Only positive press has surrounded the latest Junior boys album which is old news by now, due to the early leak (four months early) and the pace that music is thrown at us these days.
After their show at Mercy Lounge, I was able to talk with Matt Didemus (the Junior Boy to the right of the above image) and Ben Jacobs (who recently gained renowned for his spastic electronic style under the name "Max Tundra")
Picture the combination of Jocobs' peppy elegant British accent clashing with Didemus' straightforward almost jaded, deep tone of a voice and you have the following interview:
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J: (Concerning the Max and Junior Boys Tour Partnership) How did you guys initially meet up?
B: We met at the start of the tour, we had never met before. And the first day I saw Matt, was...the Day of the first gig in Toronto, wasn't it?
M: Ya, we were discussing kosher wine...
And I thought...who is this guy, he seems alright
Are You guys planning on any sort of collaboration between Max Tundra and Junior boys?
Well Matt was mentioning, a very exciting, possible Max Tundra (Junior Boys) remix.
What track were you thinking about remixing?
Oh, his single,
"Which Song", it's called
What sort of singles can we look forward to for Junior Boys releases?
Well we just released Hazal, we have another single, which hasn't been determined yet, but we have some other remixes that will come out in...probably the next three or four months. There's a Prins Thomas remix, which I don't know if its coming out on vinyl or not because it's an Itunes exclusive, and then there's as well a Marcel Dettmann remix of "Work" that will come out.
Do you guys have a favorite track off "Begone Dull Care"?
...No...
(Laughing / to Ben/Max): As you were closing your set you played some covers, what was the second to last track you played?
The very last cover was a cover of the sound of music, "So Long, Farewell"
Do you have that recorded?
Yes, That's actually the B-Side off of, "Will Get Fooled Again"
And before that?
Before that was a cover of "What Time Is Love" by the KLF, which is also on a seven inch, there's only like...thirty copies of it.
They're both great
Thanks man
So where's the next stop?
Atlanta
Hotlanta
Hotlanta, yes (laughing, then looking into the iphone) Is this still recording? It's gone black...
(laughing) yes...(To Matt): So the Junior Boys album is getting really great press. Some of that press coming from reviewers who caught the album when it leaked.
Ya it was leaked a couple months before the release. There's really nothing you can do...
So for money, are you guys just riding on live performances?
Well, we never sell enough records to make money off of it anyway, I mean we sell; Realistically unless your a huge musician, I don't even know how many copies you have to sell in order to start making money off of it but it seems like more than we would ever sell.
Quite a few
So you're just in it for funn
More or less, I like the idea of being able to pay rent with it
Yea! That'd be nice.
Which has managed to work for the past couple years
Fun is a happy by-product of what we do! But the goal is to survive without having to do a shitty office job...well that's my goal.
(To Matt): What kind of crowd do you usually pull, tonight I was noticing a bit of an older generation
I think our crowd is pretty mixed, I don't know If we have a specific crowd. I think if anything, our crowd is crazy eclectic. Its a mix of the most disparate types of people.
Your most popular single, "In the Morning" is set apart style wise from the rest of your work, how did this track come about?
We did that with another guy named Andy Toma from a group called Mouse on Mars. We did it really fast. We recorded it in a studio in Dusseldorf, and we basically just did the whole thing in three days.
Was there any point during the production of that track that you sat back and sad "Wow this is going to be amazing"
I don't think we thought it would be amazing. I remember when we wrote it we thought, "Wow we really wrote something poppy", because it was really way wayy more poppy than most of the stuff we had done. It was four minutes and really organized like a pop song
It gets the big cheer from the crowd.
(laughing)
It gets the "WOOO"
(to Ben/Max): Your style fits in with some of the other fast paced electronic, videogame inspired music that has found audiences lately. What sets you apart from any other artists working with this type of music?
He's the best of them...
They make a living from it
(laughing)
And I have to work shitty office jobs because people download my music for free and steal it from the internet. (munching on some green room chips and salsa) I don't really listen to a lot of electronic music. My influences are...salser and dip
"Salser and dip..."
Watch it. I like stuff that's played by musicians, who are showing off, like Frank Zapp(er) and stuff like Steely Dan, kind of technical sort of things
(to Ben/Max): Your stage presence seemed like you didn't care about how the audience perceived you. You looked like you were having a lot of fun out there
Oh! Well a lot of it I think is approval seeking behavior, but I'm glad you think that I didn't care (everyone starts laughing). I was really up there saying "Please love me". I think there's too many solo, "so called" musicians who just stand up there with their laptop, checkin' their skype and not really looking at the audience
When he plays, he has a little tiny monitor that plays "What Time is Love" throughout his entire set...(more laughter and I pretended to know what was going on, so I laughed too)
What was the last song you listened to (in the car)?
Umm...OH! Bloodyy, Whats that band? Supermax! Whats that song called? Its this 1979 sort of slow disco epic track which Adam, our tour manager has on his ipod. Whenever you're away there's always one song that's a tour anthem and it's that..."Supermax"...Nothing to do with, Max Tundra.
But his name might be changed to "SupermaxTundra"
Well nice meeting you guys, thanks for stopping by Nashville, you played an amazing show and good luck in Atlanta
Thanks man
Ya! (looking at Iphone) I hope it recorded
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Junior Boys are still in full swing with their touring schedule which will be hitting Europe very soon. Check those dates here. If you're a fan of "Begone Dull Care" show some love to Junior Boys on Itunes. Also Visit Max Tundra's myspace and Itunes page.
$ Junior Boys - Hazel
$ Supermax - Love Machine
$ The KLF - What Time Is Love
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