For the Muppet fans among us, the name Statler and Waldorf evokes images of two wise-cracking critics, hurling insults at Fozzie Bear or a wayward thrower of fish. Increasingly around Australia, the name has formed a new association- at least with frequenters of live dance gigs. The new Statler & Waldorf are Brisbane’s eager exponents of hard and thumpin’ dance, who last year surprised an expectant public by taking a very different path for their first official release. I had the pleasure of talking with Dennis (Statler) one month after the disc’s release, back in November.

Releasing an EP of ‘collusions’ (also the album title) the Statler & Waldorf boys deviate from their crowd-pleasing 120-135 bpm dance formula, and deliver a five tracker with some rather interesting tangents. If anything, it seems that this disc will in time become a real curiosity, with guests from the worlds of hip-hop and ambient (Blue MC & Miss Brown) through to the unlikely voice and jangles of Paul Kelly. I asked Statler about the obvious down-beat shift. ‘That’s where we came from. When you hear Bass Buffer you’ll understand. Lower tempo dance, not so much hip-hop. The only track that we do that way is actually the single… and as soon as we started playing live we moved away from that ‘cause we like to play clubs… hard and goin’ for it.’

Lucky enough to have heard the S&W live sound, I commented that both the EP and their live sound lurk on the darker side of the groove. ‘Dark breaks… sort of an Underworld crossed with Chemical Brothers. That really goin’ for it club tempo. A lot of heavy bass lines. Arpeggios, that kind of thing. The sound is generally pretty full. We’ve got a lot of depth, the strings coming through, and three or four beats at any one given time. And the vocoder vocals. We use influences and ideas from other genres and bring them together into what is traditionally 120-135 bpm.’

Confessing to riding on the high that comes from driving a crowd hard, Statler attributes that ‘road-testing’ of material in clubs to the way their sound has changed… and why they already feel a long way from their EP ‘Collusions’ in terms of their own evolution. ‘Now I can’t imagine our music without the live component, but when we started we were just producers. The background of being a producer first, then a performer, then bringing it back to production again has really helped us make sure that the full depth is there in the sound when it’s recorded.’

Their production skills are certainly apparent on the recording: a contributing factor to its immediate appeal to radio stations across the nation. Triple J picked it up in it’s first week of release, pushing the single, while interstate stations like Fresh FM in Adelaide chose to push different tracks. The down-beat tracks are deep and plush, while the more up-tempo tracks still shuffle along with a unifying lilt. The final track is the exception- harder, straighter, and closer to what you can expect at an S&W show. ‘When we were looking through the catalogue we had about thirty or forty tracks to choose from. ‘Cause there’s only two of us, we can’t just write a song and just keep it live, you’ve got to put it down and then work out the next part. I wanted to have a chance to get these tracks out there and I knew if we got all the big stuff out first we wouldn’t be able to go back. Plus it’s more radio friendly, as it’s been proven. The stuff you’ll play in a club to guys chewin’ disco bikkies at 1am in the morning is not necessarily gonna do so well on radio.’

Working with collaborators has born fruit for S&W, breaking radio that tends not to lend itself to the hard dance sounds… at least not in primetime. Even better, it was something that happened naturally, and not a maligned marketing strategy. ‘That’s exactly right. We bounce off them (the guests) to an extent. We’ve accommodated them, and we haven’t had to step backwards to get it to work. We’re happy it’s genuine S&W stuff, its not like we’ve gone out to write a radio track or anything.’ And what about Paul Kelly? That has to be the most unusual choice. ‘That was a post-production thing. We said ‘hey, this is what we’ve done with your track, do you like it? Can we go ahead and do it properly?’ So yeah, he loves the track, but he didn’t have anything to do with the way it was put together. It’s really down-tempo, even for the EP.’

Obviously the S&W team are capable producers, though it seems that sharing the euphoria in clubs is really what they’re into at the moment. There was no hesitation in response when I asked Statler about a stand-out performance. ‘Infusion. That was an awesome gig. It was up in the Moon Bar at the Empire in Brisbane, which isn’t a big room, but it was full. Everyone was there for no other reason than to see us and Infusion, and everyone was so up for it when we started belting it out. It was back in July before things really went stupid, and people didn’t know really what to expect. They knew who we were, but in the room at least two out of three hadn’t heard us before… and when it really kicked in, the crowd went spastic. That rush when everyone goes ‘hey hang on, these guys don’t suck! Cool!’

On the mutual strength of their EP and live club sound, that last sentiment can be repeated with confidence. Statler & Waldorf’s debut CD ‘Collusions’ is out now on Freefall Records. See what the boys are up to next at their website, Statler assures me that their next release will be their club sound for sure – http://www.statlerandwaldorf.com.au.