The New Electric
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Interview With Marc from The New Electric By Chris 26/11/07
The New Electric are one of the coolest bands around,they are from Melbourne and play New Wave with a rock edge, and it’s totally funky and it rocks. Read the interview and check out their music, it’s fantastic and read the EP review also
1. How did the band form?
I (Marc) caught the ‘front man fever’ and decided to disband the group (Pornland) we were in. We were quite big on the live scene but most of the songs we were writing didn’t fit the mold so we needed another outlet.
2. What inspired the band’s unique sound?
Originally the band started out as a way to emulate some of our childhood heroes. Being children in the 80’s, this meant the group had a very 80’s sound. In fact, the first tune we wrote for this group was inspired by the theme to the movie ‘Fletch’ (this very demo can be heard on our Myspace. ‘What’s the Vibe?’). However, the sound slowly evolved. We’ve all played in so many different types of bands, from funk, soul, surf-psychedelic, jazz and indie-rock (to name a few), that there’s quite an extensive array of sounds to draw from.
Sometimes we can’t decide whether to write a manic divynals song, a smooth 70’s M.O.R. number or a groovy Chic song. Oh, the hardships music throws out…
3. Are you happy with the responses so far?
The response has been great. Our live show is something extremely important to us and something we believe we do quite well. Whenever we play kids dance and this makes us happy. We’ve been concentrating on refining our relentless groove. We wanna make it even more relentless so the kids dance even more. Our crowd has been building nicely. It’s fun seeing people you don’t know singing your shit. It makes you feel warm inside.
4. Where has been your favourite place to play so far?
At universities during O’week. Kids just wanna party and everyone finds a friend.
We did a gig at Flinders University (Adelaide). Very much fun.
5. How does your singer come up with those dance moves?
I imagine what James Brown would look like dancing to a rolling stones number and try and copy that image in my head. Honestly though, I don’t really know … funny genes?
6. How have the responses been to the EP?
The people that have bought it really like it but radio hasn’t seemed to pick it up.
7. How did you guys go about the recording process for the EP?
We basically picked the songs that got the best response live at the time and recorded them. We recorded the basic rhythm tracks in a studio and the rest at home. We wanted to keep the whole thing quite simple/minimal Dan (my brother and drummer) was the main producer but a guy called Clive Young also helped with production. I’d like to quickly mention that the CD was recorded and basically mixed by June last year (’06) and was released in August this year. A car decided to beat the crap out of me while visiting the Tuscan Apennines. My holiday was extended four months and it wasn’t much of an extended holiday. The accident meant it took us a year longer to release the EP than it should have. Our sound now is quite a lot different.
8. Who have you enjoyed playing with the most?
There’s a band called Near Your House that we’ve played with a couple of times. I dig their vibe. Their front man’s a bit of a nut and I like that in a band.
9. What is next for the band?
Well we’ve found this new kid on the block manager (Marie) that’s doing things we just can’t, like being nice to people. Our drummer Dan has been known to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and because of this has become a recluse. He’s like Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys except not famous, poor and fatter.
We’ve started work on our album and are extremely excited. It’s going to be a concept album with concepts within the concepts. It’ll sound quite a lot different to the EP. We’re also going to tour heavily next year. We’ve a European tour in the wings as well as an East coast tour. Our girl, Marie, is looking into cracking Japan and that’s a lovely thing. Oh, and the snow. We wanna play in the snow…
10. Have you had much response from labels yet?
Not a sausage. Well, that’s not entirely true. When we first started we had a bloke called Ralph Carr from Illicit records quite interested. It didn’t work out.
11. What’s one thing you don’t like about the music industry?
The fact that unique sounding groups, such as ourselves, have a harder time breaking through. If you’re part of a scene, things seem to fall into place a lot more smoothly.
12. If you could have anyone in a video clip who would it be?
My mate Raf and he’s already in it.
Thanks again for your time, any last words?
Viva the M.O.R. revolution!
