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Empire of the Sun
by ADAM BAIDAWI
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This interview originally appeared on the cover of Jetstar's February 2010 issue.
Yardsticks are seldom accurate in the music industry. But, when the monolithic U2 strutted on stage in Paris to “Walking on a Dream” in late 2009, Australia’s pop superforce Empire of the Sun received an undeniable, golden nod. A wordless invitation into the inner circle.
In hindsight, that recognition proves little more than a bookend for a project that has pursued everything on the grandest of scales. The bold, the brash, the ecstatic. Yet, for all of the fantastical video clips, genre-bending soundscapes and unabashedly eccentric couture, the beginnings of Empire of the Sun were innocuous.
Two of Australia’s much buzzed up-and-coming songwriters, Luke Steele (then of Sleepy Jackson fame) and Pnau’s Nick Littlemore were introduced at a bar by a mutual contact—reportedly Sony's Simon Moor. Bonding quickly, the pair wrote together whenever they could find themselves on the same side of the country (Steele was based in Perth, whilst Littlemore worked out of Sydney). Empire of the Sun was a labour of love and collaboration.
In the 18 months since the release of their debut album, frontman Luke Steele has transformed from a promising local songwriting talent into an enigmatic, globetrotting, larger-than-life curator of electro-pop.
It’s a late Tuesday morning in the city when we sit down, the kind of predicably picturesque day when Perth smiles like a coy, bronzed beauty. When we spoke a few months earlier, Steele and his musical partner-in-crime were riding a high – “Walking On A Dream” was charting in innumerable countries whilst shoring itself as a multi-platinum cult hit in their homeland, and more notably, the duo were about to make their long-awaited live debut.
The landscape has shifted dramatically since.
It’s been two weeks since they cleaned up at the ARIA Awards (taking out 4 categories, including the coveted Album of the Year). In rather affable (though not wholly suprising) fashion, I find that Steele has retained his authentically Perth-tinged down to earth charisma. “What happened there?” he grins wryly. “It’s funny: you go to the shops and like middle-aged mums and truckies and people coming up just going, ‘Good on ya!’”
Modesty aside (did we mention that Steele was named GQ’s Man of the Year?), it’s clear that the ARIAs rubber-stamped the duo’s domination of the Australian music scene. They had scaled the mountain and that night, they reached the summit. Yet, infamously, it was Steele alone who was there to take it in.
Rumours of a tiff between Steele and Littlemore began circulating after the latter inexplicitly disappeared just before their debut tour. Steele readily admitted that he was missing for months, and that he was somewhere overseas. The whispers reached fever pitch at the ARIAs, with Littlemore still nowhere to be seen, and Steele noticeably lost for words when asked about it at his press conference. “We never had a fight,” he shrugs as I ask again, “but we had different plans on touring. Nick didn’t want to tour for three or four years. I’m more rapid – the show needs to stay on the road. You want to play these songs that everyone was singing all summer, you know?”
So what of the future of the band? Who are Empire of the Sun? “It’s still me and Nick,” he assures. “It’s part of the journey. But, I guess, only the future knows.”
So, for the moment being, Steele is steering the ship himself. Having just released the special edition of Walking On A Dream, the group is unleashing “Half Mast”, yet another pop single destined to become an anthem. Indeed, terms like “anthemic” and “iconic” have all too often been cited when it comes to this group.
For Steele, then, who grew up in a musical family (sister Katy fronts indie rockers Little Birdy), had been signed to a major record label for the better part of a decade, and contributed to numerous bands and collectives, what was so different about Empire of the Sun? He pauses, finger pensively placed on his face: “Chemistry.”
“I think Nick and I have always had this pretty rare chemistry. Empire of the Sun didn’t have any timeframe. It just happened when it was meant to happen. I’ve never really done that. With albums, you usually strangle the life out of it, and tie it up in the corner, and go, ‘You’re finished, alright?!’” he grins, waving a stern finger.
Naturally, when he’s not keeping impossibly busy (current projects: a “highly mechanical” heavy blues solo album, a closing-song for an upcoming Australian film and Sleepy Jackson’s new album) Steele’s focus lies firmly on his family. He met his wife Jodi, a former glossy magazine editor, after commenting on her “rather eccentric” cocktail at a Perth nightspot. (She is, mind you, affectionately known as ‘Snappy Dolphin’: “She’s so efficient and professional – snappy – she gets things done pretty quick. And being such a beautiful woman – she’s kind of like a dolphin”). The couple had their first child in 2008 – a daughter named Sunny Tiger.
“It’s amazing how much it makes you become an adventure. You can’t pull out the same trick each day. You have to invent. I’ve invented so many things: the flying dummy, the tiger that comes out of the kitchen…it’s the greatest thing to happen to a guy and a girl.”
2010, he tells me, will finally see the family move overseas, which fell through two years ago, “when Snaps fell pregnant.” In March, they’ll likely find themselves in New York. “I’ve always felt very at home there. I feel it’s the right time to work people that are a lot better than me, who have been to a lot more places and seen a lot more things than me.”
And so, Steele finds himself once more on the verge of big things – only on a scale infinitely more grand. He’s just striving to keep up with his own mind.
“All of the visions and the imagination have turned into this ocean. It’s great when you’re months and months behind your mind, but when it turns into years – you’ve got a lot of work to do each day, you know?” he sits up suddenly, eyes bright. “You wake up thankful to talk and walk and you’re ready to go.”