Raave Tapes 5 Favourite Memories from Recording Their Debut

Newcastle’s RAAVE TAPES have become a mainstay in the Australian music scene over the years;  known for their passionate, inclusive live shows and a penchant for writing some of the grimiest, catchiest dance-punk tracks around. After a few line-up shuffles and a complete stylistic overhaul, the band have found themselves deep inside alt-pop/hyperpop territory – and have put together an album of irresistible dance-floor fillers in the process.

They have recently released their self-titled, debut album; 12 songs of pure pop-bliss that range from out and out club-ready ragers (‘k hi’, ‘Goodbye’ ‘Braces’) to perfectly-crafted pop songs (‘I Just Wanna Be Alone’,  ‘Wake Up Next To You’), and everything in between. Thematically, the album discusses the different relationship situations we find ourselves in, and how drastically these relationships can change over time.

Today they share with us 5 of their favourite moments from the recording process!

Joab-vin Harris: For the song 1000 People in the Room, we hit a bit of a writers block. Everything was sounding cheesy, and we couldn’t make the lyrics make sense. So we leant into it and Joab went into some method acting as 2012 Calvin Harris. Without knowing much about Calvin Harris’s personality at all, this presented in the form of a poorly executed British accent.

Fletch (our producer) wanted documented proof that all throughout the recording process, even when the mics were turned on, Joab literally never shut the fuck up. In Enemies + Jealousy, we originally had the ad libs in there as a joke, but they added to the tongue in cheek boppy vibe of this song.

One late night we took a break and made a dash to the local servo to get snacks. This included those crap bubble gums with temp tattoos inside them. For people that know when to cut their losses (when something’s not working, move on), we spent far too long trying to get the tattoos to stick. They didn’t. However, we explored every option, but it’s a pretty good analogy for our creative process. The tattoos didn’t stick, but the songs did.

There was a studio tennis ball and it went with us everywhere to ease the frustration of lyric writing. Bored? Throw a ball. Stuck? Catch the ball. Need help? Pass the ball to a friend.

I (Lindsay) every single night of recording would fall asleep at 12am and wake up at 3am to Joab and Fletcher showing me something completely whack. Without a doubt, everything had been turned up to 11 and slapped. It was also a lot to process, but you could definitely hear the 3am sessions sprinkled throughout the album.