Wolf Alice drummer Joel Amey on visiting Australia twice in 2026, new album The Clearing, and Harry Styles

If playing two shows in Perth in the space of a year wasn’t enough to endear Wolf Alice to WA fans, drummer Joel Amey says we also produce some of the best music in the country.

“You have the best f...ing music on the west coast of Australia,” he says. “Like Pond and Tame Impala. For such an isolated part of quite an isolated country, you’ve dominated my music inspirations for a long, long time.”

Amery is speaking to PLAY from Melbourne ahead of the British band’s Laneway Festival performance, the first of the band’s two circuits of Australia this year.

Having impressed fans at the festival, the North London quartet will return to our shores with their own headline tour in December, which includes a show at the Ice Cream Factory in Northbridge.

“If it’s a functioning ice-cream factory, I could not be more excited for the show,” Amery says.

Wolf Alice’s relentless touring schedule follows the release of their fourth album, The Clearing. Amey says the album has taken the band in new directions.

“There are dominant, exciting feelings for this record,” he says.

“For me, even though we’ve done pieces of music that other people would argue are maybe more trippy, this is the most experimental thing we’ve ever done.

“It’s completely different to anything that has come before in its cohesiveness and in its choice of sonics. I just see it as the stepping stone to the next chapter for Wolf Alice.

“The Clearing is a new way of working. The Clearing is a new way for us as old friends to find a fresh way of doing something again.”

The drummer said this was the most the band had evolved in more than a decade — having first emerged on the scene in 2013.

“I feel really lucky that I’m still in this situation, I’m still travelling the world. (The band) used to laugh when we were teenagers, about being in a band together,” Amey says.

“Now, I’m speaking to you, you’re from the other side of the world, and we’re chatting about something we’ve made. I feel so f...ing humbled that I still get to do that.”

The band have reached some incredible milestones, one of which was opening for Harry Styles in Hamburg to 50,000 or so die-hard fans in June 2022.

“I was like, ‘God, what’s this gonna be?’. He’s, like, the biggest pop star in the world,” Amey says.

“(Harry’s) fans are unreal. They’re completely up for hearing new sounds, different sounds, and guitar bands.

“At the time, we sounded even less like Harry Styles than we maybe do now. We were playing noisy guitar solos and riffs, and they were just amazing. They were so responsive and so kind.

“(Harry) as a person is so personable, so kind. You know, some people present this front-facing thing of kindness; well, he does it, and he implements it. And for me, I leave with huge respect for actually doing the things you say. That means a lot. It was an amazing experience.”

Lead singer Ellie Rowsell even features on Styles’ new album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally, singing backing vocals.

“I was chuffed to be able to go to his studio and listen to some of his songs and put down some harmonies. It was a real pleasure,” she told NME.

“I actually haven’t heard the whole album in its entirety yet, so I’m looking forward to it.”

Amey says he’s been loving seeing fans’ reactions to the new album at their most recent shows, as it includes a few softer, slower songs that historically aren’t also suited to a festival environment.

“I think as performers, you think everyone needs to hear the loudest, the most shatteringly loud thing, and that’s the only way to get attention,” he says.

“I was like, ‘We need more rock stuff’. And actually, no, I think I was wrong.

“We ended up putting back in a song called Leaning Against The Wall. And I was so happy to witness the appreciation for that kind of songwriting.”

Another song fans have been obsessing over is 2017’s Don’t Delete The Kisses.

“It’s been with us for a long time. It’s like an old friend that you meet up with in the pub you haven’t seen for a while. Then you realise, ‘I love this person’,” Amey says.

Wolf Alice play the Ice Cream Factory in Perth on December 8.