Tigertown's Motto: Always Put Your Mum On The Door

Tigertown has been a solid name on the Australian scene since the release of their eponymous debut EP in 2011, spurred further by the big love generated by the ethereal folky synth sound of follow-up single What You Came Here For. As one of the vibe acts of SWSW in 2015, the Sydney quartet signed to influential American label Neon Gold. Now, keys-player Alexi Collins is reflecting on their new EP Lonely Cities from the band's Airbnb pad in LA — as they prepare for another attack on SXSW.

"It's been pretty crazy," he begins with a chuckle of disbelief. "That came out while we were here in America, so every morning we'd wake up to something new — be it a review, or we've recently just hit two million plays for one of our songs on Spotify. We've never seen that number written next to our name anywhere so that was exciting… It's definitely the best reaction we've had to anything we've released before. It's really exciting when things like [a debut play on Beats 1 radio show, hosted by] Zane Lowe and the whole Hype Machine stuff happens. I think we don't really know how to react, but it's been really exciting… 

"Our mum signed up to Twitter and would like and retweet everything she sees with the word Tigertown in it."

"Just releasing the EP was a really big deal for us," he continues. "We had a show in New York and we have our EPs printed on orange vinyl, which is very exciting to have our music on records because that's our preferred way to listen to music, but a fun part of that night was a guy from our record label turned up with one of our orange vinyls with cup cakes on it."

With the accolades piling up for Tigertown, a family band consisting of husband-wife duo Chris (guitar) and Charlie Collins (vocals/synth), with the former's brother on keys and sister Elodie on bass, the Collins parents must be feeling slightly less anxious about their eggs being quite literally in one fickle music industry basket.

"Our mum is definitely still our biggest fan!" Collins laughs. "We might wake up to a lot of Twitter notifications or something but it's because our mum signed up to Twitter and would like and retweet everything she sees with the word Tigertown in it. We're very thankful for that! I'm still suspicious that a lot of the triple j plays we've had have just been requests from Mum… We'll definitely put her on the door for our Sydney show," he says generously ahead of the band's seven-date national tour kicking off in April.

"America has really just been the dress rehearsal for the Australian tour. We're so excited to come home and play Australia again because we haven't really done a proper Australian tour for about two years, so we're dying to get out and see our friends again."

Beyond that, Collins is still keeping mum. "We've been working on some more music and we're looking forward to releasing that towards the end of the year. I think that's all I should say."