Recently I interviewed Modular boy Muscles. I’ve been waiting for the right time to pop this little piece up and now that he’s released the aces single “Sweaty” in the UK this gone Monday, I thought that now was as good a time as ever. It’s probably one of my favourite pieces of writing, so I hope some of you enjoy it as much as I did piecing it all together.

Muscles is sitting outside in the sun, soaking up the delights of a Sydney summers day whilst it pours down with rain back in his adoptive hometown of Melbourne. Typical. Whilst he may be out having fun in the sun, contrary to popular belief, there’s no lemonade today or, for that matter, any hammocks either. But there is some raspberry cordial, which could very well end up being the central motif for the follow up album to this mans incredibly massive debut Guns Babes Lemonade. “I haven’t had raspberry cordial in a while actually,” he says with a grin. “I reckon I might get stuck into it over Summer though, cordial is very good for hot weather.”

It’s moments like this that confirm Muscles is far from being a pretentious rock star, opting to discuss the delightful ingestion of cool beverages and being a Cottee’s kid rather than sex, drugs and rock and roll. This is a boy from Shepparton who came to the big smoke to do what he loves; to make great dance music about Ice Cream and Lemonade, and to then play it live for hundreds of people. Seems to have been a wise move. Muscles’ first full length album debuted on the ARIA charts at Number #14 earlier this year in its first week. No one was more surprised than Muscles himself. “I woke up on the Sunday morning and received a call from a friend at the label,” he says. “He asked me if I wanted to know where the album had charted, and I really didn’t want to. I wanted to wait till that evening when the charts were posted on the Internet. I was a bit worried [that the final charting] would be really crap, and that I’d get dropped from my label, but yeah, it came in at number 14! People were sort of expecting Top 30, and breaking into the Top 20’s pretty hard, so it was really cool cracking into that simply with support from alternative radio and playing lots of live shows.”

The beginning of the Muscles success story reads like a fairy tale. The wonder-kid plays sets across Melbourne and Sydney over the latter half of last year and the earlier crack of this one. One night, the big-wig’s from Modular Records show up. After his set, they invite him to join them the next day for a meeting to discuss the release of his album. “Up until then, I wasn’t really on their radar, and they weren’t really on mine either,” he suggests. “At the same time [that the Modular deal happened] I started getting a lot of airplay on JJJ and heaps of other record labels began contacting me (laughs.) But Modular seemed like the best choice, they knew what was right for the music.” Music which has ignited many interesting debates. There seems to be no middle-of-the-road stance when it comes to Muscles’ unique brand of shouty-and-ironic-but-not-really-actually dance music. You either love him and his uncanny similarities to Gavin Rossdale in vocal delivery, or you just absolutely hate it. Either way, he’s happy. “The haters? Yeah, they’re pretty funny man, it’s good to have a balance!”

Not wanting to succumb to any sort of electronic musical trend, tracks like The Lake and Lauren From Glebe on his debut LP incorporate large, vibrant 90’s-esque trance riffs. “I love trance!” he beams with extreme gusto. “I always listened to the big commercial trance that was pumped out every month back in the late 90’s. In general, I just really love synths and the different kind of synth sounds you can make. I don’t want to be apart of any kind of trendy or cool electronic music clique, I just wanna produce music that I like.” A cool electronic music clique? “I don’t know if they’re trying to sound cool,” he says, “but it’s really easy to copy what someone else has done. Trying to create something new and exciting is a lot harder than copying someone else. Maybe they’re just trying to take the easy road?” Hmm. Ice Cream for thought.

Our conversation swiftly reverts back to the good times, discussing the stories behind some of his lyrics; (We spent our Summer drinking lemonade in hammocks.) “I didn’t really spend all of my summer drinking lemonade in hammocks,” he says with a laugh. “I like lemonade and I like sitting in hammocks, so I thought I’d put ‘em together.” So he’s fine with the possibility of a new lemonade/hammock trend he may have ignited over these warmer months? “Yeah man, you should send me a photo of yourself drinking lemonade in hammocks this summer! I reckon that’d be sweet.”

Just like raspberry cordial hey Muscles?

http://www.musclesmusic.net/
http://myspace.com/musclesmusic