Special Interview: Audio Blackmail

What can you tell us Aussies about you. How and where did it all begin?

Hi Brian, thanks for having us! Craig & I knew each other through mutual friends & decided to start a band a few years ago. Audio Blackmail started as a 5-member cover band but we split to become a duo & write our own music about 18 months ago.

I lived in Papua New Guinea as a child, where music is quite a big part of life and, being a pretty primitive place (no malls, game centres etc), I spent a lot of time hanging out with the locals, singing & dancing. Craig’s parents are from Guyana in South America, so he also grew up with different types of music.

We’re coming to Melbourne this month! We’re playing at The Espy on February 21st, which we’re really excited about! It’s our first interstate show. We love The Espy, playing a gig there is high on the bucket list 😉 We’re then playing SFX in Sydney on 24 March.

We just really hope that people enjoy what they hear. Impressing a wide range of people with our music is our biggest goal I guess because the sky is the limit from there. We’d love to play at festivals, support known artists, play overseas – I guess every band has those goals and dreams of course!

New music & some live shows! Our newest song ‘Periphery’ was mastered this week and is now available for free download via: www.triplejunearthed.com/audioblackmail

The song is written about being confronted with death, and was loosely written around an incident involving my mother in a sinking car 2 years ago. The car was swept off the road by storm water and the windows & doors locked, leaving Mum trapped inside as the car sunk. She was miraculously saved at the very last minute by a 6”7 Englishman, who happened to be running late for work. Mum had pretty much said her goodbyes to Dad, who she frantically called, when water was up to her neck & when she couldn’t get through to 000. The incident shocked our whole family, especially Dad after receiving that call. She’s great now though & graduated as a nurse not long after the incident.

Being nice to everyone you work with and taking no-one for granted. I think the way you treat people is important in any industry or field; I’d like to think that people who are friendly get further than those who are awful! Of course dedication, determination etc are important factors but you don’t get anywhere being a @&^%(*! Being appreciative of people who support you is a big thing for me; I’ve gone off ‘too cool for school’ bands, purely because of the way they’ve treated their audience/supporters. As for a highlight… we played at a TEDx event at Macquarie University late last year; we managed to get most of the crowd up dancing (bellydancing even!), they’d all been seated before that.

I’m really into Chairlift and Foster the People at the moment – their latest albums are amazing. We both love Lady Hawke, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Ting Tings, New Order… so many more!

Alpine, Miami Horror, Cassette Kids, Sneaky Sound System, Kylie Minogue, Strange Talk, Elizabeth Rose, Silverchair…and of course Jimmy Barnes & John Farnham 😉

It certainly is a lot easier to get music heard these days; there used to be a time when you would discover a hidden gem of a completely unknown artist / band at the second-hand CD shop and actually feel proud for finding it! Now you can pretty much get all the music you could ever want very easily through itunes, myspace, facebook, etc…. which is great, but it’s more of a passive experience for the listener. That’s why we make it a real focus of ours to entertain the audience when we play live. If people have made the effort to come and see us live then the least we can do is make it worth their while. Triple J is a fantastic avenue for artists to be given the chance to get noticed; I’ve found many new bands through Unearthed i.e Alpine and Elizabeth Rose, who weren’t really known at all when I came across them but are now doing amazingly well.

We really appreciate every individual who supports us in any way so thank you for listening to us, telling people about us, following us online and for coming to shows – it all means a lot to us and makes us want to continue on this journey! Thanks 🙂

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