PLANET'S Matty Took and Tom Pepitt
Sydney band PLANET
is yet another excellent Australian export. Gigging tirelessly up and down the
UK over the last couple of years they’ve established themselves as one of the
most exciting bands to adopt the UK as their second home. It’s All Indie spoke
to Matty and Tom from the band as they neared the end of their Summer 19 tour ahead
of their gig at The Joiners, Southampton. PLANET are currently on a European tour
with fellow Aussies DZ Deathrays and will finish the tour with six dates in the
UK in October 19.
You’ve
got another week or so in the UK how’s it going?
It’s going
pretty good so far. These shows are a lot more regional than the shows we’ve
done before so that’s a bit different. It means we get to see more of the country
and we love it over here.
You’re
playing a few of the same cities that you’ve been to before, though I know you’re
playing different venues.
We’ve mainly
been doing follow up shows from festivals we’ve played before. Some are completely new, we played in
Stoke for the first time, Southampton (this one) is new and Cardiff was new too.
This
venue, The Joiners, is an iconic venue, almost every band that goes on to be
successful has played here at some stage in their career.
Yeah, I’ve
heard it’s a really cool venue. All the good ones have a particular smell about
them. You can always tell a good venue when you walk in and this tour we’re
jumping around a lot of different capacities and different types of venues so
it’s cool to walk into one that’s more of a venue.
Are you
finding people are knowing your music more and more?
Definitely,
we’ve always had a good response over here. A lot of the time, even if there’s
20 people in the crowd to 200 in the crowd people always sing back because they
know the songs which is really cool for us. Obviously we’ve come a long way and
to travel that far and to see people like that coming to the show in cities
we’ve never played before is very cool.
I first
saw you last year when you played Oxford on the DMA’S tour in 2018 and there
was a band I knew watching in the audience who were raving about you which is why I
wanted to see you.
Ah that's amazing. I remember Oxford, they had
good showers there. We didn’t have many good showers in that time. That tour
was like hostel after hostel so the showers were important.
So you
rate the venues by shower quality?
Speaking of
showers this is the first venue we’ve hit on this tour that has a shower and it’s huge, you
could do cartwheels in that shower. What I really liked was the lead to turn
the light on is a guitar lead!
PLANET
So you
dropped the new single ‘Nearly New’ a few days ago, how’s that gone down?
So far so
good I reckon, it’s still semi-early and it’s a big opener for our next EP but
for a single it’s done pretty well and people are starting to sing it now at
these shows which is cool .
How does
that feel when people start to sing your music back to you?
Really good,
most of the time, if they sing the right lyrics it’s cool. If they’ve got the
melody right they’re half way there.
What’s
the crowd favourite song at the moment?
‘Aching Dream’,
that’s one that’s played a big part in us coming over here it’s got that kinda
ballad feel. Everyone loves a ballad. ‘Disaster Caster’ as well is a favourite
because that was the first song that we released. Surprisingly when we released
that song it got traction here immediately. We were asked to come over here a
few years ago but you need a few dates to make it worthwhile. It’s too far to
come for one festival so you need to add some tour dates. Now we’ve got a UK booker which had meant a
lot more dates.
So have
you graduated out of the hostels yet?
Yes, this is
the first tour that we've stayed in hotels. We also have our own sound guy with us now. It’s difficult
in a hostel. The nature of what we do meant getting in after midnight with a
load of guitars and stuff. We still share rooms which is fine cos we’re not
that hard to be around.
You did
some dates earlier in the year for This Feeling who Noel Gallagher called “best club in The UK for future Rock and Roll
stars”. How did that involvement start?
When we
dropped ‘Disaster Caster 4 or 5 years ago Mikey Jonns from This Feeling contacted
us to say “I’ve been playing this song since 4am like 40 times on repeat. This
is so good you guys need to come over here”. This was back in the beginning.
This Feeling has championed us from the start and it’s played a big part in
getting us to where we are. We’ve met a lot of cool bands doing This Feeling
and we met Mikey in London when were there last year, he’s an awesome dude.
PLANET
What’s next?
So we play
the This Feeling stages at Truck Festival and YNOT Festival next, then a few
more tour days and over to Ireland.
What’s on
the cards for you after this tour?
We’re back
in the UK in September/October, we’re touring with mates from Australia called
DZ Deathrays. They’re like a very different genre to us, it’s going to be
really cool touring with them. We’re doing 2 weeks in Europe and then a week in
the UK.
PLANET is:
Matty Took, Tom Peppitt, Harrison Stewart-Weeks & Jimmy Weaver
