Catching the Australian band at the start of their first string of UK dates, we chat touring strategies and adverse conditions fresh off the tour’s European leg.

Starting from humble beginnings playing house parties in 2018, indie outfit Majak Door have proven they’re the real deal as they embark on an international circuit. While drawing comparisons to indie icons like Mac Demarco and Real Estate, Majak Door bring their own blend of jangly riffs and dream pop flavours — what they simply describe as ‘magic’. Formed in Melbourne, the dreamy 5 piece consists of Frankie Vakalis (vocals, guitar), Sandy Moore (guitar), Joe Oliver (keys), Ben Murphy-Mackenzie (bass) and Salvatore Diaz (drums). Ahead of the band’s London welcome at the Sebright Arms, we spoke to Frankie, Sandy and Joe about the European leg of the tour and what’s next for the band.

You guys are over halfway through your debut tour of the EU and UK. How has it been and how does it compare to tours back in Australia?

Frankie: The first thing we noticed straight away is that everyone’s very very kind. Not that people aren’t kind at home, but everyone’s just been super appreciative [of the band]. We started in Germany and then went down to Spain and such — there was lots of kindness.

Sandy: Yeah one noticeable thing is that the hospitality is amazing, getting given accommodation and meals and literally being treated like you’ve known the person for years is really cool. Also the differences between the venues we’re playing has just blown our minds, we’ve gone from playing in a town square to two people, to playing a sold out show in Munich — it’s very different.

Joe: Just the location as well is just amazing. It doesn’t really matter if there’s ten people or one hundred people, just being in Europe and playing shows has just been awesome. And as these guys said the hospitality is great, people just coming up and being proud of you like they know you already or something? They’re like, “It’s so great to see you playing music”, just feels like they’re your mum’s friends or something sometimes, it’s been great.

Do you find it easy to sort accommodation through fans? Are you often approached or do you need to search out a bit?

F: I think it’s just the way they look after bands here, I don’t think we have much like that [back home]. We might have stuff like that happen in more rural places – these guys played in Beachworth with their other band, also Mildura, and they looked after you there – put you up in a house and gave you a meal. So maybe further out [of the city] they look after you, regular shows just aren’t the same.

I read an interview you guys did in 2020 where you said “the aim is to tour as much as possible”, is this still the case? Or have your priorities as a band changed?

J: Definitely still the case for sure, touring is just… that’s the best part of being in the band. Releasing music is great and creating music is definitely number one of course, being a musician you just wanna put stuff out there that people love and do something that you’re really proud of — but playing shows is just like, epic, it’s just awesome. I’m keen to come back to Europe next year already, go to America, go to Japan, wherever it is. It’s so great.

S: We’ve got a pretty different lineup to what we had back in 2020. I think that having longevity in a band is crucial, you need to pick and choose when you’re touring so you’re not just taking every opportunity. It gets a bit strenuous at times if you’re doing back to back tours every weekend — I think when I joined the band we played 8 weekends in a row, I remember thinking if this continues I’m not sure how I’ll go on. It’s great, coming to Europe and to new countries is great, but back home I think you’ve gotta be a bit more strategic for sure.

Now that you’re touring internationally, what advice would you give your younger selves back when you first started playing shows together?

F: Well there’s obviously “keep on going with it and keep trying”, but maybe the advice would be that it’s easier than you think to get that going. We were lucky to get in contact with a great booker — I mean the music obviously has to be to a decent standard — but we got in touch with a really cool booker and he just knew his way around booking a tour well and he’s done that. But — advice wise? [laughs]

S: I think get over here ASAP, don’t wait. I think Majak Door waited too long, I’ve seen great examples of bands that’ve just been around for 2 years — you don’t need a massive following, it seems like Europe especially and the UK really just value international acts and they’ll come and see you regardless of how many followers you have.

F: Yeah get stuck in as soon as you can, don’t be scared and get stuck in.

I’m sure you get this question all the time, but what’s the meaning behind the name Majak Door?

S: [laughs] it comes at a good time, we actually just got a message from him.

J: We did just get a message from him earlier — he’s an Australian Rules Football (AFL) player [spelt Majak Daw]. He’s retired now but he played for the North Melbourne football club. Frankie just loved his name, he thought it sounded great and sounded like ‘Magic Door’ as well. So he messaged him and asked if it’s all sweet if we use the name and he said yes.

As Sandy said, he messaged us today saying “Majak Door in Paris, awesome!” and we were like “yeah!” [laughs]

S: He’s just sent a follow-up message as we were sound checking saying “send any content so I can promote you ASAP”. [laughs]

J: He loves it — we love him and he loves us. It’s amazing.

Can we expect a collaboration with Majak himself?

F: I reckon, we’ll get something going with it. We were gonna play an event with his family, like a concert for his parents’ anniversary — that didn’t end up happening but there will be something, whether he pops in a video or something. He’s keen though, that’s why it’s lovely.

