The Overwhelming Praise For Clowns' New Album Has Lit A Spark In Jake Laderman

In the music industry, there's a phenomenon known as the 'difficult third album syndrome', wherein some bands record great debut and second records, but struggle a little with their third major release. This is unlikely to affect Melbourne psychedelic punk act Clowns because, well, for starters drummer Jake Laderman hadn't even heard of the term before it was bandied around that day by the journos he was talking to.

"I've actually just heard about this for the first time today!" he admits, "someone else mentioned it to me today as I was doing press."

The only pressure on the writing of their just-released third album Lucid Again came from within. "I definitely did feel the pressure to write a record that was on par with our previous record, because I think our previous record presented us with a fair bit of success on some levels. So maybe in a way, I was a little scared to try and follow that up, but somehow it seems to have gone down okay."

"I think the creative juices are flowing a lot better than they ever were right now."

Indeed, at the time of writing, the album had only been out for a few days, but the early feedback on the album coming in from reviews, social media and word of mouth has been virtually nothing but positive. "I usually try not to let reviews affect how I feel about it, but this time I've been a little overwhelmed by the reviews because they've been nothing but good," he says, "so that's always a plus."

Another indicator of the positive manner in which the album has been received, and the general positive growth of the band overall, is the size of the tour they are about to embark upon and of the venues they are booked to play in, and the demand that they are experiencing across the nation.

"Yeah this is the biggest headline tour we've ever done," he reveals, "and it's really exciting. I think I've wanted to play at the Corner Hotel since I was about 16 years old. Having been given the opportunity to open for bands there, I guess I never really expected that we'd headline there, but it just felt right this time given the heights that we were trying to achieve with this record."

And the big Australian tour across June is really just the beginning. The band will be heading overseas as soon as they are done with the tour of their homeland. "We've only just got back from Europe last week," he says, "but we will be back there once again in July, so pretty much once this Aussie tour wraps up we'll be heading straight back, for about six weeks."

Longer term, the band definitely tend to make plans and set goals for themselves, and Laderman feels they are very much on a roll at the moment. "I think the creative juices are flowing a lot better than they ever were right now, and I think we're all just very motivated to keep releasing music at a more alarming rate."