It’s a surreal effect and also unnerving a good foil to the bubbly sugar pop up front. While Planet and Bones dominate the stage, fellow band members Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie lurk at the back, their identities concealed by costumes that look like a cross between a beekeeper suit and something you’d wear to a funeral. Australia has its turn in August, but there’ll be a teaser at the Melbourne Grand Prix next week.īones calls the costumes and personas “a functionality thing” as they “wanted to be its own project”. They’ll return to the UK in May, slotting in a major performance at Glastonbury. While touring the UK, they found themselves partying with new fans U2 and Noel Gallagher. In the 90s, Heavenly released albums not a million miles from the Confidence Man sound, such as those by Saint Etienne and Flowered Up, and the label’s founder Jeff Barrett put on early gigs by their heroes Primal Scream.īones thinks the band’s absurdist humour clicks with the Brits. The band are serious anglophiles, so signing to Heavenly Recordings in 2017 and having their tracks remixed by Andrew Weatherall was a dream. Planet dances in an animal-print halter top and hot pants, an epic sunrise behind her, while Sugar Bones, who shares vocals and shape-throwing duties, is in a billowing open shirt, 90s boyband style. “The neighbours hated us.”Īs you might imagine, the vibe is sheer escapism: the album’s first single, Holiday, is a banger with an earworm vocal about gettin’ paid and gettin’ high, perfected by a video in which the band grooves in a hot air balloon. “We’d take heaps of mushrooms and dance around, and listen to the tracks we were writing,” says Planet. It was in these climes that the dancefloor denizens recorded Tilt, their second album, in the laundry of their share house the vocal booth was a cupboard inside which Planet would shut her head. Pissing me off … You’ve got to fully commit.”ĭuring lockdown, the band moved in together and created a club in their back yard in Thornbury: the Fuck Bunker, a party pad tricked out with a spray-painted sign, lights, speakers and a smoke machine. “The number of times I’ve gone up to randoms and said, if you’re not going to dance, get off the dancefloor. “I’m always the chick at the wedding going full throttle,” Planet says of her energy on stage. With their shared love of OTT performers such as Grace Jones, Róisín Murphy, David Byrne and the Prodigy, that is the band’s ultimate mission. If you’re not going to dance, get off the dancefloor … you’ve got to fully commitīones says their extrovert personas give their audiences permission to let go and join in. When they released their debut album, Confident Music for Confident People, in 2018, it became clear this project was no side hustle: their outlandish costumes (designed by Planet), choreographed routines and bossy lyrics bring down the house at festivals around the world, from Australia’s Splendour in the Grass to Spain’s Primavera Sound. What we do know for sure is Confidence Man formed in Brisbane in 2016, made up of four friends who have also served in other bands: the Belligerents, Moses Gunn Collective and the Jungle Giants. “I don’t even know if we’re joking any more,” Planet says. Their new album, Tilt, was even released on April fool’s day. It’s unclear if all this mystery comes from a genuine need for privacy, or just extreme playfulness. I meet Planet and Bones in a Fitzroy North cafe in Melbourne their publicist has beseeched me not to publish their real names, despite these being easily found on the internet.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |