Loud Noise and Pictures

A year or so ago, if not longer, Daniel Boud planted the word ‘bluejuice‘ into my subconcious with his photos and stories of the irreverant Sydney band. Playing some retarded inbred lovechild of a hip hop, electro, rock threesome whereby two musical sperm, one from hip hop and one from electro, fertilised the egg of rock at the exact same time. I don’t believe there is a more medical term for this than ‘Fucked Up’.

After releasing the disturbingly wonderful Problems last year, they’ve been touring, jumping out of planes, breaking themselves, breaking spirits, getting arrested, working day jobs, and touring their arses off some more.

Bass player Jamie took time out of his day to answer a few of our questions…

 

What have you interrupted to do this interview?

 

Work! We mostly have music-related jobs when we’re not making music-related albums.

 

Your video for Vitriol beat out a video by some friends of mine in the finals for the Sunscreen video comp a year or so back. For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that they’re really cut up about it. Any advice for them?

 

I’d suggest that having a walk in the sunshine, or patting a friendly dog, or meeting an old friend for ice-cream; all these things can help one escape the crushing burden of depression. There will always be another Sunscreen video comp, and when that day comes, you can finally leave your darkened room with hope in your hearts.

 

About your videos, you guys have some pretty different ideas when it comes to concepts. Your video for The Reductionist, for instance, sees Jake and Stav skydiving whilst still singing along. How much planning and co-ordination did that require? Can you give us a rundown of how the whole thing came about?

 

Well, actually – I can’t. I was the only one in the band who refused to do the jump, so I didn’t have much to do with it. I’m not afraid of skydiving you understand – I’m just frightened of what latent emotions might erupt if I’m strapped to another man in a harness.

Basically though, as I understand it, Jake and Stav did two jumps each, with iPods in their ears, and the iPods played The Reductionist over and over so that they could sing in time. The director of the clip jumped with them, as well as a second cameraman. To finish there was an exhaustive laundry session involving Stav’s pants.

 

I saw another video on Youtube of Jake being arrested mid set. What exactly happened there?

 

During a show, Jake was wearing a NSW police shirt, and halfway through the set (which, I might add, was for a tsunami benefit) three cops jumped on-stage and escorted him off. He was charged with impersonating an officer or something, but the charges were later thrown out in court, suggesting that the cops in question were utter imbeciles.

 

Your live shows are known to be a hotbed of acrobatics, energy, and nudity. Last time I saw you guys was at Transit Bar in Canberra and there was plenty of swinging from lighting rigs and such, and I’ll be there at Trackside when you play. Do you tend to go off more at a small venue or at a festival?

 

Playing to thousands at a festival is energising every time, though I still think we’re slightly more suited to dank drinking dungeons. Everything is more immediate in a smaller venue, and the crowd gets a better opportunity to cop a faceful of whatever liquid is coming out of our bodies at the time.

 

You guys supported Tricky when he played The Metro, how did that go? Something about breaking something? Do you think you upstaged the main act? Personally, I’d shit myself if I thought Tricky was worried I’d stolen his thunder. Hell, I feel bad just using his name without permission.

 

Yeah, Jake was a little frustrated, and he punched the stage hard enough to break his hand (having already broken his leg a month before). There was no real risk of us upstaging Tricky that night – he was great (and must have developed some serious whiplash from all the head-thrashing he does).

He did offer to help us carry my speaker after the show, which was frightening enough.

 

Obligitory follow-up album question: What’s the plan? How do you top the cover art?

 

We’ve worked up a pool of pretty good songs for the next album. We’ve also written some really shit ones, which as my girlfriend might point out – is most of them.

As for the cover art, maybe we’ll disembowel some baby hedgehogs on the next cover. That’s the only thing I can think of that would be more disturbing that the last one.

 

Did you know Micheal Parkinson was possibly going to be called Melbourne Gershwin Parkinson? How would you ridicule that in a playground?

 

How could you ridicule Parkinson? You’d try to insult him and he’d just smile sweetly, and ask you a gently probing question about your upbringing, followed by some carefully researched questions about your career and in no time you’d be having a laugh and chatting to Hugh Grant about where to find the best pot of tea in Derbyshire.

 

What are you going to be doing right after this interview?

 

The powers that be are replacing our PCs with Macs this afternoon. So I’ll probably spend the next 5 hours right-clicking things that should be double-clicked, or whatever the difference is.

 

bluejuice are playing near you real soon.

 

Nov 22^nd            – Trackside Festival, Canberra

Nov 23^rd                – VROOM Summer Escape Festival, Perth

Nov 29-30^th      – Queenscliff Music Festival, Queenscliff

Dec 6^th                   – Homebake, Sydney

Dec 30^th            – Peats Ridge Festival, Glenworth Valley

Dec 31^st            – Purple Sneakers NYE Party, Sydney