While travelling around India, Larry sat down with the five bands who were participating in OzFest’s Aussie BBQ series around the country. In the second of this series, Larry’s sits down with Canberra electronic duo The Aston Shuffle who talk us through their experiences in India and much more, just before they hit the stage for their final show of the Indian tour…
So this is the last day of the tour! What are you going to be taking away from this experience in India?
It’s hard to sum it all up. When we had the opportunity to come over here, we honestly thought (a) is anyone into dance music? and (b) would they be into our sound? Like, are there any people who have even heard of us in India? That’s what peaked our interest to come over here. Having the chance to represent Aussie dance culture. It felt like we had to earn that respect right from the first festival gig that we played, but having the opportunity to connect with Indian audiences has let us see the fans we already had over here, through our facebook page, or on Twitter. We had people coming up after for high-fives, and handshakes, and pats on the bum. That sort of thing. So we’re going to go home knowing that people are into our music over here.
Another big thing is embracing Indian culture over here. A lot happened in two weeks, so it’s hard to describe all of it, but I’m sure when we get home we’ll start thinking on it a lot more.
You’ve been travelling around on the Aussie BBQ Concert, and you’re the only people waving the dance flag. You’ve got Big Scary waving the rock flag, and Jinja Safari waving the Paul-Simon-indie-rock-world flag, and then you’ve got Sheppard waving the pop flag, and Karnivool waving the heavy rock flag, for the first couple of shows… What’s it been like travelling around with these guys?
It’s good to be able to bond over things outside of your genre stereotype. Obviously when you extract yourself out of the place you live in and transplant yourself into a completely different culture with other people, the connection you make obviously extends beyond music. I mean, except for a couple of the guys from Jinja Safari and of course Karnivool, this is the first trip to India for everybody. But putting music in that mix as well, there’s boundaries and stereotypes… like it’s not necessarily the case that we’re wearing the “dance guys” emblems on our chests like that. I’ve enjoyed the music of every single one of the bands at some point on the radio, so to actually meet them, hang out with them, share those crazy moments with them in another place that’s completely different and hectic, and such a removal from your comfort zone, and have it all work… it multiplies the intensity of the experience so much.
All of us are world’s apart, musically, but we all love music as much as each other. We’re all into the other people are doing, and I think that’s a common trait of music people. We gravitate towards the company of other music people, regardless of style and genre. Personally — and I’m guessing it’s the case with a lot of other people — I’ve just enjoyed this experience.
What’s the hardest thing about touring around a place like India?
I think everything is so culturally in your face. In Australia, you get little pockets of poverty, and you touch on little things, but over here, it actually does feel like there’s 20 million people in Mumbai. I mean… there’s 20 million people in Mumbai, and that’s nearly the amount of people that we have in our whole country. The intensity of everything is multiplied in India. If this was just a trip hanging out, kind of flying the Aussie musicians flag without playing shows, it would still be exciting. But with the touring, every single of what creates anxiety or complication or raises your blood pressure is just multiplied by ten. It’s very sink-or-swim. You’re diving into the deep end and embracing it — and mixing your metaphors — or you’re withering under the sunlight… just to mix another one!
As hard as it is for us… I mean, I think about our tour manager — it’s stressful to actually have to deal with venue managers and stuff like that, in another country, with a language barrier… it’s so complicated, but it’s so worth it.
The next question was going to be, what was the best thing about touring here, but I think that you’ve just answered it!
The best thing has been having brand new Indian fans come up to us and go, ‘that was amazing’, hugs, high-fives, selfies, and seeing the comments on social media. Or people who have come up saying, ‘thank you for playing that song’, because they’re already fans. The internet makes all that transparent, but it’s just a concept until you actually visit other places and see it. And hopefully you’ve done the job that the organisers envisaged you doing, like being respectful, not being a drunken lout… abusing the opportunity that we’ve had. But this was not just a tour of India, there was a greater context to it. You could definitely feel that with the other bands, too. We were here for more than getting drunk and buying clothes for your friends.
This has been a once in a lifetime opportunity, but, that said, are you going to try and get back to India?
Yeah! This is something I would love to do regularly, if the opportunity was there. I don’t think I could live here, because I like my little safe quiet Canberra, but I’ve loved this. It’s like organised chaos. And dance music has an audience over here!
Dance and metal, it seems.
At that festival we played at — seeing that metal stage heaving like it was, with heaps of dudes wearing metal shirts with big beards and going ‘Yeahhhh!’
You don’t expect to see that in India.
There’s more of a scene for it over here than there is in Australia.
I completely agree with that, and I know many people would. So, you’re heading home tomorrow — what’s the rest of the year holding for you?
We’ve got to finish our record, and… sleep. It was good to have this opportunity to come over here, and we’ve been working on our album this year, and we’re so close to this body of work. It’s what we’ve been living and breathing these past nine months, so it was good to come over here and have a break. Put on some weight, get comfortable, and then get back into it when we go home. Finish the record, tour tour tour. Our endless cycle.
It’s been a pleasure.
Thanks very much!
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