In 2007, Midnight Juggernauts followed in the internationally successful indie-dance footsteps of fellow Melbournians Cut Copy by successfully breaking through not only in Australia, but overseas as well. Dance superstars Justice took them on tour in the US, their debut album Dystopia received rave reviews and they based themselves in Paris to negotiate inroads into Europe and the UK. Nice.

Their prog-influenced, sparkling new single, This New Technology, is the first taste of the forthcoming second album. Lead singer and noted scarf-wearer Vincent Vendetta fielded our questions, fresh from a lightning US tour.

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You’ve just arrived back from the US today?

Yeah, so I haven’t really had a chance to adjust and realise that I’m home yet.

The second album isn’t out yet, so why tour in the US now?

We actually went over to play at the CMJ (Music Marathon, in New York City), which is an industry festival that happens in October each year. There’s all these showcases lined up that each have maybe eight bands on the line-up. You do this every day and have lots of gigs with different people. We also had our own show as well, so we had fans of the band turn up, as well as scary industry types. It was a lot of fun.

How was the reception?

Yeah, it was really good. We weren’t really touring, and didn’t have an album out of course. We were only there basically for CMJ and to have meetings with bookers and do a lot of press, which is all leading up to the release of the album early next year. It was a lot of fun. We decided to play L.A. on the way back, because that’s the way the plane was going, so we thought we might as well do a gig! We’re going back to do a national tour after the album is released, at the end of March and into April.

You guys were road warriors on the last album, and previous to that as well. Did you handle the touring workload ok?

I could handle it. I’ve always loved travelling and gigs. We got ourselves an apartment in Paris, so we kind of used that as a hub and toured through Europe and the UK, always returning to our own bed at the end of the week, which made things a lot easier. I could have easily kept playing actually, because we were mainly playing festivals in Europe and the UK, so we enjoyed ourselves and it wasn’t too taxing. And when we did tour, we’d try and get ourselves a few days off so we could enjoy each city we were in.

You’ve hinted that the new album is more musical, perhaps less electronic than the debut?

Yeah, it is. We still have our dancey tracks on the album, but it’s trying to be more song-based. I mean, dance music can still be song-based, but there isn’t anything relying on a four-to-the-floor beat, like a lot of dance music does. Maybe people who aren’t into dancefloor stuff will be more into this album, but we’re not isolating our previous audience either. It’s still going to have a dance energy, but we wanted this project to have a more live direction. It’s probably a lot more raw and live, and feels like a proper band playing. It was the three of us together in a room playing instruments this time, whereas before there was a lot more “tracking” taking place. I think the experience of touring on the road together had a big influence on the sound of this new album.

The band produced this album. Did you consider hiring an outside producer?
 
We considered having a different producer involved, but we’re such control freaks that we just had a particular sound that were after. However, we did contact a few engineers, and we ended up using this guy Christopher Moore from New York, who had played on a couple of albums that we liked, such as TV on the Radio. It was really good to have him involved in the whole process, but a bit scary too, because then there was a new mind entering our musical circle. But it helped us to let go of the reins a bit and allow those happy accidents to take place, which I think really helps the album.

Is it more accessible or more experimental than the first album?

It probably is a bit more experimental. However, there are still some definite pop moments. There are a lot of pop moments on there actually, because we love pop music and pop songs with hooks. So that will still be the basis for the majority of the songs, but we kind of branched out into different musical terrains, and some songs go off on strange tangents. Like bleeped, psych-out jam moments which are probably too self-indulgent but were fun to record in the studio.

Both the Presets and Cut Copy’s second albums went number one in Australia, which perhaps bodes well for you as well. Is the indie-dance sound way more popular than it used to be, or are those bands just in a different league?

I’ve definitely noticed the indie dance sound suddenly crossing over to become mainstream. In the beginning when we started, it was all about this imitative AC/DC-style rock, and what we were doing was really left of centre. But after a while, we noticed all the shows were getting bigger and bigger, and then when Cut Copy did their last album they were playing these much larger shows. The Presets released their album and sold out three shows at Festival Hall. It was sort of like that new dance sound became the mainstream, rather than a quirky indie side genre.

Our approach is different though. I mean, if we had an A&R guy watching over our shoulders, which we don’t, he probably would have been saying ‘just make sure you do a full-on indie-dance album’. But we ended up differentiating ourselves with different genres. We kind of like maintaining our own little thing, and having our own freedom to not be pigeonholed and be allowed to follow any path we want in the future.

Themes of space and time travel, sci-fi and futurism run through your work, both in your lyrics and sound. Is this intentional?

We’ve just always enjoyed playing with those themes and working with that imagery in our artwork, and there’s still a lot of that on our next album as well. But there’s also like other “real” things being explored on the new album. It’s not all about inter-galactic space travel. Like, we’ve brought things right back to umm…North Melbourne and North Carlton as well!

The new single, 'This New Technology' - that's Andy singing, right?

No, it’s actually me singing! It’s funny, lots of people think it’s a different singer, but it’s me. There was a different kind of mood which we thought would be great to have on this first single. Actually, the whole song is quite different to the last album. It’s got a bit more of a pop-rock approach, so it’s sort of a synth-pop experiment in the studio with a weird outro tangent we liked. It’s pretty out there.

Are there going to be any other artists released on your label Siberia?

Eventually, yeah. We did start Siberia because we initially wanted to just release our own music. But we put up a website and we’ve been getting so many people contacting us asking us if we can release their music as well. I had my email address on there as well, and lots of Russian bands all sent us messages, because they thought we’re a Russian label. Some of the music is ok, and some is pretty good, so we’re thinking about doing a compilation of all Russian bands. We’re speaking with them now and just collecting the right kind of tracks. Some are weird new-wave acts, and some are freaky Russian metal bands.

What’s happening over the summer?

We’re in Australia for the summer festival season, which we’re really happy about. I just love that time of year in Australia. We just landed in Melbourne today and it’s nearly 30 degrees and it just put me in a good mood.

Andrew Drever