over two years”. It’s the craziest experience ever.
Jake: Tonight too, we played so early, this is the earliest we’ve played, and there were still 80 kids there, like what the hell?!
Seeing as you’ve just recently signed to Hopeless Records, do you feel that that has played a role in gaining more fans in the U.S?
Chris: It’s definitely given us projection that we wouldn’t have had in the States, especially it being such an iconic record label. We’re super stoked to be a part of it, it’s a great team with really nice people and they really vibe with what we do. We all grew up listening to bands on that label, it’s a dream come true for everybody.
Jamey: I think it’s just such a great platform for us to show what we can do to the world. If we had signed to an Australian label or something like that, we definitely would have grown but I don’t think that we would have gotten that global exposure, because obviously Hopeless has bands from all over the world. As soon as we signed to Hopeless it was this whole new market we never would’ve been able to explore.
Jake: It’s funny because even people back home, they’ve heard of us and they’ve seen our name around but then because we’ve signed to Hopeless Records, they think that they should check us out. We grew our fanbase where Hopeless Records is in America, but also online people have been like ‘they’re signed to an American label, but they’re from where I live, I should check them out.
Jai: I think that we’re realizing the work of signing to Hopeless more when we’re here. These people probably wouldn’t have known who we were, if we were just like putting music out at an Australian record label. Since we signed to Hopeless we’re a global band and people are checking us out.
What’s been your favorite place in America so far? Either show wise or just in general.
Chris: Either Seattle or Portland. We didn’t get to see much of Portland though.
Jamey: Seattle and Portland. The whole countries been amazing, but I could live there.
Jai: I guess show wise, to be able to play at Chain Reaction was crazy, that was just insane. Growing up, that’s where all of the iconic punk bands played, so getting to check that out. Portland and Oregon in general, the state and the scenery that we got to explore was just amazing.
James: Mine show wise would be Gilman because, it’s so iconic and historic and whatever. I’ve dreamed so long even just to go to a show at that venue but we got to come over from Australia and play at that venue; it was so awesome and humbling that so many great bands have gone through those venues. Living wise, anywhere that was cold like Seattle or Utah. Salt Lake City was pretty sick. We woke up on the first snow of the season which was insane and pretty crazy. Anywhere that’s cold I really like. I like Cali but I wouldn’t live there all the time, it’s too hot.
Jake: For me, I’ve never heard of Gilman before, but James told me how many bands had played there and I was like ‘this is so cool’. For me, the California shows were our best shows, turnout wise, it was amazing. Tonight has been cool too, I didn’t know what to expect from Philadelphia playing so early as well, and having heaps of people coming out and singing the words was sick. Living wise, I’ve pretty much forgotten everywhere we’ve been. Everywhere we’ve been we’ve pretty much just seen the venue, we could live at each venue I guess. We saw a Walmart in Utah, where it snowed over, so if I had to live somewhere it would be there because of the snow.
Let’s talk music; you recently put out your debut album “Everything is Temporary”; what’s your favorite song on the album and why?
Chris: Between ‘Move On’ and ‘Floral Glass’.
Jamey: Probably ‘Move On’. I’m really happy with what I wrote on the drums for that song, but aside from that, I really like the melody that Jake wrote to it. If it wasn’t our band, I would listen to that song
Jai: For me, it was ‘Twice Shy’ but ‘Good Intentions’ has taken over just because it’s really fun to play live. It’s some of our faster and punkier stuff.
James: Mine is the title track, ‘Everything is Temporary’ just cause when I first heard that song it reminded me of why I love playing music.
Jake: For me too, it’s ‘Everything is Temporary’. The outro that we wrote is pushing the boundaries of pop-punk I think, so it’s really cool that we could have a Beatles or Beach Boys vibe at the end of the song and have all these layers come out. My second one would be ‘Friends From ‘96’ because when we play shows where everyone actually comes to see us, they sing the whole first verse and first chorus, I don’t even have to sing because they’re so loud, so when people really get into that it’s my favorite. We haven’t played ‘Everything is Temporary’ yet but I have a feeling that’ll be my favorite [to play live].
Have you been switching up the setlist at all this tour?
Jake: We only switched out two songs, we switched the second song to the first song that was from Between You and Me, which was fun because we’ve been playing the same songs for a good few weeks now. It’s good to have a change.
How have you progressed through your releases from the first songs you put out to “Overthinking” and now “Everything is Temporary”?
Jake: It’s funny because we’ve definitely noticed a change. We played our first headline tour in Australia [this year] before we came here. It was wild, we definitely saw an increase in numbers coming and we were blown away, but from what I’ve heard over here is that ‘I’ve known you since Overthinking’. It’s been wild because the first song we put out with Hopeless has definitely been the most popular I’ve heard with people from us. And also the covers we’ve put up on Youtube because I’ve had at least twenty people saying ‘I’ve been following you since you’re covers!’ And I’m like “Thanks we have our own songs too”. It’s been sick though!
James: When me and Jai heard about the band, we heard about them on Youtube through their covers. I remember going from our first ever show, we were the most stagnant people on stage, but looking at that show and looking at tonight; the way we talk on stage and the way it all flows, we don’t have to think about it and we know our team and we know whose gonna talk if there’s a break; we look out for each other.
Jake: From the first show we’ve played, you can see the progression in the band and you can tell that we’ve grown in all our instruments and whatever and we’ve finally found each others groove and we work it out.
Jai: We’ve definitely found our identity as a band and what we wanna be sort of thing. I think at the start we had cool songs but we didn’t know about our live show.
Is there anything else that you wanna add?
Jake: Hope you guys check us out, we’re on Spotify under Between You and Me. We’re not the Christian duo, we’re the five piece band, don’t get confused. Thanks!
Biggest thank you in the world to the BYAM guys for sitting down and having a chat! Between You and Me will be heading out on an Australian Tour with Neck Deep and then heading over to the UK with WSTR shortly after for some of the biggest shows they’ve played. I highly recommend checking them out if you liked this interview and follow them on their socials below to keep up with tours, new music, etc!