Interview - Northeast Party House

In 2012, I was wandering around Brisbane during BIGSOUND trying to find my friend, when I heard an explosion of sound come from above me. I went into the Zoo, and this was the best decision I made all conference. Greeted with one hell of a show, super catchy songs, and crazy energetic live show, I was immediately hooked on Northeast Party House. Now this young Melbourne band are ready to really show you what they’ve got. They’ve done the groundwork, perfecting their live show, and have released one of the funkiest dance albums to come out of Australia this year. On Any Given Weekend (out now on Stop Start), featuring highlights The Haunted and, my personal favourite, Youth Allowance, Northeast Party House offer up some seriously good jams that would actually suit quite well as a party soundtrack. Take my word for it – you’re NOT going to want to miss their upcoming tour. Check out our recent interview with one of the dudes of the hour, Jackson, to talk grade 12 party houses, live performances and “not really giving a f’arc”.

Where does your name come from?
 


Back in year 12 the mother of our good friend Sam Northeast went overseas on holiday for a few weeks, leaving him in charge of the family house. He sent out an open invitation to all his buddies to go live with him and party it up for the month. It was completely insane and the place was quickly labelled the Northeast Party House. He paid his younger sisters $20 each to clean up the mess but no amount of Spray‘n’Wipe could hide what had taken place. When we were brainstorming band names we wanted something that would induce imagery of carefree partying and all round chaos, and the memory of Sam’s house quickly sprang to mind.

I read that your debut album, Any Given Weekend, is an ode to partying – what do you think that means? Do you agree?
 


Haha yeah well I guess that’s in reference to a lot of the lyrical content on the album, which tends to focus largely on party related topics. Being our debut album we wanted the music to represent the ethos that the band was built on, which is having a good time and not really giving a f’arc. The hard part was meshing that with the desire to make an album that doesn’t sound like shit but is a complete body of work that we’re really proud of as musicians. I think we did well at achieving that middle ground.

You guys have been around for a little while now – has the debut been a long time coming?
 

Yeah we’ve been playing live shows for over four years now, which feels like a really long time. The fact that we’ve been around for so long but never put out a full length album has been really frustrating at times but I think also maybe a blessing in disguise. Listening back to early demos we recorded makes us so glad we waited until now to release an album. We just weren’t ready. All our focus in the early days was on the live show and it’s taken us a couple of years to get comfortable in the studio and produce music that works just as well in headphones as it does blasting over a PA in a mosh pit.

The Haunted has been getting a fair bit of Triple J love – that’s got to be reassuring for how the album is being received!
 

Yeah it still feels really surreal and awkward hearing your own song on the radio. I remember the first time Triple J ever played one of our tracks, it was one of our shitty self recorded demos, unmastered, and it came on while Sean and I were in Subway and we completely lost our minds. I thought I was about to quit my gardening job, tour the world and develop a healthy cocaine addiction. Although we’re not quite as excitable (delusional) these days, it’s amazing to have people all over Australia hear our music and we’re very grateful for the support triple j are giving us at the moment.

You’ve got quite a big tour for this album, is this the biggest tour you’ve done as a headliner? Your live show is really impressive. This obviously is a big part of Northeast Party House as a whole? 

This is our biggest headline tour as far as room sizes go, which was terrifying at first, but now presales are selling really well which has settled our nerves. Unfortunately we don’t have the budget to get out to Perth on this tour, which really sucks because last time we were there the shows were sweet and we got up to all kinds of trouble on our day off. Our live show has always been a big priority for us. At first it was all about the energy and getting the crowd roused up, and in recent years we’ve really focused on tightening up our musicianship to deliver a really professional show. We like the vibe to be loose but the music to be tight.

Click HERE to grab their album, and follow the likely lads on FACEBOOK.