Arts Fishing Club

About Arts Fishing Club

Arts Fishing Club emerged from Melbourne's inner north sometime around 2017, when a group of musicians who'd been circling each other in various DIY projects decided to make something together. The lineup coalesced around Declan Whitton, Merphin Campbell, and a rotating cast that's always felt more like a collective than a fixed band. They took their name from an actual fishing club, which tells you something about their approach to being a band in 2017.

Their early shows around Footscray and Brunswick had this loose, exploratory quality. They were clearly influenced by the more experimental end of Australian indie, the kind of bands who treat song structure as a suggestion rather than a rule. Think meandering arrangements, guitars that drift in and out of focus, vocals buried just enough to make you lean in. They recorded their first material at various home studios, which gave everything a properly lo-fi texture without feeling like an affectation.

The band started putting out releases through Small Town Romance and other local labels that specialize in the weirder corners of Australian music. Their sound sits somewhere between jangle pop and post-punk, but neither term really covers it. There's a genuine restlessness in how they write, like they're figuring out each song as it unfolds. Some tracks lock into a groove for seven minutes. Others barely make it past two before dissolving into something else entirely.

What's kept them interesting is how little they seem to care about fitting into whatever's happening around them. While other Melbourne bands chased cleaner production or tighter hooks, Arts Fishing Club stayed deliberately ragged. Their recordings feel like first takes, which they probably are. There's something appealing about musicians who sound like they're playing for themselves first and worrying about audiences second.

They've shared stages with acts like Canshaker Pi, White Walls, and other bands mining similar territory in Australian underground music. The live shows tend to be better when the room is small and the PA is barely adequate. They're not the kind of band that scales up particularly well, and they don't seem bothered by that.

Recent activity has been characteristically low-key. They put out material when it's ready, play shows when it makes sense, and generally operate outside the usual cycle of album-tour-album-tour. Some of the members are involved in other projects, which is probably healthier than treating one band like a full-time job.

It's the kind of band that exists for people who want to dig a bit deeper into what's happening beyond the festival circuit. Not obscure for the sake of it, just genuinely unconcerned with being anything other than what they are. Which, in an era of relentless self-promotion, almost counts as a radical act.

Their sets feel more like someone's inviting you into their room than a performance. Crowd stays quiet and attentive, occasionally swaying. They don't build to climaxes, so the energy is consistently understated. Feels intimate even in larger venues.

Known for Casting Lines, Waiting by the Pier, Salt and Static, Morning Ritual, Drift

See Arts Fishing Club Live