By Chris Hay 

Purple Radio caught up with Luke from Empire Of The Sun, the quirky Australian duo set to ignite 2009 with their outrageous dress-sense, surreal ambitions and fantastic retro synth-pop. This is how it went down… 

The incredible costumes, the sci-fi aesthetic, the talk of epic journeys and world domination…is it safe to say Empire of the Sun is more than just a band? 

Yeah man, its an empire! We’re going for a different aesthetic – its visual music colliding into this one crazy powerball… 

The incredible costumes, the sci-fi aesthetic, the talk of epic journeys and world domination…is it safe to say Empire of the Sun is more than just a band? 

Yeah man, its an empire! We’re going for a different aesthetic – its visual music colliding into this one crazy powerball… 

What do you want to achieve with Empire of the Sun? 

As Beethoven once said, I want music to strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of a woman! 

What would you say sparked the creation of the band – is it a reaction against what you hear and see in the world of music at the moment, your desire to do something different? 

Yeah it was a bit of a reaction, but a different kind of reaction! We re-united in ‘06 and we wanted to build a studio in Manhattan but none of us had any money, so we thought we’d better write some good songs first…! 

Do you ever think that the visual aspect of Empire of the Sun could overshadow your music? 

Nah, its always the music first. I don’t think so, we’re music first and foremost, that’s our main medium. 

Your videos for ‘Walking on a Dream’ and ‘We Are The People’ are are absolutely stunning and beautifully shot. You’ve clearly spent a lot of time thinking about and conceptualizing them, is there any particular reason for this? Do you feel that this medium can sometimes be ignored by your peers? 

Well when its just music its 100% to your ear, 100% stimulation, but then when there’s visuals involved its like 50-50. When visuals are equally as stimulating as the music then it’s a double powerball, man. It’s something we’re really keen on. 

Yeah...but was it also just an excuse to get to go to some of the most beautiful place on earth?! 

Yeah yeah, just an excuse to eat Mexican food for a couple of weeks! [‘We Are The People’ was filmed in Mexico]. 

Right, I’ve got to ask this, judging by your outfits, did you have the most amazing fancy dress box when you were a kid?! 

Yeah, I did actually! I was just talking the other day, my mum had some old friends round and she was saying how me and my brothers and sister used to do theatre shows – we had this big kinda curtain so we’d go behind the curtain and make an entire stage! 

So you started at an early age then! When are you planning on coming over to the UK, when will we get to see you? 

Touring’s not til August… it’s a long time. We’ve been offered to do so many shows but we’ve only got one chance once we’ve got the record right and the visuals right and the videos right. We wanna make sure the live show does the music justice! I mean, we can’t be premature with it. We haven’t even done a single live show yet…we’re kinda like Jay-Z, we don’t tours til we’ve sold ten million records!  

Yeah, it’s just not worth getting out of bed for! So what can we expect from your album then? Tell us a bit about what’s behind the songs. 

A lot of the songs are quite sentimental, special and magical…sometimes depressing and often snapshots of otherworldly moments. ‘Without You’ is a perfect example, its probably the most poignant song on the album. It’s one that Nick wrote which is, you know, ‘without you there’s no sirens, there’s no tones, there’s nothing.’ It can be really emotional.

 So how does the writing process work within the band? 

Beds or beats or grooves would be written, then 40 minutes guitar jamming… Nick and Pete (Mase) are sort of digital oil painters, just honing sounds, you know. Its very experimental, and after 30 or 40 minutes in which I’d just be playing and changing chords and I’d just find great chord progressions that just grow into beautiful songs. Then once you cut it down, it makes very unique and abnormal sounds. 

You must be aware of all the hype surrounding you guys in Britain at the moment, pretty much everyone seems to be championing you, you must feel pretty proud? 

Yeah its really great cos we’ve worked pretty hard for the last 10 years and we set a pretty high standard for ourselves so we feel very grateful for it, for being responded to. Yeah, its great. 

A lot of people are making comparisons between yourselves and MGMT. Do you mind these comparisons, and what do you think of the band?

 I dunno, I mean, everyone says that. But they’ve only put out one record, I’ve been putting out records since 1995! Don’t get me wrong, MGMT are a great band, I toured with them in December in Australia playing solo, they really are a great band. But I just think its funny how it works, music goes in big circles over the years, and now it’s just hit that time again of the whole electro-pop sound. And I guess that’s why we get compared. But at least 80% of this new electro-pop sound is just ‘Oh great, you can programme a kick and a snare drum…you can cut together 4 chords…that’s great!’ 

Last question, who would be at your dream dinner party? 

Oh Edward James, from the 30s, [the British poet and early supporter of the Surrealist movement], Carol King and maybe Penelope Cruz can just be walking around doing her thing too, you know, that’d never hurt! 

Empire Of The Sun’s debut album ‘Walking on a Dream’ is released on February 16^th.

 www.myspace.com/empireofthesun