Words by Justin Pearsall
The Midnight Juggernauts are Australia’s ‘it’ band of the moment. Whether it is MTV tipping them for massive success in 2007, or French electronic duo Justice gushing over their “favourite pop band” on BBC radio, the good word on the Juggernauts is growing in near plague-like proportions. However, despite their recent notoriety, Daniel Stricker, the band’s drummer, tells Lifelounge that they are still at the mercy of bigger fish.
‘We played this venue called Maxine’s in France and the guys at the venue said “you can sound check but you’re going to have to take everything off the stage”, which kind of makes the whole thing null and void. So we asked him “How come?”, and he said “John Travolta is having dinner with his family, and there is a jazz band that needs to set-up, so you need to take everything off.” It kind of screwed up the sound, but how many times do you get to tell people that John Travolta made you take all your equipment down?’
The Juggernauts new found feud with John Travolta hasn’t been the only challenge they’ve faced during their current European tour. When travelling to Belfort to perform at France’s biggest rock festival, Les Eurockeennes (Arcade Fire, TV On the Radio, Air), their French tour guide took an unexpectedly scenic route.
‘We were on the way there, the whole trip was supposed to take five hours, but we were in the car for 10 hours. We actually missed our set and had to play two hours later, it was crazy.’
Aside from these mishaps, Stricker assures us that the tour has been ‘amazing’, with the audiences packing out venues and singing along to the songs. And while the Juggernauts appear to be glistening at present, the upcoming August release of their much anticipated debut album, Dystopia, suggest that their profile is only set to rise.
‘It’s very nice that people are into the band. A lot of the people that have been looking after us, that we’ve looked up to, like the Justice guys, they keep giving us a heads up. It’s great that people like Justice have said positive things about us and played our tracks, because I just got their album and it’s really fucking good.’
Similar words could easily be used to describe Dystopia. The album is a sonic revelation, the trademark dance grooves of the Juggernauts being whipped into an intergalactic frenzy by ethereal, larger-than-life production. While infectious tracks like ‘Into The Galaxy’ and ‘Shadows’ will appease the dance floor junkies, it’s Dystopia’s wide sonic palette, which at times verges on a space-aged reinterpretation of The Dark Side Of The Moon, that is the album’s greatest innovation, and proved to be the catalyst for Stricker leaving his former band, The Valentinos.
‘I was doing both this and The Valentinos for a while, I just couldn’t do both forever and I had to make a choice. We were working on the album [Dystopia] at the beginning of this year and I just really believed in it. I think a lot of people think of the Juggernauts as one thing and this album will show that we’re a lot broader, we’re not just a dance band.’
Stricker is right, Dystopia is the sound of the Juggernauts spreading their wings, ensuring that the album is a complete and engaging work.
‘We wanted it to be a rounded thing,’ Stricker says ‘there are so many records out there, but there aren’t that many ‘albums’, like Pink Floyd’s, where you listen to it from start to finish. Everyone skips tracks so quickly; we wanted to make something that’s a rounded thing, a journey.’
Part of the journey of Dystopia originates in the band’s decision to release it independently; a decision which ensured the Juggernauts maintained full artistic control.
‘We did the record completely on our own, self-produced and with no A-and-R guys telling us what we had to do. This meant that we were able to sound how we wanted to sound and represent ourselves. Self management is something we believe in strongly, it’s a hell of a lot more work, but we’re cool with that, it makes it exciting and fresh for us.’
Fuelled by this strong independence, the Juggernauts have realised their musical vision on Dystopia. With this achieved, and despite the hype surrounding them, the band’s measure of commercial success is predominantly an internal one: ‘We just want it to get out to as many people as possible, and for us to reach a wide audience,’ Stricker says.
He need not be worried; there is an ever growing army of people falling for the Juggernauts, something which is confirmed by the band’s post-Europe plans.
‘We come home and tour some pretty big shows, the tickets for the two Melbourne gigs are almost sold out, so we might do a third one. Also, we just found out that we may do a world tour in October or November, but it’s all kind of hush-hush. All I can say is that we’ll be going back overseas with a big artist.’
With the impending release of the multi-faceted Dystopia, the Midnight Juggernauts are poised to become ‘big artists’ in their own right. It’s an album that challenges Saturday Night Fever for funkiness, and while John Travolta may still be a peg above them on the pecking order, the Juggernauts are staging a sound revolution, one that begins on the parquetry floor, expanding deep into the unknown.
Check out the video for 'Into the Galaxy' here, and read our review of Dystopia here.
|