Sauce

On September 7th, a glow will be cast over the Tasmanian music scene. It will be an Electronic Sunset. It will be a deep orange, and it will make noise. Lots of noise. That day will be the dawn of the second EP from acclaimed electro-rock duo The Scientists Of Modern Music. Cal Young spoke to me about pre-gig rituals, and his desire for a vocoder shaped like Angelina Jolie.A little birdie just whispered in our ear – a fairly reputable little birdie – who said that you guys were getting a lot of interest from labels in the UK, Europe and the US. Fess up, boys – what’s going on here?
We’re signed to Rubber Records in Australia, but we can’t say anything more than that for the moment …

Do any of them have a name as cool as Rubber Records?
I think Rubber tops it in the spectrum of the bizarre and unique.

You guys recently finished work on your Electronic Sunset EP – when are you going to be launching it?
Well the EP comes out on the first of September but we’ll be launching it on the seventh at Moorilla. It’s gonna be one hell of a party! We’ve been planning this for ages now, and I think it’s about time we did something about it. We have some rad bands booked, and some tricks up our sleeves that we’ll be pulling out on the night.

What colour is an electronic sunset, and why?
I’ve always pictured it as the same colour as one of those heat bars in those old Vulcan floor heaters you see lying around the place; a nice, deep orange glow. It’s less harsh than something that could potentially blind you.

I was watching some live footage from your hell-tough set at Falls, and it got me to thinking. Purely from a design and layout perspective, what’s the best stage you’ve ever played on, and why?
We’ve played on many stages, and my memory fails me with all the specs, but usually we love to perform on a large stage with plenty of space behind us. Small cramped stages are interesting, because we have to use our imagination, but if we have a lot of room, we get a load of spasm space.

What deeper meaning is there behind the use of black and white in your outfits? In what ways is your musical partnership a bit of a yin/yang kind of thing?
It’s a secret.

So what’s a secret you can tell me?
Se-cret (pronounced see-krit)
-noun
1. Something that is kept secret, hidden or concealed.

You just supported the Midnight Juggernauts, and I understand you were dropping a big chunk of the new EP during your set. How were the crowd reactions to it? Which ones were the most popular?
Yeah, a large chunk of our set is from the EP, and those are the songs we usually play live anyway. Most of the time we get a great reaction towards the tracks; we put a lot of energy into performing them and it makes the experience of listening and watching a whole lot different.

What kind of pre-gig ritual do you have? What are both of you doing five minutes before the gig? What about one minute before?
Depends on the situation really, but most of the time we’re out the back somewhere about to shit ourselves or vomit. It’s great! We prefer it that way, because it means we’re either excited or nervous, and those feelings add to the adrenalin when we get out onto the stage.

And what’s your favourite method of chilling out when you first step back in the green room?
If there’s a couch or some kind of comfy seat waiting for us after a performance, with an ice-cold bottle of water, then that makes us happy … happy as Larry, or Jason, or Steven, or whoever is happy at the time …

If you could combine any two instruments or styles of music in a really original way, what would they be, and what do you think it would sound like?
I’ve always had a bit of a thing for the Sitar – I’ve loved the unique sound ever since I heard it in the song Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles. I think it would be kind of eerie and amazing to combine it with a vocoder, just to see what happens. That’s the cool thing about vocoders – you can combine any instrument with it to create something so alien within a composition.

You guys have always played around with your identities in the press. Is this something you’ll continue to do later in your career, when TSOMM gets more and more exposure [which you will]? Personally, I’ve always been a fan of the Daft Punk bike helmets …
Yeah, most definitely. We’ll continue to annoy media folk with our identities for as long as possible. It’s always funny to hear what people have to say when we submit photos. “Oh … you aren’t showing your faces?” It’s amusing because we’re all so used to the norm, and everyone usually expects to see a posing shot of a musician or a group. Honestly, though, we aren’t very skilled at posing – we’ve tried it many a time and failed, probably because we can’t keep a straight face. That’s just how we are.

From memory, the first time I interviewed you, you had an alarming fixation on your ass. It was “ass-this” and “ass-that” … my god, man – it was like an ass ho-down! How have your feelings towards your rump changed over time?
Oh yeah! I remember reading the article after it was published – Simon and I laughed so hard that we peed a little … I think after that he didn’t really trust me anymore as the media slut. But hey, look at me now!

What do you think is sexier – Angelina Jolie naked, or a brand new vocoder? How would you compare them? And what are the pros and cons of each?
Why can’t I have the best of both worlds? An Angelina Jolie-shaped vocoder? Now there’s a kind of creepy-but-sexy combination. I guess to compare the two, a vocoder doesn’t have breasts – only knobs – and I can’t exactly plug a mic into Jolie either. If you can, that would be amazing.

But where would you plug it into?
He-he …

The Scientists launch their EP at Moorilla in Hobart on the 7th of September, get smashed at the Curly’s Bar afterparty later that night, and play Launceston’s Saloon on the 15th.