A Quick Chat with Macseal
Establishing a sound with the infectious melodies of power-pop, the honesty of emo and the intricate musicianship of indie rock, Macseal have spent the past decade carving out a sound that's both nostalgic and refreshingly modern. Since forming in New York, the band have built a dedicated following and are finally making their way to Australia for the first time, joining forces with fellow emo rock favourites Prince Daddy & The Hyena for a co-headline run across the country.
The tour brings together two acts that have helped shape the modern emo and indie-punk landscape while sharing a long-standing friendship and creative connection through their label, Counter Intuitive Records. Ahead of their arrival, we caught up with Macseal's Ryan Bartlett and Cole Szilagyi to chat about their excitement for their first Australian shows, touring with Prince Daddy & The Hyena, building a setlist for a brand new audience, and what's next for the band as they begin work on their next record.
Hey! Thank you for taking time to talk with us. It's your first time coming to Australia, how are you feeling about it? Do you have any kind of preconceived expectations coming to Australia?
Ryan: I feel obviously very excited. I think up until maybe a week or so ago, I wasn't nervous. And now I feel nervous for some reason, but I think just because I didn't realize that it was coming so soon. I think it's more like a nervous excitement. It's definitely been a bucket list place for me to go for my whole life. So I'm pretty psyched for it.
Cole: Yeah. I'm super excited to just meet people there. We've toured Asia and Japan before and that was the best part, I think, of going over there. So I'm just excited to meet people that are into the same music and stuff like that.
Ryan: I felt like when we did that, that was the farthest place we've ever been with our band, but this is obviously way farther, so it's even cooler.
Is there anything you've seen or heard about Australia from other bands that have come over that you're curious about or keen to try?
Ryan: I've said this before, but everyone I know that's come back from there says the coffee is amazing. The coffee culture, I hear, is a big thing. So for all of us, we're excited to just experience coffee there because we all have coffee a lot.
Cole: I guess I'm curious about the toilet thing, if that's real. That'll be interesting to try out. But also, I feel like anytime I meet an Australian person who lives in the States, they're so funny and charismatic. And I'm just excited to meet more people like that, or see the full breadth of Australian personality.
Ryan: Yeah, and obviously spiders and the whole "everything's trying to kill you" thing. I feel like I know that's not true, but still, a part of me is afraid. I did say the other day that I do hope we see at least one enormous spider, just far away from where we're sleeping.
So Macseal are co-headlining with Prince Daddy & The Hyena, another band that has carved its own lane in the emo/indie/punk world. How did this pairing come together for this tour?
Cole: So our friend Jake, who runs Counter Intuitive Records, put our last record out, Permanent Repeat, and he put Prince Daddy's newest record out. He hit us up as a very hypothetical situation, and we instantly said yes. We're really excited because we love Prince Daddy and we've always dreamed of coming to Australia and never really knew how to get to that point on our own.
Ryan: And I also think the idea of not going with them, like if they were to go on their own or if we were going on our own, I think both of us would have had the most FOMO of our lives about that. So we were like, "They're going, we're going. We can't not do it."
You've obviously got a very close friendship with each other and you've toured together in the past. What's your favourite thing about touring with Prince Daddy?
Cole: Probably just hanging out in the green room, just f**king around and joking around with each other.
Ryan: I feel like when there are moments where I'm maybe particularly homesick or tired of being on tour, they always know how to be enjoying it and having a good time because we're really lucky to be able to do it. I think they are very conscious of that at all times and it's very infectious in that way. Seeing them have a good time makes me have a good time and want to keep doing it.
Cole: Yeah, I think they bring out our goofier side, which is always nice on tour. Not to mention you get to see them play every night, which is a great bonus. But yeah, I think the laughs are the best part. Also, Kory brings us little keychains with our names on them from gas stations, which is very sweet.
You're diving into this first tour as a headliner. Do you find that there's a certain pressure headlining a new place before climbing up the ranks as a support?
Ryan: I keep saying this. I feel like there could be two or three people at the show and I'd still think it would be the coolest thing in the world just because we're so far away from home and there are people who want to see us. So, oddly, I don't really feel the pressure because I'm just like, "Whatever happens, it's going to be really cool no matter what." And obviously we want to make sure that people are having a good time too. From a headliner standpoint, that's important. But I think no matter what, it's going to be really cool. So yeah, I'm excited.
Cole: I think there's just so much gratitude from us coming over there, and from the concertgoers, that even just being in the same room together is an awesome thing. I think it's more just fun than anything.
Ryan: Maybe making sure we play songs that people want to hear because we don't know the next time we're going to be there. I feel like when we were in Japan, that was a big thing. Even though we played a lot of shows there, we wanted to make sure we played songs that maybe we don't play as much anymore in the US.
What goes into putting together a setlist for a place that you're visiting for the first time? What parts of your catalogue can we expect to be hearing on this upcoming tour?
Ryan: Probably as much from everything as we can. A little bit of a career-spanning setlist, I would say.
Cole: Yeah. Definitely that.
Ryan: We haven't thought about it ourselves, actually.
Cole: Honestly, yeah, there's very little preparation. A cool thing that happened on the Japan tour was that a couple of the shows were some of our albums in full. So we practiced this huge repertoire of basically all of our songs, just in case someone shouted something out or held something up on their phone that we could be like, "Yeah, we'll play that one." So hopefully we get to do a similar thing. We have a bunch of staples that are normally in our live set, and then if anyone wants to hear anything more niche or like a deeper cut, hopefully we can pull that out too.
So you're going to be taking live requests on stage? People are going to shout out songs and just see you play them?
Ryan: I don't want to say that specifically, but I feel like we're probably way more open to doing it now than we are in the US, for sure.
Cole: That's another thing about headlining. We feel less precious about wasting time talking to the audience or figuring out some requests. So headlining definitely results in cool stuff like that happening.
Do you have a favourite song that you like to play live?
Ryan: Not to make this more like a promo thing, but we just released a single a little while ago called "Every Dream" that is really fun to play. I just like playing that one a lot.
Cole: Yeah, that's a really fun one. I always like playing "Lucky For Some". It just gets me excited.
Ryan: And then "Next to You", just because people really like that song. That's fun too.
Is it more based on the energy that happens in the room when you play those songs that dictates how high they rank?
Cole: Yeah, I think the older the song, the more we've played it hundreds of times, the more a good crowd reaction will make it fun again. It breathes new life into it.
Ryan: Yeah, for sure.
Beyond these Australian dates, what's next for Macseal? What have you got coming up?
Ryan: Just writing and recording a new record, so hopefully that comes out soon! I'd say that's our main focus right now. The tour that we've literally just booked and announced with our friends in Ben Quad—I almost forgot about that—but yeah, we're doing a US tour with them. We're hitting up a bunch of places that we've never been to before, which I'm really excited for. And then we're playing Riot Fest at the end of that, which we're also really excited for.
Prince Daddy & The Hyena and Macseal - Australian Tour 2026
Fri 17 Jul 2026 – The Brightside – Brisbane, QLD
Sat 18 Jul 2026 – The Hamilton Station Hotel – Newcastle, NSW
Sun 19 Jul 2026 – Mary’s Underground – Sydney, NSW
Tue 21 Jul 2026 – La La La’s – Wollongong, NSW
Wed 22 Jul 2026 – Stay Gold – Melbourne, VIC
Thu 23 Jul 2026 – Sooki Lounge – Belgrave, VIC
Fri 24 Jul 2026 – Jive – Adelaide, SA
Sat 25 Jul 2026 – Lynott’s Lounge – Perth, WA
Tickets on sale now
