Radio Free Alice Is Going To Texas
Photos by Josh Sabini and Brendan Frost.
If the name Radio Free Alice rings a bell it may be because you’ve heard their music, saw them in the 2025 NME 100, or you remember them as a part of our Bright Young Things class of 2024.
For those who are unfamiliar with them, it’s a band of four, including, Michael Phillips, Jules Paradiso, Lochie Dowd, and Noah Learmonth. Whose catchy indie sleaze inspired sound will get stuck in your head and you’ll find yourself repeating ‘Paris is gone, Paris is gone’ over and over.
The whole band lives together in their sharehouse in Melbourne’s inner north, with their cat Winston. I popped over for a visit before they head off to Austin to play a set as part of the official Monster Children SXSW Showcase to talk about living together, their latest single, playing SXSW, their upcoming move to London, and more.
We are at your house right now. When did you guys move in together?
Michael: Two years ago, now.
Was it all planned to have the Radio Free Alice house?
Michael: Not exactly. I was living here a year prior with some other friends, they were moving out and these guys were looking for a spot, so it sort of just fell together.
How is it living and being in the band together? Do you ever get on each other's nerves spending so much time together?
Noah: It is a lot of time together.
Michael: I wouldn’t say these guys get on my nerves. It helps logistically being in the same place if we need to go do something, like this for example.
Noah: It keeps you committed because there’s no escape.
Committed? Have you wanted to break up the band?
Noah: Break up the band? No, I have actually never felt like that [laughs].
Michael: Not recently.
Jules: Now that you mention it…
Are you guys all from Melbourne?
Michael: No, Lochie and I are from Melbourne.
Noah: Jules and I are from Sydney; we went to school together.
Michael: Lochie and I went to school together too.
How did you all meet?
Michael: Through uni, essentially.
Did you two move to Melbourne for uni?
Noah: Yeah, we moved to Melbourne for music and uni.
Are you all still studying?
Noah: Nah. I dropped out.
Michael: It got difficult with touring, and I ended up dropping out in my third year.
Jules: Nah.
Lochie: Nah, I deferred last year, I still have to defer this year. I have five subjects left.
Okay so, you guys ripped off the name Radio Free Alice from a store in Sydney. What was your process for coming up with the name for the band?
Jules: It is this record store in Sydney that we used to go to a lot when we were in school. We fell in love with the name and the place, the guy who runs it James is a legend. We just thought it was a great name.
Lochie: He got it from a pirate radio station called Radio Alice.
What does he think about it?
Jules: We are in comms, and I think he is cool with it.
Noah: He is a really good guy.
How has it felt having all this attention on you, even just in the last few months, opening arena shows for The Killers and being included in the NME 100?
Michael: It’s been great. The Killers shows were unreal. It was an amazing experience. It doesn’t feel like we have been getting heaps of attention in a way.
Yeah, does it just feel the same as it has?
Michael: Yeah, in a way it does.
Jules: Spiritually we are just a band that has opened for The Killers [laughs]. It’s hard to tell stats wise how much impact it’s had, beside Instagram and things like that.
When you guys go to the states for SXSW are you doing other shows or are you just going to Texas and heading home?
Jules: We are recording in Connecticut with a producer called Peter Katis. We can’t play other shows due to the visa.
Noah: Yeah, the visa doesn’t allow us to play other shows, but we will be going back in September to do a proper tour.
How did you get in touch with Peter?
Noah: Our manager Pav had a connection with him. Peter liked enough of the songs to record us. He also did the first Interpol album Turn on The Bright Lights, which we love, so it is an honour.
You guys have put out a bunch of singles. Is an album something that is on the horizon?
Michael: We are going to record a few more singles and see.
Do you see yourselves ever moving from Melbourne?
Noah: We are. We are moving to London in June.
How are you feeling about it?
Jules: Really good, we spent a bit of time over there last year and it was positive. I’m excited to officially move and set up more roots there.
Are you going to all live together there too?
Noah: We’ll see. It’ll probably make sense. But yeah, the move makes sense for our careers, real industry over there for indie rock that doesn’t exist as much here.
For sure. You have a new song coming out next week, how are you feeling about it?
Noah: It’s called “Empty Words” and it's coming out on Wednesday. In a way it is more angular, not heavier but less pop than our other stuff.
How did it feel making a song different to your other songs?
Lochie: It’s not wildly different.
Michael: We often write a lot of songs that maybe sound similar to what we have established before, this will be the first release that is slightly left of field, but it is still considerate of our sound.
Was that the song you filmed the music video for?
Noah: Yeah.
How was it?
Noah: It was fun, it was mostly live video, which was fun to do, chopped with us hanging around.
Lochie: Loitering.
Where’d you film it?
Noah: A lot of it here and our rehearsal room.
Where is your rehearsal studio?
Lochie: It’s in the National Storage. It’s actually so good, it’s in the industrial area. You could effectively play screaming amps, full drums at three in the morning if you wanted to.
Noah: A lot of bands rehearse there; you see and hear them.
Lochie: Yeah, there’s a band on the bottom floor we hear a bunch.
You’re about to head to Austin for SXSW. How are you guys feeling about it?
Michael: Feeling great, really excited for it.
Noah: We’ve done a few of these similar festivals like BIGSOUND and Sydney SXSW. They’re always a bit strange, chaotic, and stressful because they aren’t super organised shows and a lot of the venues have been temporarily converted into a live music venue. It has a slapped together feel and soundchecks are always sort of disastrous. It is exciting, it is the most psychotic, showcase festival for all the creative formats, not just music. I am interested in going.
Michael: We’ve done these kinds of showcases in Australia but this is like the international showcase, so I can only imagine it is like BIGSOUND on steroids.