Palace are focused on taking things one step at a time, as though unaffected by their success – or perhaps it’s business as usual in spite of it.
The last time I interviewed Palace, it was 2019, in a tiny green room that was decidedly more grey than ‘green’. Six years later, the trio reminisce fondly of cruising around the UK “with all [their] crap just shoved in the back,” and mornings spent loading up the vans hungover with venue staff vacuuming around their feet, labelling them ‘The Glory Days.”
For any outsider looking in, however, Palace’s glory days have only just begun. With over 2.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, four full-length studio albums, and another US tour in the rear-view mirror, they’re doing pretty well.
Later this month, Palace will return to Australia for the first time since 2023 with their new EP. ‘Greyhound’, the eponymous lead single, is a rolling ode to the bittersweet cycles of life on the road; a woozy melody with the same cadence as slow, heavy wheels on a neverending dusty road.
We got to chat to Palace about their return, taking to the road, and this new chapter in the band’s history.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Blunt: How does it feel now, reflecting on all that’s changed since those early gigs?
Leo: We feel confident as a band, and we feel like we’ve gone to another level for sure. We’re in this weird middle point, but it certainly feels… different. There are no more hatchbacks and we have a bus, crew and lighting stuff. I think we feel like we’ve earned where we are now, from touring so much, playing tiny gigs and doing the hard graft to get to this spot.
B: Do you feel successful, have you had any ‘we’ve made it’ moments?
L: I don’t think we feel successful in any way. It always just feels amazing that people are still coming to the shows and the shows are slowly growing in size. From time to time, there are moments where you’re like… this is getting real now. We had one where we played a gig in Denver to 4,000 people or something. But it can be playing in a new country for the first time or playing a beautiful venue.
B: I noticed ‘Goodnight, Farewell’, is second on your setlist. That’s quite an unusual pick – why did you choose to open your set with a song about goodbyes?
L: It was very much just a sonic choice of coming in with this impact, and this intensity to start the set. It just feels like this big moment to set the scene… it’s the heaviest sound I think we’ve ever created and… the most dramatic piece of music.
Matt: I think it grabs people’s attention because it is an unusual one to start with as an album closer. We were going to either put it at the end or the start.
B: ‘Greyhound’ in comparison feels so much lighter, and it almost feels like the weight [of ‘Ultrasound’], especially of the last track, is kind of risen, almost like, do you know petrichor? The scent after it’s rained?
L: Definitely. ‘Goodnight, Farewell’ did serve as sort of leading into… opening up this new door. I think we, for once, made a conscious choice of wanting the music to reflect that feeling – we wanted it to feel hopeful, and… optimistic and vibrant. ‘Greyhound’ very much feels like that. There’s a lightness and even a humour to it in the lyrics, which I don’t think we’ve really ever done. There’s a seriousness to our music. It’s really nice to be playing songs that aren’t necessarily so dark. It feels like something we want to lean into a little bit… that hope, and that positivity. Because it also feels like a challenge to ourselves.
B: It does sound like your ‘happiest’ release yet, and so it’s interesting to think that for you, paradoxically, it’s a challenge.
L: I know, totally, you feel like it should just be really easy! But actually, it’s strangely difficult. You have to ride that balance of it not being cheesy or too sunny, it has to be nuanced and interesting in some way.
B: You guys are on tour a lot now. What is something you’ll do when you come to Australia that helps you feel a bit more grounded?
L: We do a lot of exploring and seeing the sites and getting outside. I think that’s the key to it, is… separating ourselves from just being in a band.
M: It’s hard not to be conscious that you’re on the other side of the world when it really feels like you are, but Australia to me feels very familiar, almost like home in a weird way. So, it always makes me feel pretty grounded and relaxed. Even though the landscape is totally different.
L: Do you remember… [our last time in Australia], that whole tour we were literally just in this haze of jet lag because we’d done, like nine flights in eleven days or something crazy?
M: I think it was the other way around! It was more flights than the number of days.
B: A lot of Palace’s music is very deep and very personal, you must get some really emotional responses. What does it feel like when you’re performing these songs?
L: It feels like a giant cathartic experience for everybody and for us. Every gig for years, we see people crying in the crowd, or hugging their friend or partner tightly and if anything, it feeds the performance when you see people just feeling things so deeply and relating the songs to their own lives. I think it was a gig in Canada where you could really hear people crying in the crowd… before ‘Heaven Up There’.
M: Yeah, sobbing, absolutely sobbing. It was really intense.
L: You could see this couple, and they were just bawling their eyes out. It was unbelievable. It’s such a crazy, powerful thing, and makes you really realise the power of music and what it can make people feel and what it does for us. And also it just kind of blows my mind that people would connect with it in that way, you know?
B: I can’t even imagine what that must feel like… obviously you’re doing something right.
L: …Or they’re crying cause it’s so bad.
Maybe Palace’s genuine gratitude alongside growing confidence is the secret to their modesty – and their drive to continue exploring new sounds.
RELATED
MORE IN Music
