Yächtley Crëw On Their Maiden Voyage To Australia

Yächtley Crëw, The World’s #1 Yacht Rock Band, set sail from their native California on their maiden voyage to Australia in May 2025 and now due to huge demand YÄCHTLEY CRËW will now dock in Adelaide at The Gov on Wednesday May 14.

For those uninitiated, Yacht Rock encapsulates the revival of Soft Rock Hits from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, which has become a worldwide phenomenon, inspiring fans to dress the part and sing along. Yächtley Crëw are not just the ultimate entertainers, but also incredible musicians. The full seven-piece band recreate those smooth 70’s and 80’s sounds to perfection including the sax solos of course!

The nautical-suited and captain’s-hat-clad Yächtley Crëw are proudly flying the flag of Yacht Rock for each and every generation that loves good fun, good times and a good singalong. The Stars of the hit HBO Dockumentary are not just the ultimate entertainers but also incredible musicians. The nautical-suited and captain’s-hat-clad Yächtley Crëw are proudly flying the flag of Yacht Rock for each and every generation that loves good fun, good times and a good singalong. Philly Ocean talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

It will be the maiden voyage for Yächtley Crëw to Australia, are you looking forward to it?
It’s a dream come true. We couldn’t be more excited to be bringing yacht rock to Australia. I’ve had the good fortune of actually traveling to Australia before, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve been there, almost twenty years to the year. Alot’s happened in those twenty years, but man, I can’t think of a better time to be coming to Australia and to be playing this music for people who know it and love it in the same way that we do.

Even more exciting that you’re playing my hometown Adelaide now, which is great.
Absolutely. Yep. We’re stoked.

For those who don’t really know and have heard the term yacht rock, what is it, how would you explain to those Aussies who would be contemplating buying tickets?
I think in the most simplistic way to describe it is from late seventies and early eighties. So it’s like Hall & Oates, Toto, of course, Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, they’re kind of the godfathers of yacht rock, Steely Dan, Kenny Loggins, artists that you know, you got like the Little River band and a couple others. It’s all that kind of guilty pleasure music from the late seventies and early eighties that’s just so good and it’s so nostalgic and so fun. It just can’t help but bring a smile to your face when you hear it.

Is that the thing that drew and got you interested in this style of music?
Yeah, well almost, we grew up on this, this is our generation of music, and we love it. The band got started because we have a deep love and appreciation and we thought, man, this would be really a fun thing to do. We really didn’t have any like, grand designs or aspirations when we started the band. It was like no one’s doing anything with this music. Let’s just do something with it and see if people love it the way that we do. We’ve just been continually surprised and delighted that so many people are into this music and celebrate this music with us.

Did you ever think that it would take off quite like it has?
No, none of us thought that it would. I certainly never anticipated coming to do an Australian tour. We’re absolutely tickled that we do this, we thought we’d bounce around some bars in Southern California and play this music. We didn’t know if we’d play six shows or sixty or six thousand, and here we are eight years later. This is the eighth year that we’ve been doing this, and it’s gotten bigger and bigger and bigger year after year. After the first year when it was pretty obvious that people really love this, then it was like let’s take this as far as we can. So, we continually innovate in our show and always trying to find ways to incorporate new songs, new production, new experiences for our audience members to have when they come and see us. That’s what has made us continue to grow at this pace is that even the people who come back to see us for the tenth time, some of our fans are always seeing something new and they’re always having a great time.

Were you surprised with how influential the documentary has been?
Yeah, that’s been really fun. I mean, that just came out too. So, as we get started with this concert season, we are seeing immediate response in terms of how many people are out to these shows. I always like to chat with the audience during the show, you know, let’s stop playing for a minute and I’ll just ask how many people are first timers, how many people have been to see the show before and how many people have seen the Yacht Rock documentary? And so many people have seen that. Um, and, and I think, you know, hopefully a bunch of them got turned onto the genre and reminded of how good this music is because of it.

What did you think when you watched the, the documentary for the first time?
Well, we had the privilege of actually going to the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles for the premiere of the documentary. Michael McDonald was there, a number of stars in David Paich from Toto and a number of the guys who were musicians in these bands were there and did a Q&A. Honestly, it was pretty surreal to be a part of this genre and movement, if you can call it that. It’s just pretty remarkable. Obviously to see our musical heroes on stage and to have people get so excited about it is amazing. It just makes us feel so grateful that we get to do what we do and that we get to bring this incredible music to so many people.

Reading through of the reviews of your shows it sounds an awesome experience even with people getting decked out in Captain’s hats and the blue blazers.
Absolutely, that’s really what it’s all about. It’s about having fun with each other. The more the audience gets into it and participates the more fun that they have. We’ve been called by a couple other journalistic organisations the Kiss of soft rock, because our shows are super high energy, they’re a lot of fun, and the audience is there to have fun with us. We encourage people to put on a navy blazer, dress up like a yacht captain, grab your cap, grab your captain’s hat and pregame with all your friends, you know, make some pina coladas, come ready to have a party.

Is the beauty of the show that you do is there’s so many songs to draw on that each night could be a completely unique and different show?
Oh yeah and that’s what it is too. There’s so much music that we know, we have like one hundred and fifteen songs in our repertoire, so any show that we do is somewhat special and unique. Of course, we have to play the token yacht rock songs that people come to our shows to expect like Baker Street, Africa, You Make My Dreams Come True and Ride Like The Wind. Those kinds of songs, if we didn’t play, we would start getting hate mail, you know what I mean? Because people are like, I came to see a yacht rock show, and why didn’t you play any Christopher Cross? You know? So, we do that every single show, but we know so much music that we really have a good time and a great opportunity to expand our show and do new things every single time we take the stage.

We’ve been doing this for a long time, so we have a pretty good understanding of our show and the music. We know what songs people respond to, and we know how they respond to them a lot of the time. There’s always an element of unpredictability in a live show, but even with that, we still have a good grip on what we do and the music people want to hear. It’s really just about structuring the set in such a way that we have a natural kind of, you know, slower song after a couple of bangers. Then we can pick the pace back up.

Are you looking at putting out a release of your take on a lot of these great songs?
Yeah, and matter of fact we put out the EP in 2023 called Seas The Day. It’s five songs, has one original and four of the yacht rock classics that we play at our shows. We also put out a Christmas album, we had such a great time putting that together. This year we’re going to be putting out our first full length album, it’s called Seas The Night, and it is going to be a full length album. It’s going to have one of our originals, a brand new original song that we’re incredibly excited to share with people and nine of the yacht rock songs that people know and love and our version, and our energy of those songs. It’s going to be a really, really awesome album. We’re very excited about it.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Yächtley Crëw on the following dates, tickets from Total Touring…