“Oh man, the Sydney Opera House. What an amazing place.” Laura Lee, bassist and creative director for Texan psychedelic trio Khruangbin, is reminiscing about the last time the band came to Australia, at the end of 2022. “The sound in there is insane – it’s perfect. I remember going up to Jorge [Denning], who controls the sound in all of our ears, and I was like, ‘I want it to always sound exactly like it does in this room.’”
Australian fans have truly taken Khruangbin under their wing. The band recently announced a national tour for early 2025, playing Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney across February and March, their third trip to our shores in just six years. “We love Australia,” says Lee. “We want to try our best to honour where we have fans, and we have a really big community there. Everybody is super warm. And I genuinely love Vegemite.”
The tour announcement follows the release of fourth album, A LA SALA, named after the phrase Lee used to shout as a child when she wanted to corral her family together (it translates as “To the room!”). Designed to get the band back to their roots, it’s their first record since 2020 to feature no external collaborators – a departure for a group that, in recent years, has released projects with artists as diverse as soul revivalist Leon Bridges and Malian folk icon Vieux Farka Touré.
The writing process behind A LA SALA centred around rediscovering snippets of ideas – recordings of old jam sessions and voice memos made on the road – and exploring them in the hope they could be fleshed out and fully realised. “I always forget how hard writing an album is,” Lee laments. “But then you write it and you have this beautiful thing to put out into the world and, all of a sudden you can’t wait to get back into the studio. You forget that when you’re in there you’re sobbing in the bathroom.”
Khruangbin’s three-night run at the Opera House in November 2022 was such a hit that one of the shows was streamed online and eventually released as a live album titled, appropriately, Live at Sydney Opera House. “The energy in the room was so spectacular,” Lee enthuses. “I was nervous about that night and it ended up being one of the best shows we’d ever played.” Unbeknown to the general public, Lee was pregnant at the time, which meant she couldn’t celebrate the successful run of shows in time-honoured rock’n’roll tradition.
“I went by myself to get a slice of pizza but they gave me an entire pie. I took it and went and sat outside the Opera House, and had a moment with myself. I couldn’t finish it so I went to find a homeless person to give it to. I found one man and offered it to him but he said, ‘What kind of pizza is it?’ When I said margherita he was like, ‘… No, I’ll pass.’ Then he said, ‘What kind of music do you listen to?’ and I was like, ‘All kinds of music. What kind of music do you listen to?’ and he raised his hands and said, ‘I love Ed Sheeran!’”
It’s fair to say the sounds of the Shape of You hitmaker aren’t part of the soundtrack when Khurangbin hit the road. Given this is a band that draws influences from far and wide, it’s no surprise the stereo isn’t exactly bumping to the top 40. But if you think it’s a democracy, you’d be wrong.
“Music on the bus is solely played by [guitarist and frontman] Mark [Speer],” says Lee. “It’s his passion: finding hidden gems. He spends hours and hours and hours doing this. He plays on Forgotify.”
After a brief interlude where it’s clarified that Forgotify is an application that only selects songs on Spotify with zero plays (of which there are reportedly four million), she continues. “Most of it’s really bad. You have to spend a long time to find a song that’s good. He sent me a playlist that was nine hours of music that he found on Forgotify, which means he spent weeks doing this.”
Listening to Khruangbin’s music, that obsession for discovery shines through. Thai funk, surf rock and spacey dub all come together to create something that’s somehow both a voyage of discovery and comfortingly familiar at the same time.
The trio – Lee, Speer and drummer DJ Johnson – have recently returned from a jaunt around Europe, playing some of the continent’s biggest festivals away from the home crowd. “It’s an important muscle to work,” Lee says. “A lot of people are coming to see us because we’re playing the main stage and not because they know us, so we don’t have that immediate reaction that we’re used to. But it’s important to be challenged and it’s nice to be slapped on the butt a little bit – to know that sometimes you have to work harder.”
Before coming to the southern hemisphere, Khruangbin will tour A LA SALA – which they’ve been playing front to back on stage – in front of familiar fans. Dates across America will be followed by quick stops in Belgium and Italy before they circumnavigate the UK. But Lee has a special place in her heart for us Down Under.
“When you’re playing in the States, there’s something a little less exciting about it because it’s what we know and it’s very comfortable. Australia is this perfect balance where we’re very far away but somehow everything seems to function exactly how we need it to function. That’s a very specific feeling – to be far away and to feel at home.”
At this point, as at various points throughout the conversation, Lee puts her hand on her heart, as if to emphasise the strength of her conviction.
Many international acts scale down their shows when coming all the way to Australia, and some avoid visiting at all. For Khruangbin, making one of many return trips, the upcoming tour will almost feel like a homecoming.
Tickets on sale now.
Tour dates:
Melbourne
Tue February 25, 2025 – Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
Wed February 26, 2025 – Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
Brisbane
Sun March 2, 2025 – Riverstage, Brisbane
Sydney
Wed March 5, 2025 – Hordern Arena, Moore Park
Thu March 6, 2025 – Hordern Arena, Moore Park
