The Aussie trio of Vincent Vendetta (vocals/keys), Andrew Juggernaut (vocals/guitar/bass) and Daniel Stricker (drums) talked about playing the U.S., playing Europe, the perils of flying, the perils of being from Australia, where they are on their follow-up to their debut, Dystopia (QRO review), how they got their ‘big break’ opening for Justice, how all modern relationships begin, feeling like The Beatles in the city of Japan, lucid dreaming, their Spinal Tap/James Bond moment in a small town in Austria, and more…
QRO: This is the fourth of five special U.S. dates. How did these come about?
Daniel Stricker: We were invited to go on tour with VICE. We noticed we weren’t going to be doing a New York date, and at first we just thought we’d skip it, but then we realized, ‘You can’t come to America and not go to New York’, so we set up this date.
Andrew Juggernaut: With like two weeks notice.
DS: And it’s sold really well.
QRO: You just came over from Europe, have already flown across the U.S., and will be flying back to Europe. How do you handle the jetlag and what have you?
DS: It’s tough. You sleep when you can, but so often our flights are in the early morning, or right after a gig.
Vincent Vendetta: A lot of times, we’ll have a day or two off scheduled, and think, ‘That’s when we can rest’ – and then we’ll get a call to do another gig, during that time. ‘Do you want to go to Austria?…’
DS: I’m out of it right now – lucid dreaming…
QRO: With all that flying, how do you keep your equipment from being broken or damaged?
AJ: You don’t – it’s tough. We’ve had pedals damaged, guitars damaged…
DS: My cymbals have been damaged…
AJ: And we just lost a guitar.
QRO: Do you have plans to do a ‘full-fledged’ U.S. tour at some point, as opposed to just ‘select cities’?
DS: We’ve wanted to really ‘do America’, but we’ve been focusing on Europe so much right now, and after this, we’ve got a U.K. tour. And then we’re going back to Australia.
VV: We were doing the European festival circuit, Glastonbury and the like. And it was beautiful – we didn’t wear our galoshes once.
DS: We’d like to do a full U.S. tour – less flying.
QRO: Where are you on new, post-Dystopia material?
AJ: We’ve got a few – I don’t know if we’re going to play any new tracks. We’re gonna do a lot of new ‘jams’. We’ve kind of been getting off into these new prog tangents – which is a lot of fun, but a little self-indulgent. But I think people can get into it.
This one track we’ve been working on, I think we’ve played two or three times.
DS: It’s pretty early stages.
AJ: We’ve been touring so much, so it’s pretty hard, to play every day. We don’t really have time to rehearse. We just keep playing, and keep playing.
DS: So there’s a lot of stuff floating around…
AJ: I think the thing is, we’ve been writing a lot, and when this round of touring ends, we’re really hoping to get straight into the album a little bit.
QRO: Do you feel any extra pressure wit the next album, to avoid any ‘sophomore slump’?
DS: We were talking about this the other day…
AJ: It doesn’t feel like it really applies to us. It still feels like we’re still building on something.
DS: This album’s done really well, because everyone’s really inspired at the moment. Even though we’ve been on the road, ‘cause we’ve been writing, all that’s been coming out.
QRO: How did you come into contact with Justice?
VV: We noticed that we were on some small compilations together. We knew their music, obviously, because they were blowing up, and they knew us through the same circles. That was before we had any proper releases, apart from a few vinyl releases, here and there.
I think we met up, and then sent messages to each other across the Internet – as all modern relationships begin…
DS: It was really organic. I think all the relationships that you keep, it’s organic at the beginning.
VV: When we met, they were like, ‘Oh, we really like your stuff’ – and we thought they were just being nice. But then we went online and saw that they were really pushing us out there, in all the interviews – ‘Oh, wow…’
We call them ‘our French P.R. team’…
QRO: Canada, Sweden, and some other countries have government programs that give state support to their musicians. Does Australia?
AJ: It does, but not like those places.
DS: Not in the same way.
AJ: It’s pretty hard. You can apply for grants, but it’s kind of a tough process.
