Empire Of The Sun (the new MGMT ? )

[Dejan]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmM2RwlxGt0]YouTube - Empire Of The Sun - Walking On A Dream[/ame]

 

 

Running For The Thrill Of It... Empire Of The Sun

 

Ambition, it’s a big word in music. For stadium sized bands it is the stick with which they are beaten whilst anyone repeating themselves two albums in a row is seen to lack it and tossed mercilessly upon a pile of rejects. Perhaps it’s the idea of what ambition actually is, is it the ability to transcend sticky floored toilet venues and make music that touches large numbers? Or is it to do something beyond the confines of the norm, to have a vision that can’t be confined to an 18 month campaign of re-releases, key festival slots and TV montage scenes.

 

Empire Of The Sun are a band who have ambition, they are a band who see a lack of magic in the music ‘industry’ and want to inject it with a shot of surreal beauty. There vision is, according to Nick Littlemore, “The one joining emotion that binds all humanity together from the enlightened to the ignorant. Until life itself is questioning its continuation, for humanities lessons are contrary to the world. For me the term greed is led by it’s failings since the dawn of time and we must turn humanity against itself like a jealous angel. There are heroes, Empire Of The Sun, who must make sacrifices in order to save the free world. Our heroes the wise travelled, having assimilated civilisations from all four corners of the globe, to gain a depth of understanding and enlightened path to give up their mortal dreams and become animals, taking the form of a flock of black cockatoos”. To put this in context this writer asked a member of Franz Ferdinand a similar question last week and he said “Well we just want to make things a bit more dance orientated.” Empire of The Sun certainly have ambition.

 

“That’s pretty much what it’s about. We (Luke Steel of The Sleepy Jackson comprises the other half of Empire...) were basically just travelling around the world and the one binding emotion that seemed to be coming up in humanity was sadness. So many of us are not doing what is vital to our existence. I met Luke back in 2000, we met in a bar and at that point Luke was always carrying around a suitcase and every time you saw him he had something different in there like an umbrella or a kid’s doll, bricks from a chimney or just full of parking tickets. Anyway the day after we met I took him to the bush just North of Sydney and we wrote three or four songs. It’s incredible to meet a mind that you connect with so quickly and strongly. We didn’t get to record anything for another six or seven years though, perhaps because it took us meeting about fifty other people before we realised our connection was so strong and we needed to explore it further.”

 

The subsequent result of that exploration is the album ‘Walking On A Dream’ released on February 23rd. Surely though for such a high concept project the ten track LP format must be incredibly limited? “Well the live show is going to be like a twenty five track show. The live show is going to be like a play, we don’t want to do a rock show, we both got so bored of that in the past. I see myself more as an artist than a musician; if I had to compare the live show to anything it would be Laurie Anderson (American experimental performance artist) where it’s a much more visual thing. Luke and I both talk visually when we write songs, you’ll note a lot of colour in our music and emotions and those colours can’t be ignored when performing our songs. We chose those initial ten (tracks on the album) because they best represent us. We’re writing songs all the time and in the past (Nick is a member of Pnau) I have always tried to fill the full amount of space on a CD but on this one we just said like let’s just do a ten-tracker you know and have ten songs, like the Ten Commandments. We don’t need anything other than these ten.”

 

One of the most memorable tracks on ‘Walking On A Dream’ is the haunting end-track ‘Without You’ Nick sites this as a favourite moment too, “I actually wrote it at a very low moment, I was very deeply depressed and it was great to channel the weight of tears, the weight of all that welling up inside and create something out of all the madness and the sadness. I often reference it now when I am feeling down or lost. It works for me, there’s a lot of heart in there”. Is depression something that aids a lot of your song writing? “I try to channel it into a joy but on ‘Without You’ it just came as it was. It was the vocal that took the longest to record; I think we recorded it forty times to get it right. It had to have the right feeling and that was hard to achieve. There was a real sense of quiet when we finished it, like when you’re fishing in the ocean and you catch that silver light and when you know you’ve got that moment you hold on for dear life and channel that wisdom.”