Who are some artists that influence your sound or just inspire you in general and why?

F: Well from the early days, I got into music with the classic Tame Impala, Mac Demarco, typical indie pioneer boys. But there’s no one or two main bands, there’s just a huge number of little influences, sometimes just a song can be pretty influential.

S: I mean yeah, I was the same, Tame Impala, indie pop, indie rock, The Strokes were all massive influences, more for my younger self. Now I’m slowly getting into more of a shoe-gazey kind of style, especially for my own guitar playing. Like Slowdive’s been massive at the moment and I’ve just come up on Duster — just getting into all this 90’s shoegaze just to really hone into that really massive guitar sound.

J: As far as influences for myself go it’s pretty much the same, a lot of shoegaze and more recently a lot of electronic music. I think what you like just automatically bleeds into the music that you make anyways. A lot of really washy kind of sounds, heavy guitar and synth is where my mind is at the moment with music — I think it’s probably the same for these guys, that’s where the wave is.

What’s been the craziest show on tour so far and why?

F: The one in Czechia maybe, it was this little outdoor event thing — we called it ‘Swamp Fest’. It was on the river in Pilsen, it’s probably usually a great event but it was pissing down that day. There were a couple of people there who probably only spoke Czech. [laughs]

It was bucketing down, there were buckets of water falling onto all of the electricity. There was one of those big power hubs with like 50 plugs on it and this big bucket of water fell onto it – the set cutout and short circuited at one point.

J: Twice. [laughs]

F: Yeah it was funny. You do these gigs every now and then — they’re almost like little practice things with a couple people watching and they’re just funny. The whole scenario was just funny, we literally just pop into Czechia for like one afternoon, play ‘Swamp Fest’ and then leave. [laughs]

J: And we still got a meal, we still got drinks, they hooked us up and it was very nice of them as well. Funny stuff.

F: There was also Walter’s which deserves an honourable mention. You think you’re playing at a pub or venue for every gig… we rock up and meet this guy, he would’ve been a classic OG German hippie back in the day, he’s got this old pub, and there was no one in the town — you could’ve heard a pin drop. It was him, his wife, I guess? And a couple of his mates.

He said we could set up the PA in the driveway of his house, so we lugged all our stuff out and started playing on the street. We felt bad because it’s this peaceful and quiet little German town and we started making all this noise.

Again, the locals were the nicest ever — one man came up and put a hat down and threw some money in and other people started doing the same. Hilarious. [laughs]

Which of your songs would you suggest to new listeners?

F: I’ll say ‘Time’, that’s my go to.

S: This sounds crazy but I’m listening to a lot of stuff that Frank has written and the guys wrote before I joined the band that I’ve never listened to. I think some of the older stuff is really cool —I couldn’t even tell you the names that I’m thinking of but one of the venues that we played recently was playing it and I thought, “Shit these songs are great, I hadn’t even heard these but they’re really cool” — proper surf rock.

But the new double-single release we did, ‘Time’ and ‘Something Good’ is really cool and dreamy. There’s a couple of unreleased ones too that are great that we’re playing in the set but obviously you can’t listen if you don’t come and see us.

J: I love all the new stuff we’re doing — probably ‘Everybody’s Listening to the Radio Now’ is my favourite out of the newer ones we’ve done. But as Sandy was saying, there’s some great tracks on all of the records that we’ve done, they’re just a little bit different that’s all. On the debut self-titled album there’s a few tracks, ‘How Do You Feel’, ‘One Thing at a Time’, both are some of my favourite songs but we don’t play them that much anymore. Just check it all out, if you like it, you like it. [laughs]

What’s next for Majak Door?

F: Trying to get a nice little album going, album number three. We were hoping to get some more demos or writing going on this trip. We did at the beginning because we had a few days off, but we haven’t had much time. We were gonna try and do some recording in the van during the long drives but that went out the window. [laughs]

Probably after [the tour] we’ll get together and just jam, see what happens and see what we like and hopefully make something nice.

S: Sal literally joined the band probably three months ago and within that time we had Ben join who had played with us a while ago but hasn’t played with us for a bit. So as a band we’ve only really been playing together for about two months prior to the tour — I think we’ve only done two or three gigs [all together] prior to coming here. So the biggest thing is just to get to know each other as a full band, and then we can move forward with writing together and collaborating.

J: Yeah definitely everything they’ve just said. I’m keen to record a bit more live — in the past we’ve sent stems back and forth and done a lot of overdubbing. I think with the new lineup we’ve got some nice energy between everyone, everything meshes really well — I just wanna try something all together and see where it goes. Some of the tracks we’ve done in the past or some of the newer ones as well like ‘Everybody’s Listening to the Radio Now’ and ‘Head Crash’ were [recorded] like that and they’re some of my favourite tracks, so I want to do something like that.