VV: Certain sectors of the arts, like Australian films, are all completely government funded, a majority. But I think, musicians, ‘Why are we going to give money to these drunkards?…’
DS: ‘These vagabonds…’
And the thing is, we did everything independently, released on our own album. And now we’ve done a license deal with a bigger label (EMI/Astralwerks) but, you’ve gotta build that slowly. It’s better to do that slowly, anyway – I think, if you rush something, you over-hype something, and it kind of crumbles.
QRO: When you travel to the States, do you notice the strong Australian dollar vs. the weak American dollar?
AJ: It’s kind of changing now. It’s dropping a bit.
The thing was, we’ve been in Europe for so long, the Australian dollar to the euro and the pound is terrible – it’s really expensive for us. And the U.S. and Australian one were getting close – and you do actually get excited about it, because you’re like, ‘Wow, when we go to the U.S. and spend time there, it’s not costing us as much.’
You can’t help but pay attention to that, because we’re in these countries all the time.
QRO: The sort of dance/electronic music of you guys, Justice, and other bands seem to be particularly spread around the world, even in seemingly unlikely places (like Louisville, Kentucky’s VHS or Beta). Do you think there’s any reason behind that?
VV: Yeah, it’s strange.
DS: I guess there’s kind of a disconnection going, seeing stuff from different context, that probably influences music – not necessarily dance music, but just create something different and fresh.
VV:
It’s where most people get their music from as well, so it’s probably the main reason why it’s come from such random places.
QRO: Are you local heroes in Melbourne, or are you nobody there?
VV: Well, we like to think of ourselves that way, but I think it’s always going to be Australian sporting heroes who are going to be a level before us.
DS: We haven’t been to Australia in so long, so it’s going to be weird.
We actually were just nominated for this big award, and the awards ceremony is the week we get home. It’s like the biggest music awards…
AJ: It’s like the Australian Grammys…
DS: So it’s going to be fun – it’s going to be very weird.
QRO: Are there any songs you particularly like playing live?
DS: “[Into the] Galaxy” is one. Anything that you can reinterpret.
AJ: I think it’s whatever’s the freshest thing we’re working on is always exciting.
VV: A ‘new, fresh jam’…
DS: Anything you can take the audience on a journey.
Midnight Juggernauts playing "Into the Galaxy" live @ (le) Poisson Rouge, New York, NY on September 13th, 2008:
QRO: Are there any that you can’t play live?
DS: No.
AJ: There’s a couple of tracks that we don’t play live.
VV:
That will be a challenge, ‘How will we bring this to the stage?’
QRO: What cities or venues have you really liked playing at?
DS: City? Japan – loved Japan. New York…
AJ: City? You mean country…
DS: I mean Tokyo – sorry, I’m so tired. I told you, I’m lucid dreaming…
Venue? Bowery [Ballroom – QRO venue review]’s pretty cool. [(Le) Poisson Rouge – QRO venue review] is pretty cool. Club 77 in Sydney, Australia.
Man, I’m so tired, I can’t even think…
QRO: Do you have a favorite tour story?
VV: Maybe one tour story, which just happened, last week, where we went to Austria. And we thought it was just going to be a normal gig, and then we turn up to the venue, and the woman says, “Okay, you realize, this is for the new James Bond film. You’re going to be setting up on stage, behind the missiles on the stage. And the missiles go off, and when you see the explosions, the band is going to be pushed forward, through the smoke…”
DS:
AJ: And Jaws was in the audience!
DS: It was in the middle of this small town in Austria, and they’d invited all these old villains from the history of James Bond to the show. They were all there; they were acting out scenes.
VV: And as she was explaining it, we were trying to keep a straight face…
DS: That and getting given these weird presents in Japan by fans.
It’s the only place and the world where I reckon you feel like The Beatles. It’s crazy. We’d leave the hotel room and there would be people waiting downstairs with boxer shorts.
VV: And we hadn’t had a chance to do any laundry, and it was a really great gift – we all appreciated it.
