The core members of The Ocean Party—Liam "Snowy" Halliwell, Jordan Thompson, Curtis Wakeling, Mark Rogers, and brothers Lachlan and Zac Denton—all grew up in Wagga Wagga.

The video for "Head Down" by The Ocean Party, originally posted by Spunk Records on Octover 7th, 2014. Yes: Snowy does also play sax.

Wagga Wagga is nearly equidistant from Sydney and Melbourne. When Happy Magazine spoke to Mark Rogers in 2016 about growing up there, he described how funding to the local arts council created a perfect ecosystem in Wagga: "during that tiny little period there were so many interesting, weird bands playing original music who were thinking that that’s what they wanted to do with their life," Rogers explained. The Ocean Party wanted exactly that. As Wagga returned to a resting state of mostly pub cover bands, they moved their operation south to Melbourne. The six-piece produced nine albums in seven years together as The Ocean Party, growing from early seaside jangle records into a truly collaborative outfit with a long reach and solid grasp. Singer and guitarist Snowy even learned to handle the mixing on his own, giving the band more control over their sound.

The video for "Quality Control" by The Ocean Party, originally posted by Emotional Response Records on June 17th, 2017.

Their time as The Ocean Party came to an end in late 2018, when the band announced that they had very suddenly lost Zac Denton, only 24 years old, to a brain cyst. In a 2020 interview with NME about their future without Zac, Mark Rogers said of Zac's older brother: “We were all going to be led by Lachlan in that space anyway. Lachlan was gonna make that call, and we’re gonna support him no matter what.”

The Ocean Party play "Head Down" live at The Phoenix in Canberra on March 28th, 2019, on their final tour before disbanding. Lachlan plays drums in Zac's absence.

They re-emerged as Pop Filter: still Lachlan, Snowy, Mark, Curtis, and Jordan, but with friend and creative partner Nick Kearton (of Cool Sounds, another Melbourne band Zac and Snowy had worked with) signing on to round things out. Pop Filter launched their debut Banksia in 2020, and quickly followed with Donkey Gully Road. Both records were named for recording spaces: Banksia for a home in east-coastal Broulee, and Donkey Gully Road for a space in Yapeen, northwest of Melbourne.

Pop Filter play "For Me" at Shadows Nightclub in Canberra on November 15th, 2024. Song starts at 1:01, but the minute of banter is pretty funny.

Who sings in Pop Filter? Everybody. Who plays what in Pop Filter? Things move around. Who writes the stuff? Everybody writes it, and everybody gets a hand on it. "“I like that our songs have to go through six different heads before they exist," Rogers notes in the 2020 NME interview.

The video for "God Texted Back" by Snowy Band, originally posted by Blossom Rot Records on April 2nd, 2024.

While several members of Pop Filter work in other projects or produce some solo work alongside their work in Pop Filter, the most self-sufficient is Snowy, who records both solo and with a handful of friends as Snowy Band. Snowy maintains a constant presence of album credits in the Pop Filter-adjacent web of artists, and on May 1st, 2025, he posted an Instagram story that sent a spidery thread far, far from Melbourne.

Peter Hughes reposted the Instagram story a few hours later. No further news followed...

------------->Until July 28th, 2025...------------->