A raucous six piece from Melbourne, Northeast Party House have been making indie party rock for just over six years. Their first LP, Any Given Weekend, received critical acclaim, and has seen the band touring across Australia and the globe, with a second LP Dare on the way. We caught up with guitarist Mitch Ansell to chat about touring, the album, and house parties.
How are you going – you came back from tour pretty recently, hey? Where did you play?
Yeah, the last tour was overseas; the UK and some parts of the UK which we hadn’t been before, which is good. We went to Germany and Amsterdam, it was super fun. It was very condensed; usually you have a couple of show days or nights, then you’ve got a few days to scurry about and do some other fun stuff. We didn’t get that, so it was three weeks, heaps of shows, and now we’re back. It was good fun.
And you did some recording over there too?
Yeah, we did; I guess we left Melbourne kind of maybe halfway through recording the album. By ‘recording’, it was kind of recording/writing because, you know, no one’s ever organised. [Laughs]
For me, it was a little stressful to leave what we were doing and go and do this tour. But we managed to do a bit of writing along the way, and we had the studio in London which we did some cool stuff at, it was nice to be at a different place. We had the same studio for about a month and a half before we left – it was like, ‘New stuff, new gear’, exciting. It was good fun, there was some interesting stuff there, so heaps to play with.
So did you do all your production again yourselves?
Yeah we did. I guess we seem to know what kind of works. Like, it’s really good to get someone else in, an outside source – you get a bit of tunnel vision when you’re doing it yourselves – but I think we felt confident in ourselves and we’d done it on the previous album. We had Mal, our drummer, who was recording and engineering for us. We were writing and recording at the same time, we had a deadline, and there were lots of discussions whether to get someone else from outside of the band family, where their opinion might have… made things a bit messy.
I think it was a good decision to go with our guns and have confidence in ourselves. We’re pretty happy with how things turned out. Maybe in the future, if the right person came along, we’d team up.
Your first album was so great, and I’ve had a listen to your second album – I think it’s going to be pretty well received.
Yeah, it’s kind of weird. We’ve had some reviews come in and it’s been pretty positive. We liked it and it’s good reassurance to have outsider people or critics to come along and say, ‘Not bad boys, you did alright’. [Laughs]
It’s more than alright considering the writing and recording process thrown in with an international tour. And you’re just about to go on another tour as well – going around Australia to support this new album?
Well, I guess if we release an album, [we] have to do an album tour – kind of makes sense. It’s tough with this one, because we had to deliver the album on this date – it was our deadline. We needed a deadline. [Laughs] Touring wise, it’s just a good time to tour. When it starts getting into festival season, you kind of have a lot of things that you are conflicting with. Normally you’d release an album, it would kind of swim around for a bit in the public, and then you’ll do a tour so people can have a bit of a listen to it. But in this case, it’s just kind of at the same time, which makes things kind of interesting.
Speaking of festivals, have you got anything lined up for this festival season?
Are you trying to get some secrets out of me? Well we’ve got some bigger festivals, [we’re] trying to get our name on. On New Year’s Eve, we’re thinking of doing something in Melbourne, just a big party at a certain venue.
At a house in the north east perhaps?
That would be cool. You know what – logistically, this would be a nightmare – but I really want to do a house party tour; you set up a few different homes over a weekend. Make it like different stages or venues; in terms of liability, it would be tough.
Not to mention, the neighbours wouldn’t be too pleased.
You’d have to pick some pretty chill homes. Or maybe bump up ticket prices, to give all the neighbours a holiday somewhere.
Unless they come and party with you?
It’s always so awkward when you’re throwing a party and have to go over to the neighbours’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, okay, what time will the music finish?’. [When you say] you’re not too sure, ‘Not too late,’ they get that concerned look on their face. [“aughs]. At the end you awkwardly invite them, ‘Feel free to come over’.
These are kind of some of the themes that you touch on in your music – super relevant to our generation in terms of music, parties… any themes that you want to talk about on the new album?
I think everything is pretty similar… a lot of them are about Tinder dates and just relationships. [Laughs] I think we got to a point where every song was about a girl, or just a relationship.
You are a band of six dudes, there’s a lot of potential for heartbreak.
There’s also a great song called “Love Machine”, which Ollie wrote about his time in Berghain, a big club in Berlin where he spent seventeen hours. [Laughs] That’s nearly a full day. Yeah, party tracks, relationship tracks… it’s all there. All the formulas.
Lots of stuff that we can relate to. It’s going to be a fun album to tour with.
Yeah, it should be fun. I think it’s very, very commonly said by bands, but it’s going to be nice to play new tracks, you get a bit bored of the old ones. It’s gonna be fun.
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Dare is out now! Northeast Party House are on tour around the country too, check them out here:
September 15th | ANU Bar, CANBERRA
September 16th | Metro Theatre, SYDNEY | Lic/AA
September 17th | Small Ballroom, NEWCASTLE
September 23rd | The Triffid, BRISBANE
September 24th | Sol Bar, MAROOCHYDORE
September 30th | Jack Rabbit Slims, PERTH
October 1st | The Gov, ADELAIDE | Lic/AA
October 7th | Karova Lounge, BALLARAT
October 8th | Wrangler Studios, MELBOURNE | U18
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