 

With theatre shows in the pipeline, elaborate costumes and a make up bill that must run into the thousands how do Empire Of The Sun get these things past their label under the current economical climate? “Well having Elton John’s management company looking after us certainly gives us some clout! We’re driving this from the normal confines of the label where they tell you what to do, it’s really extreme. Elton got involved with us when he picked up my Pnau album in Australia and then rang me to say it was the best album he’s heard in ten years and we became fast friends. Then, about six months ago, I asked him to manage us and he’s just been amazing ever since.” Does Elton John give good advice? “Yeah, he’s a fantastic mentor. He tells us to believe in ourselves and who better to listen to than one of the most successful recording artists of all time, the master of melodies? We got great advice from Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) too, he said ‘Always ask yourself ’Is it necessary?’ and I think that’s a great thing to bear in mind, so many people do things because they can not because they need to. It all comes back to the self and wanting to channel something positive, What do we need in the world right now? The world is such a dark place and we need positivity and something to lean on, we need goodness, we need enlightenment, we need a guide.”

 

That guide could well be Empire Of The Sun. Whatever happens to them in 2009 you can guarantee it won’t be anything less than magical. (gigwise.com)

 

 

Listen to the full album here:

http://www.myspace.com/empireofthesunsound

 

official website:

http://www.walkingonadream.com/

[a-chan]

I like the single, it's spinning on the radio for a few weeks in here now...^^ But I *think* MGMT is better and will last longer...just a feeling. But I found the music video visually colorfull and quite funny!

[RedGirl76]

I hope they're not the new MGMT... I like the old one too much!

 

Interesting band though

[Dejan]

Empire Of The Sun Interview

The much-tipped out-there Aussies speak to Clash...

 

Strip away the hyperbole and the buzz, dismantle the column inches, and what’s left? Just what is, and who are, Empire Of The Sun?

 

The short answer: an Australian duo comprised of Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore, both of whom have worked in different musical fields prior to this project. Their debut album, ‘Walking On A Dream’, was released in the UK on February 16.

 

The longer answer: takes some open-minded understanding. Flamboyant, colourful, imaginative… excessive? There are so many adjectives one can attach to the twosome who sit before Clash on a rainy London lunchtime, and many will be cast aside as improper, inaccurate, misrepresentative. Both are fully made-up, a la the imagery on their album sleeve and in their videos. Yet the band allows no photographs to be taken.

 

“When we first signed we said there’s no photography allowed,” says Littlemore, draped in black with face-paint and a feathery headdress to match (I guess you’ll just have to believe me). “We’ll never let a photograph go. These images (gesturing at promo artwork), these are paintings. We will allow illustrations.”

 

So I could have brought a court artist with me for this interview?

 

“You could! We’re happy to do that. If it involves creativity then it’s okay.”

 

And it’s this ‘rule’ that seems to underpin so much of what Empire Of The Sun is – the need to express one’s imagination, their creativity and their artistic vision. This band is, as we discover, not a band at all, and they’re already tipped as one of 2009’s hottest... um… well, bands, actually. Let the rhetoric commence.

 

So, must be pretty amazing to be sat here, now that this little idea of yours has become a reality?

NL: I guess we like to think of it as quite a big idea. It’s great. We met years ago, but this has come together over the last two years – we thought if we were going to do anything, we should do everything.

LS: I think we reached that point… We’d been talking about how music stimulation is invisible – it’s with your eyes closed. But once it becomes visual, it’s 50/50, and if the visual element is strong, as strong as the music in your ears, then it gives the music more power. Everything about it is more dynamic… There’s more electricity.

NL: I think music for us has always been about stories and landscapes, and colour. Tonally it’s more… it’s a load of different colours to me.

 

Which makes Empire Of The Sun what, a rainbow?

NL: I guess it’s like Rothko’s early work – the honeyed yellow and the pinks, and the subtleties within them. We try to paint with emotion.

