The Cassette Kids are a band on the brink of greatest. They’ve just come back from some massive shows in the UK, and they’re on the bill for this month’s South by Southwest festival in the United States. Before they pack their suitcases for more jetsetting, lead singer Katrina Noorbergen and drummer Jacob Read-Harber to chat about their busy touring schedule and soon-to-be-released debut album.
You’re generating some major buzz in the US and UK and your debut album hasn’t even been released yet. How does that feel?
K: It’s amazing actually. I know this is a bit sad that I Google my own band name, but I get Google Alerts because I just want to see what’s happening in the blog world. And to see people blogging about the remixes and the film clip and the song and the fact that we’re doing South by Southwest, it’s such a good feeling. Our sights are really set. We’d love to go overseas and do tours overseas and major touring.
You’ve just completed a run of dates in the United Kingdom. How did the crowds there respond to your music?
K: Really, really well. We had no preconceptions about what it would be like. It was sort of a preliminary reach out for anyone that had heard of us, any sort of industry people, to try to create a bit of a buzz. And we ended up playing three shows to basically packed out rooms, especially the last night at The Barfly which is a really well known and established venue. We’ve got an agent now over there, and we were really, really stoked with the response. And we weren’t expecting it by any means.
Your new music video for “Spin” was picked up the American music site Pitchfork. How did that come about?
K: I’m not really sure. I think we had someone in the US, we got someone to try and create a bit of a buzz for us before South by Southwest. And the girl rang our A&R here at Sony and said “Pitchfork want to premiere the clip.” And we had like a Skype thing – we were in London at the time – and we had a Skype thing, and I was just jumping around the hotel on the couches and stuff. And everyone else was asleep. Apparently we’re the fourth Australian band ever to have their film clip premiere on Pitchfork. It was Wolfmother, Crowded House, and INXS I think.
Oh wow. That’s pretty good company!
K: Yeah, yeah. It was pretty big. A major deal for us.
“Spin” comes from your debut album Nothing on TV. What can you tell me about the record?
J: I think the record, it’s fairly eclectic as far as different styles of song go. “Spin” is definitely on the dancier, poppier end of the scale. That kind of stems from our love of dancing and just going out and having fun, and we just kind of wanted for people to have that track to grab on to.
K: It’s a big, festival party song.
J: Yeah, yeah. So that was the intention with “Spin.” The album altogether, we try to showcase a fairly big variety. We’ve got some pretty dark stuff on there as well. It’s not all kind of poppy and commercial. Hopefully we’ll appeal to a wider audience.