Interview: Between You & Me on their new EP ‘Sh!t Yeah’ and first headlining North American tour
Interview by Chloe Muñoz/Photos & article intro by Yising Kao // Read our April issue here!
On April 5th, Australian Pop Punk band, Between You & Me, released their EP, SH!T YEAH, with singles such as “Nevermind” and “YEAH!” After leaving their label and becoming an independent band, Between You & Me has continued to grow a large fanbase. The band has shared that they went into writing the EP with no specific theme in mind; You can sense the fun spontaneity mixed with reflective lyrics in their exuberant sound. There’s a song for everyone on this EP! This year, Between You And Me embarked on their first headlining North American tour - Check out our conversation with vocalist Jake Wilson before their iconic show at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, CA.
This is your first ever headlining tour, what’s the overall feeling?
Overall feeling? Do I have to give one word?
Whatever feels right in your heart and soul.
Thankful. Lucky, tired, broke, happy, stoked. I gave you points instead.
How’d you pick your openers for each like Zoe Ko, Cherie Amour, Felicity and Not My Weekend?
They’re all for like for kind of different areas. I guess we wanted to give more bands chances to play to people instead of one that goes the whole thing. We just kind of picked some bands. I’m the wrong guy to ask about this.
Who picked them?
I don’t know, I just work here. Showed up to work.
First ever headline tour. You’re solo, independent, is it scary?
Yes, the trifecta, scary.
Like, you went out, you were with a label, now you’re independent. You were an opener, now you’re a headliner. What are the different feelings?
I don’t know. There are no different feelings. I was concerned because headlining in another country was daunting cause I was like “Are people going to come?” I know we’ve played to people when we support other people. I didn’t know if people were going to come to this one but, every show I’m genuinely surprised how many people are at the shows. I mean in the UK as well, like people singing the new songs and stuff is crazy. So, the feeling of headlining is more stress but there’s more time, you know.
When you guys first started planning it out were you like, “What the fuck is going to happen? Is anybody going to show up?”
We kind of announced it, it had been in planning for so long, there had been so many variations of bands like for this tour. It was going to be originally last year and then there was so much moving around and so there was a certain point where I was kind of like, whatever happens, I don’t mind where we play. I just wanted to do it ‘cause we have been wanting to do it for a while. Like doing a headline because everyone all like the suits would say “Hey what are your headline numbers?” and we have none so, we wanted to do one. It felt like it was time to do one and it has been going insane.
So, you can go back and be like, “We can actually do this.”
Yeah, so next tour, Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden, all BYAM fans, I reckon we can fit every BYAM fan in Madison Square Garden.
Pretty sure you could.
What’s the capacity of MSG?
A lot more than Chain Reaction. Chain and Rebel put together, times ten.
If you get every Spotify person all in the same room, then maybe we’ll have a chance.
What would you say the difference is between Armageddon and Sh!t Yeah?
Armageddon was like heavy topics, Sh!t Yeah was exactly what it sounds like.
In the way that it was released cause you had like backup and now you’re independent.
Oh yeah, yeah true. Did we have back up?
I was your back up the majority of the time, I felt like.
If you go back and look on Twitter, you’d probably see that we had no backup. I don’t want to get into this. There’s no beef, no bad blood. I’m just out here living. But, it wasn’t any different to be honest. We did a lot of it ourselves and it’s more pressure, but I feel like our band does things ourselves anyway like a lot of things in-house so, I just roll with the punches. Whatever happens, happens. I’m just happy to be here. Happy to be doing this job for free. Happy to be making jobs for other people.
“Nevermind” and “YEAH!” Were 2023 releases. How was that played out into the 6-track, when you didn’t go in with a set vision?
We recorded “Nevermind” just by itself, we didn’t even know that was going to be on the EP. We just recorded that and were like we need new music, and we were going to record some other song that I think is shit, and then I fluffed this demo together like a week before and I had no lyrics and we wrote it. And I think “Nevermind” could be in my top three.
Oooh.
It’s in my top three BYAM tracks.
What are the other two?
I think “In the Middle” is the best song we’ve ever written and what’s the other one? I really love “YEAH!” because it was meant to be on Armageddon. I wrote that like years ago. What’s the 3rd best song?
“I Can’t Help It…” Personally, a minute and five seconds, best time of my life.
“Butterflies.” “Butterflies” has been going off.
That’s the best one from the set list?
Yeah, ‘cause like I don’t know if you’ve seen like from some posts or whatever, but when people get up on stage.
I was up there last night.
Yeah, some of them are better, some of them have been wilder than others. We did it in Salt Lake for the first time and it was like twenty people, and then every other show, we were like, “How many more people can we get up here?” I’d be genuinely surprised if we can break the floor.