 

And, via intent or otherwise, you’ve wound up with this excessive record of huge commercial potential…

NL: Well, I don’t think that was our intention. The thing that was always apparent from working with Luke was that his voice is so strong. I wanted to work with him to embrace his genius, to create a coupling around his voice; to frame it, if you like. I guess we kind of knew that if we were to create something round an element that was already so strong, and enhance it, it would be popular, because Luke probably has the best voice in the world.

 

And the sound of the record – it’s rich, warm, almost excessively sweet at times…

NL: You keep saying ‘excess’, but I’m not sure it is excessive in that sense. I think it is something of a backlash against so much demotivating music, as music can be so colourful. This is only 20 per cent of how far it will go, too. I think our music is colourful, but it’s really just about getting closer to how we hear and see things anyway. We can create anything.

LS: And, sonically, you do want it to be good enough to be played on the radio, on any radio station around the world.

NL: Yeah, the meter for us still is the superstars – why would you make anything if you weren’t trying to make it the biggest thing in the world?

 

But when you aim for the stars, you’ve got to at least be wary of not losing touch with the ground. You can’t put yourself in a position where achievements and successes are taken for granted.

NL: I think when you make music, you do it to communicate with people, and it is largely a very selfless act of laying down your emotions for the good of the world, and if we can heal people through songwriting then I think we’ll have achieved something.

 

The reaction to your music has, so far, seemed unanimously positive.

LS: It’s all positive, eh? There have been a few negative things, but not much. I was listening to this preacher, and he said: When you have a big dream, it stirs up small-minded people. And I think that the ones that do say that we’re gaudy or comical, or whatever, I think they’ve got a small-minded approach.

NL: Yeah, I think it’s important that people realise we’re doing this with all of our hearts in it.

 

You must understand the sceptics, though. I mean, the way you present this project, visually, isn’t in keeping with the notion of authenticity…/b]

NL: We’re happy people, and that comes through on the record. But there have been acts throughout time that have done these sort of projects, for whatever reason, and they can be for the greater good of the world. And that’s what we’re about.

 

And when it comes to taking Empire Of The Sun live…?

NL: It’s going to be more like a play than a rock show, as we want to distance ourselves from that sort of guitar-and-drums set up. Music, as Luke said, is clear, it’s invisible; we really want to create something that’s visible, and that takes you somewhere further than just sonics could.

 

How do you feel about being seen as a fashionable act, what with the various tips for the year…

LS: We don’t want to be fashionable. We never want to be fashionable!

NL: That’s because if you’re fashionable, it’s a transient state of being. We don’t ever want to be transient. Would you say that the Aztecs were a fashionable civilisation? I think this is more about creating a lasting thing, that’s better than it was.

 

What I would say is that the record doesn’t sound very ‘now’; it does have a ‘70s, ‘80s sound to it.

LS: I’ve heard people say it’s got an ‘80s feel, but I’m not so sure about that.

NL: Most of the equipment is from the 1960s and 1970s, but we also worked with hardware engineers on building new machines. We’ve got this robotic device that attaches to one of Luke’s guitars, and we’re getting a lot more into that, although the development of such things is obviously financially difficult.

 

Do you feel invention, on a practical, equipment level, is important in the progression of music?

NL: Well, we want to be untouchable, so to be that we have to invent. Once your concepts are really strong, then nobody can touch you.

 

As a tipped act yourself, do you follow what’s hot and not in the music industry?

LS: We don’t really follow the industry. We’re completely, like, not in the world. If you want to change the world, stop acting like the world. It’s like, don’t lay your treasures where rust decays, lay them elsewhere. This vision is bigger… It’s not like of Montreal, or MGMT, or those comparisons or whatever.

 

I’ve seen you compared to both those acts, but they’re not bad bands to be associated with, surely? I’d say both appeal to a fan with a certain degree of open-mindedness.

