STREAMING AUDIO INTERVIEW
With an accent that’s thicker than Guinness – the Irish national drink, naturally – Decky Hedrock of fast emerging outfit the Japanese Popstars is keen as mustard to bring his band down under this month for the Stereosonic national tour. Interestingly, they have a special affinity with our locally produced dance music, having seen The Presets in the very early days of their own band’s existence, instantly falling in love with their sound.
“The Presets are one of our favourite acts, but we’d never heard of them before until about 2 years ago,” Decky begins. “The week before we did our first live show we went to see Radio Soulwax in Belfast. We were basically going to see Soulwax to get an idea of what we could do live, and the band that was on before them – it was just two guys who walked on stage – we’d never heard of them before in our lives, didn’t know who they were… we started watching them play and it was The Presets! They absolutely blew us away. They stole the show from Soulwax as far as we were concerned.”
With The Presets currently riding high as the reigning princes of Australia’s music scene, the time is definitely right for the Japanese Popstars to show us how they do the sound internationally. They come highly regarded, having won the Best Live Act category at the Irish Dance Music Awards earlier this year and getting their tracks caned regularly on BBC Radio 1, so don’t miss your chance to see them live when they tour later this month.
For all the latest on Stereosonic head to inthemix’s festival page, with up to the minute news, interviews, DJ mixes, videos and more:
Nov 22 – Stereosonic, Brisbane
Nov 22 – Stereosonic Satellite v1.0, Sydney – w/ Booka Shade
Nov 29 – Stereosonic, Adelaide
Nov 29 – Stereosonic, Melbourne
Nov 30 – Stereosonic, Perth
We Just Are, the debut album from the Japanese Popstars, is out now through Central Station.
