Sienna Bentley

Australian four-piece Radio Free Alice – comprising drummer Lochie Dowd, vocalist/guitarist Noah Learmonth, guitarist Jules Paradiso and bassist/saxophonist Michael Phillips – are dominating the UK indie scene. With back-to-back festival appearances in July (starting at Truck, straight to Tramlines and then up to Y Not in the space of one week), the post-punk outfit are going full steam ahead on a fast-moving upwards trajectory.

Sitting on the sofa in the sun with me at Truck Festival before their unmissable Saturday afternoon slot on the Market Stage, Jules and Lochie reflect on their journey to this point, getting the funds to branch out and how they stay adaptable when it comes to life on the road. 

From Melbourne to full-time music

Making it in music is no walk in the park; it’s getting increasingly difficult to make music your day job. As Jules puts it, it’s considered a luxury for artists to be able to say that this is what they do for work, because the financial burden is getting heavier by the day. “Only now have we been given the luxury of being able to do music full time – not until maybe three months ago,” he says. “We had so many jobs in Melbourne; whether it’s hospitality or catering jobs or retail, it’s insanely hard. Unless you are lucky enough to sign to a label or whatever, it’s virtually impossible.”

“No one would even hire us now,” Lochie muses. “We come back to Australia for like two months and then we’re back out again.” Indeed, especially hailing from Australia, the travel aspect is non-negotiable. “You have to fly everywhere,” Jules nods. “Doing a tour overseas is so expensive.”

“Breaking cable, that’s like 50 bucks,” Lochie adds. 

“I remember in the early days, actually, one of the biggest income sources for us was merch,” Jules reflects. “That was the one thing that, for some reason, was the most lucrative in that way.” 

“Oh yeah, we made it ourselves,” Lochie chimes in. “We were just like a little production line, hand-printing our shirts.” 

It gets to a point where creative solutions are essential. They also cite government grants as an avenue that really helped them kick things off. “Luckily the government in Australia is really lenient with government grants, creative grants and stuff like that, so they often actually fund acts to go on tour,” Jules says. “For our tour last year we got a government grant, which we were really lucky and grateful for.”

“And the first one we did kind of got us off the ground over here I think; we got a really good one from the South Wales government,” Lochie reflects. “You still have to be really lucky to get one of those grants, they don’t just hand them out.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t a reliable solution everywhere. Having spoken to a lot of people about this, they agree that Australia seems to be somewhat alone in its willingness to fund creative projects. “It’s very tough to get it here in the UK,” Jules says. Indeed, securing UK government grants for music is exceptionally difficult as arts funding cuts for the arts started their dramatic decline in 2010 and have been on a downward spiral ever since. 

Shifting gear around: the invisible labour that makes the music work 

Being on the road means staying adaptable: something that the four guys have learned the hard way. When asked about unexpected skills they’ve had to add to their toolkit, the unanimous answer was learning how to travel. “When you’re on tour, your life is travelling,” Jules says. 

“Learning how to pack a bag with the bare essentials and being able to perceive situations in which you might lose something, or you might be somewhere where you don’t have connection and having a plan for that,” Lochie says, almost immediately. “If you can get yourself around more effectively and efficiently, it makes everything else easier.” 

For Jules, being a good traveller involves nurturing those interpersonal relationships too, as well as managing yourself. “Learning how to put up with each other and how to be tolerable when you’re completely burnt out,” he says. “You’re with the same three other people the whole time.” 

The physical strain is noteworthy too. Lochie describes his role as “removalist”, someone who just “shifts gear around”. “That seems to take up a far larger portion of your time when you’re on tour,” he says. The audience only hears the finished product or watches you on stage, no one knows the effort it takes to get the band up there in the first place. “You don’t see the behind the scenes,” Jules agrees, while Lochie jokes: “Blood, sweat and tears… God, the literal tears.”

“It’s okay, 98.5% of the time,” Jules laughs. 

Despite the challenges, one thing is certain: being able to make music trumps everything else. “Maybe it’s blind confidence, but I’ve always felt like I was a musician, whether it was playing to one person or playing to however many people,” Jules states. “I’m pursuing my true calling, it’s what I love to do – and if I have to do other things on the side to make that all possible, then so be it.” 

“It’s similar for me,” Lochie agrees. “I think being involved in any creative pursuit is about having an open mind trying to find little niches where they exist, and using maybe simple tools to make something fresh. And committing to that in every phase of your life, that’s probably what it’s about for me.” 

Authenticity remains “double-edged sword”

Authenticity is king in music and that remains true when it comes to finding your sound, as well as your audience. “I want to make music that I would listen to myself,” Jules says. In the pursuit of having your work resonate with audiences, it can be difficult to define what feels truly aligned with your tastes and what you want to make. It’s so important that you attempt to fill the gap of what you think is missing – and this is not only critical from an authenticity perspective, but from a sustainability one, too. “It’s such a double-edged sword,” Jules admits. You want to present yourself in a positive way and in a way that is beneficial for your career, but you don’t want to “sell yourself in a way that you will hate in a few years”. 

The line between authenticity and strategy “gets blurred very easily…now more than ever”. But Radio Free Alice stick to their guns. “We’ve never done something we wouldn’t have wanted to do,” Jules says. The music comes first – everything else is an “afterthought”. 

“At the end of the day, it’s just about finding your people,” Lochie says. Jules makes a good point: “If you’re trying to reach everyone, in a way you’re not going to reach anyone.” The right people will come to you if you’re true to yourself.

More than anything, they place importance on making music that brings people together. “There’s a lot of division in the world right now and if we can use music to make people who maybe don’t agree on stuff come together and sing along – that’s kind of a classic peace-and-love thing, but I think it’s needed. And if it brings people together to start their own bands, that would be really special.”

My conversation with Jules and Lochie busts the myth of overnight success – behind the packed-out festival crowds and soaring streaming numbers lies a relentless commitment to the craft. Music is an endlessly rewarding path, but it demands constant adaptability and resilience.

In addition to their impressive work ethic though, Radio Free Alice’s unwavering sense of self is what struck me hardest. In an industry defined by algorithms, their philosophy that the music comes first and the rest will follow is what I would recommend all artists try to internalise. And judging by the scenes I saw at their Truck Festival set, it’s working.