Barefoot Spacemen are an exciting Melbourne act combining elements of funk, neo-soul, disco … all the good stuff that makes you want to dance. It’s something we really need after the last two years I think! I recently chatted to the band’s guitarist, Scott Renton, about how the pandemic impacted Barefoot Spacemen and the band’s latest music.
Your new single “NRG” drops today. Why did you decide to release that particular song?
We’ve been recording a bunch of tracks from our upcoming album, so we’re partly rolling a few out as they’re ready but also trying to pick songs that are fun, upbeat, and reflective of the sound we’re working towards. “NRG” is fun to play and hopefully fun to listen to, so it made sense to release this one.
The single features your artwork. Is that a real passion of yours?
Not particularly, if I’m honest! I enjoy creating things in general but I’m not much of an artist at all. Like most bands, we’re running on a pretty tight budget so the more things we can do in-house the better. We’ll get a proper artist or graphic designer on board for bigger projects, but for a single release during the colder months, we figured it would be best to just do it on our own.
You’re launching the single at Colour Club on April 21. What can people look forward to when they see you live?
We try to make our sets fun and filled with stuff people can dance to. Usually it feels like a big party and playing live is the main reason we make music, so we always really enjoy it. We’ve got a great lineup happening with Blue Nude and Jag, along with DJ Uly spinning vinyl afterwards, so there’s an interesting mix of genres and experiences for people to enjoy.
There’s such an excitement about live music at the moment as we move past a lot of covid restrictions. How are you guys feeling about playing again?
Playing live is almost the entire reason we make music. It’s dope seeing people enjoying themselves dancing to something you’ve put hundreds of hours into creating – super rewarding. We’re stoked to be back and to be able to get on with performing and recording, and we feel that energy reflected in the audience, too.
The pandemic was such a tough time for musicians everywhere. How did Barefoot Spacemen cope with the last two years?
Things got pretty grim but we spent a lot of time on the phone to each other talking about our plans for after lockdowns, writing new songs, working on our craft as musicians, and sending each other demos. When we weren’t talking about the band, we’d be on the phone to each other playing Xbox or something together as well, so I pretty much stayed in touch with the band every day throughout lockdowns. That friendship really helped me personally deal with everything at the time and definitely prevented things from spiralling out of control on a number of occasions. It’s been great to start acting on some of the plans we made during that time now that we’re able to.
I found listening to music was one of the big things that kept me sane during the pandemic. Were there any new artists you got into or old favourites you relied on during that period?
It depended a lot on my mood – sometimes I was so bored that I was desperate to find new music, but other times I just wanted the comfort of something familiar. I stumbled upon a few artists that I ended up loving – mostly older funk and disco stuff to try and keep the mood upbeat at home.
“NRG” is the second single from your upcoming debut album. What can we expect from the album?
We’re trying to explore sounds we’ve never dabbled in before, but the album is largely funk, Motown, disco, and hip hop inspired in its instrumentation. We want to produce tracks that people can dance to, vibe to, smoke to, whatever they want. There are a lot of grown-up themes and topics with our vocalist Aaron’s lyrics, which is a bit of a contrast to the playful and groove-centric nature of the music, but I like the dichotomy of it – this idea that you can be crying in the club or on the dance floor, but having a great time.
There’s a real funk influence in all Barefoot Spacemen music I’ve listened to. What do you love about that genre?
It’s just a lot of fun to listen to and even more fun to play. We’ve always been passionate about continuing to improve as musicians and we’ve found that we’re naturally leaning into that genre the longer we spend together as a band. We have a pretty eclectic mix of musical tastes, but funk and disco seems to be a common ground. There’s a lot of room to experiment with the genre as well, so it’s great that we can all bring influences from our own tastes and kind of blend them into this hybrid funk thing we’re trying to achieve with our sound.
It’s been a couple of years since you released your last EP Cabin Fever. What are the key lessons you’ve learned as a band since then?
Tough question! We’ve learned so much. If I had to narrow it down, I’d probably say that we’re learning to accept things that are beyond our control and do things at our own pace. There’s a heap of demand for a constant stream of content with musicians and artists in general these days, and we don’t want to lose sight of the art. So we’ve been focusing on creating for our audience and letting people engage with us at the same pace we’re willing to operate. Taking a kind of quality over quantity approach, despite what everyone has been telling us. That leads to the second lesson, which is learning which external opinions to take on board and which ones aren’t going to help us. I could go on forever about what we’ve learned, but it’s mostly realising the value of improving our craft and how much hard work it takes to make a living in this industry.
It sounds like it’s a really exciting time for the band with the new single release and the album not too far behind. Is there anything else on the horizon? A national tour perhaps?
We’ve been looking at touring both here and overseas, but we’re still working through the logistics and feasibility of it all. It’s definitely something we’d love to do but for now, after two years of setbacks, our sole focus is getting this album finished!
“NRG” is available today on all the major streaming services. Melbourne, make sure you catch Barefoot Spacemen’s single launch show at Colour Club on April 21.
Image used with permission from Barefoot Spacemen; credit: @aynsleymitchell