How you going Johnson?
I am very well thanks and yourself
Yeah not too bad, where abouts are you at the moment?
I am moving house, between Bondi and Cronulla. It really isn’t fun at all
You’ve just got back from Europe?
I did, and I was so looking forward to sitting on my couch until I found out I wasn’t going to be able to
How was Europe, I know you are pretty much conquering that continent, how was the tour?
It was really amazing, it’s amazing to think that you’re getting paid to travel around the world and go to cities you’ve never even heard of before and play to people who know your music and want to hear your music. All our gigs were really cool and heaps of fun, so no complaints.
I think I counted that you have had eleven Number One positions, all of which are in Europe and Scandinavia and that area, so can you feel that popularity in the air when you perform?
Yeah you can. Without wanting to sound like an arrogant dick, the clubs have been really full and we have had lots of good feedback and promoters have been happy and making lots of good money and it helps when you have a song that goes that big over there
It’s not that bad for a little independent record label out of Australia
No I know, it hasn’t been bad for the label and let’s hope the label can continue with some more tracks that are this big
You’ve got a few things around the corner?
Yeah, we’ve got a single that’s not finished but basically we did a track with the vocalist Pongo Love and that’s nearly finished off and then we’ve got a track that’s a follow-up that were working on with DCup and we’re doing some other stuff, so yeah lots of stuff and then DCup’s got a really big track that he’s finished with Pablo Calamari so yeah I think the labels going to be doing some good things.
And you’re doing a versus set with DCup starting this weekend with the Parklife tour. What can we expect from those shows?
We are going to have a bit of a live set-up, so we’ve got a drum machine and we’ve got a sampler and we’re going to have four decks going, so it should be pretty busy I guess. It will be the three of us playing all our music and rocking out hopefully.
And then next year there’s the Good Vibrations Festival, it’s almost hard to believe we are talking about 2011, but that’s going to be a pretty big one for you guys as well.
Yeah that will be awesome, Good Vibes is always a great festival, I mean we are stoked that we are playing on all these festivals… we used to pay to go to them.
Will you be doing a similar sort of set-up at Good Vibes as you will be doing at Parklife, will DCup be along or will it be something a little different?
I think the Good Vibes one we are doing solo; I think DCup is playing separately. We have talked about it but we haven’t really planned it yet. We were even thinking if the track with Pongo Love goes as well as we hope it to, then we were talking about bringing her over for the tour, but we’ll see how things go. She’s a crazy performer, I don’t know if you have ever seen Baraka but she’s awesome so we were talking about bringing her over and doing some stuff live with her. So we will see.
How did that collaboration get hooked up?
We have a Portuguese agent and we told him we loved them and showed him a piece and he said this beat would be perfect for Pongo Love and we were like whoa, if you can get her we would love you forever. So two days later we were in Lisbon in the studio and we at her dads restaurant and I kind of speak Portuguese so I was telling her dad that we really wanted to put this out to her and so she came to the studio with us.
It sounds like everyone is pretty happy with what’s coming out of that?
Yeah we’re excited about it. It’s the first time we’ve worked with real vocals on a track that’s not a remix, so it’s a step forward from sampling I guess
Has that been a difficult process?
We love sampling a lot, but it’s cool to think maybe she’ll get sampled out of this rather than we’ll be the people stealing
Going back to DCup for a minute, because you’ve been working with him for a while. How did that collaboration start up?
The guy’s an amazingly talented producer and DJ and we are on the same agency and label and we live near each other, so we were doing gigs together and with Americano we had a sort of skeleton thing and we showed him and he was like, hey why don’t we do this one together and he added his pop tinge to it which has obviously been very helpful. We are all just mates. Pretty much all the guys from Sweat It Out are really good friends so everyone is happy to work with each other. We have done something with Playmode who is another guy on the label and as I said DCup is working with Pablo Calamari. We have breakfast once a week with Act Your Age; we might do a track with them at some stage, so it’s all very friendly and happy.
I was reading today that whilst you haven’t quite had the success in The US that you have had in Europe, you were recently approved by The Jersey Shore, which should probably mean that you are going to conquer the country soon.
I’ve never actually seen Jersey Shore but I did joke about the fact that that show would be perfect for the song because I knew it was all about Brooklyn and a bit Italian, so yeah it was pretty cool that they’ve done that.
They seem to have a lot of power in that country
I’ve got a sister who lives in New York and they’ve said they all been hearing the track in the clubs so it’s definitely getting some love over there.
Have you performed over there yet or are you holding back on that one?
We’re doing a US tour in March. We are going to coincide that with the music conference in Miami so we are really looking forward to do that. I have only really ever seen New York and LA so I would really love to see a bit of Middle America.
Are you going to get to South By Southwest as well?
Our agent was talking about that so I think they are like one week apart from Miami so we’ll definitely be around, so who knows. I have heard it’s awesome.
While you were over in Europe, there were a few articles written here and there about the Independent Music Awards and essentially that they snubbed you. Have you heard anything more about that?
I just read that Jamie who sort of looks after Sweat It Out got a little bit pissed or something. I was more bemused than anything. Was it because they thought Sweat it Out was owned by Universal or something?
That’s what I started hearing, that there was some question as to how independent you were and that there’s some rules there.
I don’t know but Sweat It Out are 100% independent. Then I thought maybe the awards were more for dance, but I don’t know. I guess you feel bad if you are taking an award from a band who have come up with all original music and we’ve just sampled a guy from the fifties, so maybe that’s the basis for the award
I am sure you will make up for it in due time with plenty else.
We’ll see… hopefully
Transcript by Tony Lendrum.