How many more people can we handle?
I don’t know if we can do it tonight. The stage is too high. Maybe we’ll just get all the bands on stage instead.
Sticking with Sh!t Yeah, you collaborated with Joe Taylor of Knuckle Puck on “Kill My Vibe.” How did that come about?
“Kill My Vibe” was one of the last songs to be written for the EP and we were like, “This feels like a feature.” This feels like this needs a feature and we didn’t really plan it or anything, but we were like “Who does this need?” This needs Joe and we became good friends with them, Knuckle Puck, like just touring with them recently and we knew that they’d be down to do it so, it just worked. We were just working with friends and Joe smashed it.
You have collaborated with Mikaila Delgado of Yours Truly and now Joe Taylor, who would be next?
Oooh, good question. Who would realistically be next and we could actually get them?
Realistically and then dream collab.
Realistically, I don’t know who would be realistic, to be honest. I don’t even know what kind of song, what the song would be asking for but dream, I’d go Hayley Williams for sure, Kenny from The Starting Line, the singer from Third Eye Blind but that would never happen so whatever if you guys see this, I’ve got some songs and I want you to be on one them.
I think a Boston Manor x BYAM tour would be sick.
Oooh, could happen. Get on Twitter, ask. I don’t have Twitter but you can ask.
Lastly, what you guys did with Triple J, performing “All Star.” What happened? Like King Shrek, I got to give it to him, but why that song?
I had a list, I had a huge list of Like a Version songs, there was Miley Cyrus, there was Counting Crows. It was everything and then there was multiple songs from Shrek, it was originally going to be “Accidentally in Love” which was, I think we still should have done but a couple of people didn’t want to do it. But then I was like, “What about ‘All-Star?’”“All-Star” is pretty fun. I didn’t want do “All Star” but I was like, the song is fine. But, it’s a fun song. We wanted to encapsulate the BYAM essence in Triple J so people can kind of get a sense of who we are. And we did the song and everyone commented on how dirty my sunglasses were. The other comment was “Why so many guitars?” because we had our friend Aidan and Jack playing guitars.
How has the reaction been with the crowd?
In general, it’s been awesome, no matter if we’re in A markets or B markets, people singing the new songs has been mind-blowing. I mean “Kill My Vibe,” there’s not really much to it. It’s the same words over and over again so I wasn’t surprised when people started singing that, people that come to multiple shows. But “In the Middle,” people started singing it in the UK and I was like damn, TikTok works.
How did writing “In The Middle” come about?
“In the Middle,” we were just writing, and I don’t know, I was just writing about nothing. I had nothing to write about in my life, so I was just writing about shit and chorus, and everything was done. All that wasn’t done was the first and second verses, they took me like eight months to finish. I was going back and forth. I was writing stuff, and I was like “That sucks.” It sucks and I came back and just wrote something and I was like, whatever this is, it has to be it, because I’m going to Indonesia in three hours, so the verses are what they are.
I personally have to say that, “Every Morning” was made for the slut era.
People really like that. I like that song, but it could be like, no tea, no shade on us, my least favorite on the EP.
Ok, what’s your favorite song?
“In The Middle,” “Nevermind,” “YEAH!,” “Sad Songs,” “Kill My Vibe,” and then “Every Morning.” But I feel like “Every Morning,” if everyone likes it, it could be a song that takes its own form live. Like “Goldfish,” I think that song is, that song’s fine. We have better songs, but everyone starts saying “Play ‘Goldfish’ and I’m like, “Why?”
We’re waiting for “Twice Shy” and “Move On.”
I just want to play whatever people want to hear. Most of the time I do unless they say “Cavalier,” “Trees In the Winter,” “I Can’t Help It,” songs that are buried right at the bottom of the catalog.
But they’re so good though.
But Sh!t Yeah, listen to those, those are spanking, brand spanking new.
Anything you have to add for the future of BYAM?
For the future of BYAM, like I said, Madison Square Garden. What are some other big arenas?
Wembley Stadium.
Wembley, where is that?
Girl, I don’t know, the UK.
Girl, I don’t know, we’re probably just going to start working on record three. We’ve got a busy rest of the year, maybe we’ll do some more international stuff. I don’t know, I kind of just want to go home, work, and make some money. I am broke. I lost my last ten bucks in a dice game with everybody.
I have at least $3 I can give you.
That’s so fine, I’m just going to live off Heineken 0.0 and enjoy my last day on tour. And two days from now I fly home see my beautiful girlfriend and my dog, and then go back to work.
Check out our gallery from BYAM’s Los Angeles show here!
Read/order our April issue here!
Listen to Sh!t Yeah now here!
Watch the music video for “In The Middle!”