Spending Time with Spendtime Palace

 

Videography: Nat Collins, Photography: Kristin Gallegos 

Words and interview by Miniskirt drummer, and Thrills’ own Jacob Pumphrey.

I was lucky enough to meet the guys from Spendtime Palace whilst on hiatus from reality a few years back. I was parked up in Orange County getting fat on bagels and sick on cigarettes (I’m shit at smoking, but just can’t help myself), I didn’t have a car to get around so I relied heavily on people being as jobless and bored as I was.

At the time I think the guys were all between 19-21 years old and were somehow, even at that young age, the coolest guys I’d ever met.

We ended up hanging out and playing music a lot. It was during this time that I got a first hand look at just how good they really are - they’re masters of their craft.

They’re the quintessential Southern Californian beach band. Everything from the flamenco inspired guitar leads and smooth rolling rhythm parts, to the layers of keys and vocal melodies. There is something in the water over there that we Australians just can’t imitate. Just look back at the myriad of Australian bands who have tried and failed, to capture that SoCal sound.

Spendtime Palace are nailing it.

We managed to steal a slice of what little free time that they had on their most recent tour to hang out for an afternoon and get a quick interview for you - the boys talk to us about wrangling celebrity film clip directors, touring breakdowns and their take on Australian music.

Here it is. 

Can you give us a quick introduction to who’s in the band and who does what on the noises front?

Michael “Toast” hits the keys, synths, vocals and sometimes percussion. Then we got Sean on bass and vocals. Elijah on guitar and vocals. Finally, Daniel on lead guitar and vocals.

 

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I know it’s a bit of a generic one but I’m hoping we’re going to have a few new fans here, where are you all from and how did Spendtime Palace get together?

We are all from Costa Mesa, California, a local beach town. We formed a band during freshman year of high school and played a lot of house parties.

How long have you been together?

We’ve been together for about 7 years. 

I saw that you’re on tour at the moment, wanna give us the run down, who, where, what etc?

We started the tour in September as we traveled through the south, up the east coast into Canada through the midwest. We were doing direct support for a southern rock band called, “The Weeks” with a Philly band called, “The Vernes”.

How many shows in total, how are they all going?

16 shows - they were supreme.

Out of all the shows you’ve done, has there been one stand out as the best?

Chicago was wild.

What’s the best city in the states to play do you think?

San Fransisco is our favorite city to rock.

[Shop items featured left to right: BONES DENIM JEAN - DIRTY WHITE & OVERSIZED WANDERER DENIM JACKET - DIRTY WHITE, BONES DENIM JEAN - BLACK, Did I see some van drama posted across Instagram the other day? What happened, nobody got hurt?

We broke down in Louisiana on our way to Atlanta so it was technically 15 shows. We were pretty bummed on missing that show but were pumped that the issue was a simple water pump fix which allowed us to make all remaining shows.

It seems like Australian bands have been getting a pretty good run in the states the past few years, have you guys caught any good shows? Have you got any Australian bands that you love at the moment?

Our buds from the band, “Flying Machine” stayed with us for a couple months this year in the states. Elijah actually played some shows with them on bass which was fun to see.

We’ve been bumping Parcels at high volume in the van post seeing them live in LA this year. They’re talented m-f-ers. 

We caught Amyl and The Sniffers a couple times at sxsw and they were going off. 

Skeggs played a rowdy as fuck show at The Constellation Room back home and we had a good time.

Our favorite Aussie band has to be Miniskirt tho ;)

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We’ve seen our favourite Thrills export Flying Machine spending some time with you lately, how was it having those guys over there the past few months?

Fun as shit. We got really close with those guys and got into a lot of trouble together over the last couple months. Gonna miss em a lot and hopefully they come back soon. 

You mentioned that you’re from Costa Mesa, CA, do you mind giving us a bit of a description your home?

Medium sized California beach town. Mellow enough to kick back and relax while still having enough going on around town to do go out every night if you wanted. We’ve been to a lot of cities and have still yet to find a place like it. 

Costa Mesa and Newport have always been pretty punk heavy areas in my mind with places like the Cuckoo’s nest etc in the 80’s, what’s the music scene like there these days? Who should we be checking out down there?

Still lots of punk shows that go down and we’ve always been into it. Back in high school the Burger records scene was the biggest thing going on besides the beach goth festivals. It’s definitely spread out a lot since then. We’ve got some friends like Blanco Nino that we admire for their sound. Lots of younger bands seem to be sprouting up these days but it’s been hard for us to keep up haha.

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I’m sure you’ve got this one a fair bit too but you’ve gotta understand that to us dumb Aussies celebrities are just mind blowing enigmas that we don’t understand. Your film clip for Senora features Stranger Things Actor and teen heart throb Finn Wolfhard, that’s a pretty huge pull how did this come about?

Yeahhh we get it a bit haha. Our good friend Josh ended up being friends with Finn (I don’t remember how they met, probably over the internet). He got into our early music through Josh and wanted to try his hand at directing. He’s a really driven dude and good friend. Working with him was a breeze. 

Have you guys ever played together?

We played 2 shows with them last summer (LA, SF) that were fuckin nuts.  

We’ve spoken about it before but I’m hoping the answer has changed by now, any chance you guys will be making it out to Aus for a tour anytime soon?

We want to real bad. Ain’t cheap though; we definitely want to make sure we’ve got fans out there to make it worth it. 

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