Muscles - Interview
22 year old Muscles is the son of a crocodile farmer and was born in the small Australian outback town of White Cliffs. Whilst other kids were banging their heads to Sabbath and Deep Purple, Muscles embraced himself with 90s pop singles, bad trance compilations and Super Nintendo. His debut album Guns, Babes and Lemonade is gonna be out soon and with a build up and album title like that, I doubt we’ll be the only ones wanting to find about a bit more about the man they call Muscles.
noize: Hi Muscles, how are you?
Muscles: I'm awesome! Just in Melbourne, currently on my first real huge Australian tour. Probably the most insane month of my life.
n: For people who have never heard your music, how would you describe it?
M: Young explosive shouty electronic pop music!
n: What first attracted you to dance music and at what age did you decide you wanted to get involved with it professionally, what album, track or moment sealed your love of the beats?
M: I was year 7 at high school when I started learning how to make beats on my computer. There was a moment where I was reading a DJ magazine with an interview with someone who I can't remember. They were talking about how they'd been dj'ing for 10-15 years and were only becoming popular then, in the late 90s. I thought to myself If I start learning now, I'll be set when I'm in my early 20s and strangely enough it worked. There was no particular track or album that sparked this.
n: What is the Australian music scene like, who are the hot Aussie acts we should know about? How did it feel to play at the Australian-only music festival, 'Homebake'?
M: Homebake was pretty huge, nearly 10,000 people shouting the lyrics to my songs, one of the twenty festivals I played last year. It was so crazy, like a year before that i was playing to 10 people in indie dance clubs in Melbourne and Sydney. Last year just grew and grew and went into overdrive once my debut album Guns Babes Lemonade was released.
n: What was the best thing about supporting Daft Punk on their Australian 'Never Ever Land' tour? Did you learn any valuable lessons from being on the road with the giants of dance music?
M: It was great just to be there and see their show five times and see the crowds go nuts! The Sydney show was amazing cause it was the biggest crowd thats ever sung along to my song Ice Cream.
n: Your MySpace boasts an eclectic list of influences ranging from teenage heartthrob, Ricky Martin, to kid's television channel, Nickelodeon, via rap's cheeky chappy, Mike Skinner. How has such a diverse range of sources influenced your music?
M: Haha! The Myspace influences are me mucking around mostly, I'll be lying in bed at 3am and think something like 'VENGABOYS! and write it on a post it note. Probably will be more ridiculous by the time you are reading this. Childrens television was a huge inspiration for the whole feeling and attitude of my album, shows that are really fun and off beat intelligent.
n: Which requirements are necessary for someone to be deemed as having an influence on your life and / or you music would you say?
M: I'm a big fan of artists who have interesting voices, it took me ages to figure out how I was going to make my voice work with the productions I wanted to make. I just chucked it all in there, spent a lot of time listening to other dance artists early material and debut albums and deciding what I wanted to do. Going through that whole process when you're writing, recording, singing, mixing all the material yourself is challenging for the first time. Everything I recorded in my bedroom is exactly what you get on the record.
n: You state Gorillaz as another influence of yours but I see no Blur in your list. What makes Albarn's second major project better than the one that shot him to Britpop fame in your opinion?
M: Never really got into Blur, probably a combination of being too young and listening to top 40 instead?
n: You're signed to Modular, one of the hottest dance and indie labels around right now, with acts such as MSTRKRFT, Chromeo, New Young Pony Club the list goes on. Can you tap into this hot bed of talent and rub shoulders with all your label mates? Any plans to collaborate with any of them?
M: I met and played with a few of the bands but there will definitely be no plans on collaborating with anyone yet as much as I love them. I am a strong producer on my own, maybe in future if I start running out of ideas? I don't do remixes or DJ so just want to spend full time making my new material as powerful as it should be. Been working on my new album in between my current Australian tour and hoping to have it finished by the end of the year.
n: Where was the best show you ever played and what made it so special?
M: Every show since September last year has been intense and beyond amazing cause the energy is so fierce at every show. Hugely positive energetic fans who go all out and make the shows special, the club promoters keep saying they've never seen anything like it before. A girl threw her chicken fillets (fake boobs) at me a few days ago, it made me feel very special.
n: So the album's almost with us, 'Guns Babes Lemonade'. Where did that title come from, your three favourite things / a bit of hip-hop humour or somewhere else? What else apart from that intriguing combination of items influenced the sound and themes of the album?
M: Action movies, its like Die Hard. When I first came up with the name, I never thought that guns were slang for Muscles like your biceps so it pretty much sealed the deal when it was time to release the album. The songwriting themes for the album is being young like twelve or fifteen years old, and parallel between the things you go through growing up and how it comes back to you, or is still there when you're eighteen or older.
n: Do you really expect ice cream to save the day as stated on the new single 'Ice Cream'? How do you expect this will happen, cooling down global warming maybe?
M: It has unique spiritual and healing elements, if you conjure up positive brainwaves when you eat Ice Cream good things happen to you. Not if you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner though, then you will just get overweight.
n: What advice would you give to those wishing to pursue a career in dance / electronic music?
M: Be fun, interesting, unexpected. Don't do what everyone else is doing or think you have to fit in with what DJs play, come up with your own ideas. Don't be a mimic. The ideas have to be overflowing.
