Signature Dish: Swapmeet
‘Signature Dish’ is our longform interview series where we go “all in” on someone’s journey: exploring the past, present, and creative pulse of people today.
Responses by Venus O’Brion. Lead photograph by Josh Sabini. Other photographs by David Milan Kelly. Written by Heather Hawke.
Some bands spend years trying to manufacture chemistry. Swapmeet accidentally stumbled into theirs. What began with neighborhood friendships, basement rehearsals, homemade CDs, and a last-minute gig has quietly grown into one of Australia’s most compelling young alternative bands—one whose songs feel as expansive as the highways they endlessly drive between Adelaide and Melbourne.
For vocalist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Venus O’Brion, that journey has never been about chasing perfection. It’s been about curiosity: following riffs that refused to leave, rewriting songs days before recording them, and trusting that the best ideas often arrive somewhere between instinct and uncertainty. Much like Mount Zero—the band’s debut album, named after the mountain they’ve passed countless times but never actually visited—Swapmeet seem fascinated by the spaces in between: growing up, falling apart, falling in love, and figuring things out while you’re already halfway there. The band’s music occupies that same sweet spot between dreamy and distorted, nostalgic and nervy inside shimmering guitars and beautifully lived-in melodies.
For this edition of Signature Dish, we sat down with Venus to unpack Irish musical traditions, Riverdance obsessions, first heartbreaks, beach-house recording sessions, basement family dinners, collaborative songwriting, and why sometimes the most honest thing a musician can admit is that they still don’t entirely think of themselves as one.
Origin Story
Let’s go back to the beginning—where did you grow up, and what role did music or creativity play in your early life?
I grew up in Adelaide, like the boys. My dad immigrated from Ireland in his late twenties, so there’s always been a naturally strong Irish influence in my life.
Music is such an indispensable form of communication in Irish culture – especially with the ongoing erasure of pre-colonial Irish history. It played – and still plays – a crucial part in the passing down of history.
What music filled your world growing up? Do you remember the first concert you attended or the first time you felt completely inspired by a song?
My first memories of music revolved around the 90’s Irish American production, Riverdance. My parents had a VHS of the live show, of which I had to watch weekly in order to attend Irish dance practice. I wanted to be in it so bad. Some days I still do.
As you started discovering music on your own, where did you go digging? Were you a record store regular, a music blog browser, or someone trading playlists or mix CDs with friends? Who were some of the early artists that really stuck with you?
Less romantically, the release of Spotify was kind of a game changer in my early teens. I’d spend hours scouring the site, fans-also-like to fans-also-like: it felt like a playground back in that time. A kind of magical place. I was a big fan of Happyness and Frankie Cosmos in their hay-day. I’d definitely credit them with my own journey to singing. On the other hand, I still collected records, and listening to my mum’s collection of Beatles records was a classic shaping of sorts. When we all started getting our licenses we started making mix CDs more.
What was your path into music like? Did you have any formal training, or was it more of a self-taught, experimental process?
I kind of fell into music accidentally. Learning guitar was my main form of procrastination in high school. I never took it seriously though and never thought I would. But I was curious, and I think that lead me to where I am now. I still don’t view myself as a musician at all, and I don’t think that I fundamentally am. But I don’t think that music is confined to ‘musicians’ in the classical sense, at least not in our scene, and I love the freedom that that provides.
Creative Union / Current Project
Let’s talk about your latest release (“Halfway”). What sparked it, and what did the creative process look like—from songwriting to recording?
“Halfway” started with a riff I brought to practice, and we jammed it for hours. Originally the song was looking at being an instrumental – the original demo is very different. I had the start of another song at the time, and we tested them together and it clicked. We tested it at gigs with different arrangements over the course of a couple years until we finally figured it out.
Was there a specific moment, event, or period where a lot of the lyrics or emotions behind the song poured out?
Yeah…the song was written initially in a very different headspace to where it ended up. It evolved over the period of a first-love breakup. The peak of which occurred the week we were recording the song, and I ended up rewriting the whole thing.
Did you have pieces of this album/project (melodies, lyrics, ideas) sitting with you for a while before recording? If so, how did your relationship with those ideas change over time?
Yes, some of the songs have developed over like two years. I’m really glad we were able to give the songs time to grow before putting them in a glass bottle. “Halfway” had a different outro nearly every show for a year. The entirety of the lyrics and melodies were rewritten the week we recorded them.
Has your creative process shifted since earlier releases—or even since you first started making music? Has it become more intentional or more intuitive over time?
For me, writing songs has always been an intuitive activity. The vocals of “I Wish I” and “Ceiling Fan” (from Oxalis) are pretty much the exact same as the original voice memo. Learning how to write collaboratively and intentionally, especially as a self-taught guitarist, was difficult. I still don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. The trust we have in each other, creatively and personally, is the essential grounds for anything to be made. I don’t know if I could do it with different people.
Place & Space
Where did you record this project, and what was the vibe like? Did the environment (a basement, a studio, somewhere else) impact the energy or intimacy of the songs?
We recorded this track (“Halfway”) and the rest of the record in a beach house in Port Noarlunga, right by the ocean. We had a lot of space and didn’t leave the house for a good two weeks.
Visuals & Aesthetics
Let’s talk about the visual world around your music—how hands-on are you when it comes to artwork, press photos, videos, etc.? Do you see visuals as an extension of the music, or something separate?
The visuals are absolutely a part of the music. I think it’s really important to build a visual world of a body of music. No art exists in isolation, whether we want it to or not. So yeah, we are really hands-on with it and do most of it ourselves if we can.
Performance & Life
What’s your rehearsal or creative space like? Any weird rituals, memorable moments, or mishaps worth sharing?
We rehearse every week at Maxwell’s house. This starts with family dinner with his parents, cooked by his mum – we’ve been doing this for like four years now. Maxwell has a music room in his basement that we’ve practiced in since high school.
Touring can be chaotic—any personal hacks for eating cheap, eating healthy, or staying grounded on the road?
Wrong band to ask that. We would love to know.