NL: But we’re interested in appealing to single-minded people too, and expanding their horizons. The thing with these comparisons, though, is that we’re not a band. Compare us to ancient Rome, or the Milky Way. Those comparisons are just as relevant. Or to a flower opening, or to making love. I can’t see that we’re like a band. We’re a prophecy of hope, with positive energy. The sun is our energy.

 

Does saying things like that play up to those who will view Empire Of The Sun as a light-hearted, almost comical project?

LS: It’s imagination, you know?

NL: We just want to unlock this potential in people, and we’re going out there on a limb, so that people can do so in much smaller ways.

 

What I would say is that the record does feel uplifting.

NL: We put a lot of love in that record, and even though there are sad moments, we’re channelling all those wasted tears towards a useful future; we’re creating a positive vibe as people don’t want depressing music. It’s beautiful to make it, but it’s also contrary to what artists should do. We’re here to teach people. I mean, ‘Without You’ is a very sad song, but it also comes… it also gives a lot of hope.

 

Releasing in Australia before the UK must act as something of a commercial barometer. How has ‘Walking On A Dream’ done back home?

LS: It’s exceeded our expectations, I think.

NL: It just keeps growing, and keeps moving up the charts. It’s fantastic. But we really try to make global music, that can be accepted by everyone. Australia’s a great place and all that, but it’s just another place for us, musically. It’s wonderful that we’ve had the opportunity to come here, and we’re going to France and Germany, and all over. I hope we never stop travelling because we are travellers, and that’s more what this is about – spreading the word and learning along the way.

[deaths_friend]

as much as i love to see aussie acts doing well on the international stage. i can't say this is one i support that much. Luke Steele (the blonde) and nick littemore (the guy who hates shirts) are two of the weirdest and most talented artists in aus. together i don't think they offer that much.

 

i remember hearing their debut album back in august. and i can't say i was all that impressed. yeah it was creative and colourful but it just lacked substance. there was nothing spectacular or brilliant about it. there are moments on the album like Half Mast where you just go WOW but for the most part its rather ordinary.

 

nonetheless the band has become massive down here in australia even though the bands of each artist (Sleepy Jackson for Steele and Pnau for Littlemore) have never enjoyed much success. yes this is nothing more than a side project.

 

the band i think everyone should be looking out from Australia is Temper Trap. check out their song Sweet Disposition

[deeterrocks101]

I honestly think that this is really good stuff!!! Its something different from what I'm used to listening.

[iPsy]

The song Walking On A Dream is absolutely awesome :D, Alot like MGMT ;)

[Rad-Cold]

I heard the song for weeks now on the radio, its good. But the new mgmt? Dunno, they're really weird..

[Black Rose]

Empire of the Sun as the next MGMT?

 

*enters Les dennis mode*

We asked 100 people and so computer is Empire of the Sun on the list of answers for the next MGMT?

 

Nee-naw, sorry it isn't on the board

*exit les dennis mode*

[Famous Old Painter]

I don't get the MGMT comparison personally.

 

Empire Of The Sun is just a side project, at least that's how it was intended.

[deaths_friend]

^^

 

i don't think it will remain as just a side project. this has been much more successful than Sleepy Jackson or Pnau. but Luke Steele does have a Sleepy Jackson album lined and is working on an album with Daniel Johns from Silverchair

[Dejan]

I don't get the MGMT comparison personally.

 

Empire Of The Sun is just a side project, at least that's how it was intended.

 

 

So there's no comparison with the mgmt because this is a side project ?

I DON'T GET IT...

[tauiwi]

I think the comparison is fair, because both groups are duos that like to dress up like wierdos. There are 4 songs on the album that are really great!

[anniea89]

We Are The People is amazing. I really love it.

[yellowtalk]

I really like them...i know they're outfits are a bit out there but it makes em unique :D

[deaths_friend]

another thing common between the bands is how front-heavy both their albums are (best songs at the start then gets worse as it goes) maybe its just a thing with these psychadelic pop bands.

 

personally i prefer their regular gigs with Sleepy Jackson and Pnau