Phwoar.

That’s a full stream of my interview from last week with Axle Whitehead. In the interview we discuss his upcoming album, taking time off, why Avril Lavigne is a cunt, stripping off for the gays and - the topic I enjoyed the ‘moist’ (DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!) - his cock ‘n balls.

You can also download - via RapidShare - the interview if you wish. Link here.

Axle’s brilliant debut single, “I Don’t Do Surprises,” is released this Saturday the 8th of March. You should definitely buy it from either iTunes, Sanity, or one of those novel record stores (!) in your nearby shopping mall.  You can also buy the very-nice-on-the-eyes video clip, again over at iTunes.

Oh, hello there… 

Phwoar.

WOULDN’T YOU JUST?

So on Friday afternoon I’ll be chatting to the seriously delicious Axle Whitehead about his aces new single “I Don’t Do Surprises,” and no doubt covering the whole cock-flashing thing. Sadly, it’s not an in-studio interview and I can’t ask for a personal demonstration, but I’m sure he’ll make it down to Geelong sometime in the near future.

Was just wondering if any of you lot had a question you’d like me to ask of Mr. Whitehead? Email or pop the question in the comments field. The best will brought up on Friday afternoon and, more than likely, a couple of the worst too.

Oh, and his clip is finally on YouTube for those who couldn’t view it on the Hot Hits website.

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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

So those crazy kids from Stefy are finally releasing their UK #82 smash single “Chelsea” in Australia this month through Central Station records.  Their 2006 debut L.P, “The Orange Album,” was actually quite brilliant, and from what I’ve seen of their live shows on YouTube, they’re quite the act to catch in the flesh.  As a casual fan of their stuff I was pretty keen when the offer came up to speak with lead vocalist, the cute Stefy Rae last month, to help promote the release of their old-new single in Australia for Forte Magazine.  We covered some topics of interest and some of nil interest.  Either way, I decided to splice it all up in a series of highlighted sections, rather than, you know, actually write up a feature story.  Here is what that printed piece looks like.

STEFY ON… COMING TO AUSTRALIA.
“I definitely hope we get to come down.  Everything’s sort of up in the air at the moment so we’ve gotta see what happens with the single, but we are dying to come down under.”

STEFY ON… ALBUM NUMBER 2.
“We’re in the middle of recording it right now and are hoping to have it ready by Summertime (Australian Winter.)  It’s really going to be the older sister of The Orange Album.  You know, a little bit more electronic, a little bit more grown up.”

STEFY ON… INFLUENCES & BEGININGS.
“I’ve been listening to a LOT of Justice while recording this new album.  I really, really like those guys, which is probably why the next record will be more electronica focussed.  The first album was a lot of No Doubt influences… but we’ve been influenced by a lot over the years, we got together about 4 years ago and I’d always wanted to be Deborah Harry, y’know?  So I started a band, we recorded an album and next thing I knew we had a record deal.”

STEFY ON… GWEN STEFANI COMPARISONS.
“I’m not trying to be the next Gwen Stefani, I just listen to that music.  I go into the studio and sing my heart out, I’m not trying to replace anyone.  That said, I still blush when people tell me I remind them of her (laughs.)”

STEFY ON… THE OC & LAGUNA BEACH.
“I absolutely HATE those shows.  It makes the kids in Orange County look so fake!  They’re all really rich, dealing with which BMW Daddy’s gonna buy for them – where do they find these kids?!  And those Laguna Beach girls, oh my god.  Don’t ever put me in front of any of them because something will happen.”

STEFY ON… SPIDERS.
“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry, there’s a huge spider on me and I just freaked out a little bit!  Oh my gosh, it was a huge black widow.  I HATE SPIDERS!  Oh my gosh, that thing was on my leg!”

STEFY ON… THE SPICE REUNION.
“I’m a Spice Girls fan! Is that bad?!  I’m excited, I really wanna go see them, I mean, come on, five hot chicks!  Hopefully they don’t disappoint with a bad show though.  That’d suck.”

STEFY ON… POPJUSTICE & PEREZ HILTON.
“Oh we got so much feedback thanks to those guys.  Just from the Perez Hilton thing alone we had kids on MySpace, like, 10,000 emails I kid you not from people who’d heard about us from Perez.  And then there was the Popjustice Show in London we did which was great.  We were so nervous because it was our first International show – we were so far away from home you know!?  Then when we did ‘Chelsea,’ all these people were singing the lyrics back to us, that was just so awesome.”

STEFY ON… THEIR BRITISH ‘INVASION.’
“We weren’t upset by it, not at all.  I mean, we’re not a huge band we weren’t putting a massive single out, so we were really happy with how it did.  We got a great response from the live shows in the UK… you know, it wasn’t the biggest selling single ever but it was definitely good enough for me.  I’m happy with the way things turned out and we definitely want to hit the UK again for the release of the next album.”

STEFY ON… FEMALE POP ICONS.
“Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Karen O; though she’s more of a rock goddess but she definitely still has a little bit of edgier pop in her, all women that really helped shape pop into what it is today.  Oh and Bet Ditto.  Dude, that girl has no fear, it’s amazing.”

STEFY ON… MYSPACE.
“I think MySpace is really important because you can connect with all your fans.  And you can write back to them and they can ask you questions.  In the past you could just try and write them a letter, and hope for a reply.  At least this way it’s more direct.”

She was incredibly sweet and laughed at all my jokes which has certainly gained her some real extra brownie points.  In fact, I’ve gone from really liking these guys to being somewhat obsessed with them… well, her at least anyways.  The spider debacle was rather cute too…

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Ladles & Jellyspoons, as promised, here is the interview I conducted a few weeks back with the gorgeous Tomek, Mister Drummer Man from Van She. In the interview we discuss the (then) exclusive announcement of the debut albums release date, pashing men, communism, the Vanshe Tech Remix project’s future (maybe now websites will pay attention to the bands actual music, rather than just their remixes, as good as they are,) socks, working with Cassius, Franz Ferdinand, Techno music, Touring, the creation of furniture, and Marxism. There is also a small section of the chat when the other three boys pipe in to say hello.

You can either stream the chat, or download the 15mb file to keep. Your choice…

or Download the Interview: Adem Interviews Tomek from Van She.mp3

The new single, Cat & The Eye, is out NOW on iTunes, as opposed to the December 18th release date Modular originally provided us with. The E.P. comes with two b-side’s; Danny, a totally bell-a-rific and bonkers vocoder affair, and Wine Cloud’s Water, a brilliant summer-infused indie psychedelic mess, whose lead vocals are performed by bassist Matt! You can buy the E.P. from iTunes - and I definitely urge you to do so.

If you’d like to read more about Van She, visit the eProfile, and then clicky here.

Coming soon: Interviews with Muscles, Cut Copy and Stefy.