Noah Learmonth is the sort of frontman that classic bands are built around. Talk to the wryly amusing Radio Free Alice vocalist, and you’ll find a leader who knows exactly what he wants his band to be: hook-laden yet self-aware; full of nuance, humor and a strange kind of joy; a group for those who often find themselves on the margins of the party, but a unit whose dreams are also ambitiously, unashamedly massive and fully on display with their debut record, What’s In Between (October 30 via Atlantic Records).
Learmonth and guitarist Jules Paradiso started the group at school in Sydney before moving at 18, to Melbourne to fully pursue music. With their previous bandmates staying behind, they soon found bassist Michael Phillips and drummer Lochie Dowd at Melbourne University.
RFA have quickly transcended the often hard to break out of Australian music scene and become a band welcomed onto stages around the world. In 2025, they booked one London headline show that, due to insane demand, ended up expanding to six sold-out shows in the span of a singular month. Later that year, they played their first US run, which included three sold-out NYC shows. They’ve spent festival season touring around the world’s biggest stages, from Governor’s Ball to Reading and Leeds. Back home in Australia, they supported Geese on their first trip down under, and warmed the stage for The Killers on their last arena run.
What’s In Between is a three continent record made with Ewan Pearson (Depeche Mode, Franz Ferdinand) over a couple weeks north of Sydney; songs were re-worked and re-visited with producer Peter Katis (Interpol, The National) at his studio in Connecticut; while a week of downtime in north-west London earlier this year spawned the final touches on the album with UK producer Finn Billingham working out of Flood and Alan Moulder’s studio.
A card-carrying lover of coming-of-age narratives, with What’s In Between, Learmonth and his band have written the soundtrack to their own: a debut destined to play on the stereos of a generation of fans as they carve out their singular stories, and an album that cements Radio Free Alice’s place as one of 2026’s most significant breakout bands.
