Charlie Hardy Goes Behind the Noise With Spacey Jane
Since 2019, one of our favourite music photographers, Charlie Hardy has been working closely with Australian indie rockers, Spacey Jane.
In those six years a lot has happened, Spacey Jane have blown up, touring the world, selling out shows, playing festivals, and releasing three studio albums. Charlie has been there to document quite a lot of it, from the band playing festivals, to recording in the studio, and all hanging out while on tour. To coincide with Spacey Jane coming through Sydney on the Australian leg of their If That Makes Sense tour, Charlie is exhibiting a collection of mostly unseen photographs of the band at the Monster Children Gallery, in his exhibition, Behind the Noise.
Behind The Noise opens at the Monster Children Gallery at 4:00pm on the ever so spooky Friday the 13th of June, if you’re in Sydney come along, you might even get a free beer or a sighting of the band. For those who can’t make the opening, the exhibition will be on display on Saturday and Sunday from 2:00-6:00pm. See you there!
Congrats on the exhibition, where are you now?
I’m currently in Canberra on tour with Spacey Jane, we’ve been together for three weeks on the current tour, it’s a big one.
Woah, I didn’t realise you were on tour, how has it been trying to organise the exhibition while you’re on tour?
Oh man, the last couple of days have been chaos [laughs]. I only came up with the idea of the show two months ago, I thought it would be a great opportunity to do an exhibition of photographs of the band while they were in Sydney. This weekend also marks the five-year anniversary of their first record, Sunlight, and there are a lot of photos from that period in the exhibition I am proud of. So with that all the timing made a lot of sense, it only felt right.
Totally, that’s so nice. You’ve worked closely with the band for a while, right?
Yeah, we first met in 2019, at that time they were doing smaller shows and runs up and down Australia’s East Coast. Since then, they’ve toured so much, I’ve done a handful of Australian tours, one US tour, and done some sideshows and festivals with them. The show has a lot to do with us growing together, when you look back it is like ‘Wow, that is a whole other time.’ A lot has changed for the band and myself since those early days of us working together. The idea for the exhibition was to have photos of them touring Sunlight, alongside their second album, Here Comes Everybody. That was a strange time too, it was during covid, they somehow managed to tour Australia and go to New Zealand. At the tail end of that tour, they went over to the UK, Europe, and the US.
It’s nice too, as alongside them growing as a band, you’ve grown as a photographer, it’s nice having those two stories together.
Definitely, a lot has changed. When I first met the band, they were really hustling, doing everything they could as a band to play live, reach new limits and make it all work. It was a time where I was also fresh and it all felt fresh and new, the timing was great, in the sense I wanted to grow with this band and we were able to.
Have you shot photos on this tour you’re currently on that you wish you could use in this show?
Yes… and last night when I was finalising all the photos for the exhibition, I managed to put a few photos from last week during the current tour in. It’ll be nice for the people who see the show to see it and be like, ‘Oh that’s what’s going on with the tour they’re currently on.’
I know with your work, you’re always excited by being able to shoot those, quieter behind-the-scenes moments with a band. Do you feel like your work flourishes when you have full access to a band, in the way you do when you tour with Spacey Jane?
Yeah, totally. It’s so nice being able to be around a band so much that you get to know them, understand them and how they are. Being able to document what is really going on and getting to know the way people warm up, to how they are in the recording studio, and everything in between is something I really love. Having that trust and friendship, being able to collaborate, to photograph them day to day is all a privilege I'm really grateful for.
Earlier you mentioned the idea was super last minute, have you been working on finalising the exhibition since you’ve been on tour?
Yeah, it was very last minute. Right before I went on tour, I was like, ‘If I want to make this happen, what do I need to make it happen?’ I grabbed a bunch of hard drives, went through my data spreadsheets, working out what photos are where, so I’ve been carrying my hard drives and digging through photos, making selects, and getting them ready for prints.
Woah, that’s so quick.
Yeah, I’m stoked to be able to have it come together. I’m really happy that I’m able to show these photos, they don’t belong in little squares. They deserve to be appreciated in print and up close.
Do you have anything else you have to say about the show?
I’d like to thank Spacey Jane; I remember meeting and then straight away getting a call from Kieran [Lama] their drummer and manager asking if I was around in Sydney and from that point onwards, we’ve been working together. The biggest thing for me is having that constant support, having someone back you, wanting you to keep growing to be and be the best artist you can be, it’s something that they’ve given me and I am really thankful for.