Interview by Devon Bianchi
www.myspace.com/musclesmusic
Click here to read more Muscles related articles
Buy Muscles CDs & Vinyl
Buy Muscles MP3s
Buy Muscles Tickets
noize: Hi Muscles, how are you?
Muscles: I'm awesome! Just in Melbourne, currently on my first real huge Australian tour. Probably the most insane month of my life.
n: For people who have never heard your music, how would you describe it?
M: Young explosive shouty electronic pop music!
n: What first attracted you to dance music and at what age did you decide you wanted to get involved with it professionally, what album, track or moment sealed your love of the beats?
M: I was year 7 at high school when I started learning how to make beats on my computer. There was a moment where I was reading a DJ magazine with an interview with someone who I can't remember. They were talking about how they'd been dj'ing for 10-15 years and were only becoming popular then, in the late 90s. I thought to myself If I start learning now, I'll be set when I'm in my early 20s and strangely enough it worked. There was no particular track or album that sparked this.
n: What is the Australian music scene like, who are the hot Aussie acts we should know about? How did it feel to play at the Australian-only music festival, 'Homebake'?
M: Homebake was pretty huge, nearly 10,000 people shouting the lyrics to my songs, one of the twenty festivals I played last year. It was so crazy, like a year before that i was playing to 10 people in indie dance clubs in Melbourne and Sydney. Last year just grew and grew and went into overdrive once my debut album Guns Babes Lemonade was released.
n: What was the best thing about supporting Daft Punk on their Australian 'Never Ever Land' tour? Did you learn any valuable lessons from being on the road with the giants of dance music?
M: It was great just to be there and see their show five times and see the crowds go nuts! The Sydney show was amazing cause it was the biggest crowd thats ever sung along to my song Ice Cream.
n: Your MySpace boasts an eclectic list of influences ranging from teenage heartthrob, Ricky Martin, to kid's television channel, Nickelodeon, via rap's cheeky chappy, Mike Skinner. How has such a diverse range of sources influenced your music?
M: Haha! The Myspace influences are me mucking around mostly, I'll be lying in bed at 3am and think something like 'VENGABOYS! and write it on a post it note. Probably will be more ridiculous by the time you are reading this. Childrens television was a huge inspiration for the whole feeling and attitude of my album, shows that are really fun and off beat intelligent.
n: Which requirements are necessary for someone to be deemed as having an influence on your life and / or you music would you say?
M: I'm a big fan of artists who have interesting voices, it took me ages to figure out how I was going to make my voice work with the productions I wanted to make. I just chucked it all in there, spent a lot of time listening to other dance artists early material and debut albums and deciding what I wanted to do. Going through that whole process when you're writing, recording, singing, mixing all the material yourself is challenging for the first time. Everything I recorded in my bedroom is exactly what you get on the record.
n: You state Gorillaz as another influence of yours but I see no Blur in your list. What makes Albarn's second major project better than the one that shot him to Britpop fame in your opinion?
M: Never really got into Blur, probably a combination of being too young and listening to top 40 instead?
n: You're signed to Modular, one of the hottest dance and indie labels around right now, with acts such as MSTRKRFT, Chromeo, New Young Pony Club the list goes on. Can you tap into this hot bed of talent and rub shoulders with all your label mates? Any plans to collaborate with any of them?
M: I met and played with a few of the bands but there will definitely be no plans on collaborating with anyone yet as much as I love them. I am a strong producer on my own, maybe in future if I start running out of ideas? I don't do remixes or DJ so just want to spend full time making my new material as powerful as it should be. Been working on my new album in between my current Australian tour and hoping to have it finished by the end of the year.
n: Where was the best show you ever played and what made it so special?
M: Every show since September last year has been intense and beyond amazing cause the energy is so fierce at every show. Hugely positive energetic fans who go all out and make the shows special, the club promoters keep saying they've never seen anything like it before. A girl threw her chicken fillets (fake boobs) at me a few days ago, it made me feel very special.
n: So the album's almost with us, 'Guns Babes Lemonade'. Where did that title come from, your three favourite things / a bit of hip-hop humour or somewhere else? What else apart from that intriguing combination of items influenced the sound and themes of the album?
M: Action movies, its like Die Hard. When I first came up with the name, I never thought that guns were slang for Muscles like your biceps so it pretty much sealed the deal when it was time to release the album. The songwriting themes for the album is being young like twelve or fifteen years old, and parallel between the things you go through growing up and how it comes back to you, or is still there when you're eighteen or older.
n: Do you really expect ice cream to save the day as stated on the new single 'Ice Cream'? How do you expect this will happen, cooling down global warming maybe?
M: It has unique spiritual and healing elements, if you conjure up positive brainwaves when you eat Ice Cream good things happen to you. Not if you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner though, then you will just get overweight.
n: What advice would you give to those wishing to pursue a career in dance / electronic music?
M: Be fun, interesting, unexpected. Don't do what everyone else is doing or think you have to fit in with what DJs play, come up with your own ideas. Don't be a mimic. The ideas have to be overflowing.
Interview by Devon Bianchi
www.myspace.com/musclesmusic
Click here to read more Muscles related articles
Buy Muscles CDs & Vinyl
Buy Muscles MP3s
Buy Muscles Tickets
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