Shake Your Booty With JJJ’’s Hercules In NY
This week Musicadium has decided to copy JJJ and make their unearthed feature artist of the week ours too! But with damn good reason. These boys from Melbourne will have you dancing up a storm – you can take your pick from the ever popular 1980s ‘running man’ all the way through to an entire mind and body artistic interpretation. But no matter what you dancing style may be, it’s impossible not to bop along to their catchy yet credible electro-pop.
Sarah was lucky enough to catch up with the boys for a chat about 80s cartoons, funky mo-hawked punters and the process of shakin’ your booty.
Congrats on having your single ‘I Came Alive’ featured on JJJ unearthed.
Thankyou. We are absolutely stoked to hear it out there.
What are some Australian acts that you are excited about?
The Galvatrons give us a red-cordial rush whenever we see them. They make us feel like we’re five again and we’ve got up extra early Saturday morning, snuck a box of cocopops out of the cupboard and have settled in for a whole morning of cartoons like Transformers, Thundercats and Voltron.
If you could collaborate with any musician (living or dead) who would it be?
We’ve got some different opinions among us on this one!
Given the opportunity, Ant would love to collaborate with Kid Koala. He literally opened his mind to a new interpretation of music and song-writing. He’s not sure exactly how we would collaborate but he’d give it a try.
Marto would love for Hercules in NY to do collaboration with Kelis. Marto says she is one of the best female pop singers of his short life. “Caught out There”, that pop track with a furious Kelis railing at men “I hate you so much right now” not only introduced him to the Neptunes but also the incredibly subversive rawness of her female anger fascinates him in that song. However generally its more her laid back funky side that Marto is attracted to.
Where would you love to play a gig? Have you ever played at any unorthodox venues?
This one’s a little hard. Our ideal venue has a good live feel with a big sound, but also plenty of room for people to shake their behinds. Maybe The Palace in Melbourne (formerly Metro) because it encompasses both those ideals. Whenever we’ve played festivals in the past, they’ve proven ideal, as it’s an open and free area and everyone is supercharged from the atmosphere.
As per unorthodox venues, it depends on your definition of unorthodox. Probably playing “Bang”, a hardcore and punk night in Melbourne was the most idiosyncratic gig we played. We cleared the room, despite one funky punter with a mohawk and chain from his nose who seemed to really dig it.
We’d also love to hire out a truck and drive around Melbourne playing gigs out the back until the cops tell us to move on.
Are there any instruments or pieces of equipment that you’d love to master or experiment with?
Ant says: My personal desire is to have at least one solo per gig on a Keytar. Something powerful like the Roland Ax-1 or Ax-7. I’ve always wanted to fit in with the always popular guitarists and bass players.
Marto says: Serato, I’d love to sample people before a gig on an mp3 recorder and then scratch what they say live that night.
What has been the best live show that you have seen and why?
Ant says: Daft Punk. Last Year. Myer Music Bowl. For two blissful hours in my life, I felt 100% content. It was the perfect synthesis of audio and visual elements, I can’t endeavour to explain it any better than that!
Marto says: I saw Hexstatic do a massive VJ show, followed by Amon Tobin go absolutely crazy on the BPM’s mixing hard jazzy dnb with anything he could get his hands on.
What are your plans for the next few months? Any plans to come up to sunny QLD?
We are focusing on recording some new songs we have in the works, and look at having a product on the digital shelves before the end of the year.
We just went to sunny Darwin for the Bass in the Grass festival…we would love to come to sunny Q’ld too. We will be doing some shows later in the year to coincide with our release, so we hope to see you up there!
You are known for having a great time on stage and for dancing up a storm – how should one dance to Hercules in NY?
“Like No One is Watching!” especially considering none of us are terribly good dancers. Or…..like they did in the 1980’s – the ‘run on the spot’ dance. Or….maybe you could hang out for some type of cue from the music, allegorical or otherwise, and try and interpret it through body movements. We really don’t have it down to a science. Not yet!
Thanks so much for your time! Can’t wait to hear more great stuff from you guys!
Cheers and Thank YOU! – Hercules in NY
Check them out at JJJ
http://www.triplejunearthed.com/Artists/
Available on itunes
