It’s a Thursday afternoon and Stav Yiannoukas is riding in a taxi, dashing around the city for a full day of interviews. It seems that the release of Bluejuice’s highly acclaimed 2009 album Head of the Hawk is thrusting the co-vocalist upward and onward to the busy life of international stardom – sold-out concerts, hit video clips - But does that mean it’s finally time to grow up and preach the politics of mosh pit etiquette? Music correspondent Cam Stephens discovers the rise of the responsible rockstar… S: Hey cam how you going? C: Hey Stav mate not bad! How you doing? S: Yeah good man, good, what’s going on? C: I’ve just got to say, we’re honoured and slightly aroused to have you joining us with Spit Press today. S: (Laughs) Glad to hear I have that effect on you brother C: Now I wanted to just start off with one question I just had to get out of the way, you’re the only member of the band whose name doesn’t start with J. S: It’s true
music scene, but things come up. 505 has moved to… Cleveland St I think it is, can’t remember the name of the street… there’s little venues that always pop up, and bands will always find a way to get exposed. Ultimately, if you’re good, then eventually people pay attention. C: Cool. So, your advice for young Sydney musicians looking to get out there? S: Umm… Keep writing as many songs as possible cause, usually it takes a few shit ones to write good ones. If you want to be a band that‘s on the radio listen to as much radio music as possible, regardless of if it’s in your taste, just tr y and understand what’s working and what’s not, always be part-artist part-manager, never think that all you’re doing is (playing) music, because it’s not, actually, a lot of it is just keeping your head screwed on and not be dicked around by people… and keep working! If you stay together as a band and if it’s any good, as I said, people will pay attention. C: I’ve seen some of your stage moves you pull out – they all seem to be prett y fun, what would be your favourite? S: Haha, I don’t know man. I love to get the crowd interaction stuff happening, probably is the most important thing, call and response things...stuff like that. We used to do a lot of hip-hop stuff in the beginning, and I used to listen to a lot of commercial hip-hop and R&B and that’s just the perfect playground for doing the crowd interaction stuff, but that’s still kind of fun. C: With the genre of hip-hop, I think your songs definitely go beyond that usual subject matter, you’ve got tracks about broken legs, facelifts, motorcycle accidents and are there any subjects that you don’t feel have a place for Bluejuice?
C: And I wanted to know if that causes any tensions for you? S: No, it’s quite alright. It makes me feel like I’m the unique one. C: You and jake are always egging each other on with the on stage banter, have you ever pushed it too far?”
S: Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so. I doubt we’d be doing any politically motivated songs anytime soon, although maybe just because we’d be too… stupid for it. C: Maybe a song about the politics of the mosh pit?
S: Of course we have, of course we have.
S: Yeah, exactly.
C: Yeah?
C: Who out of the band is the most trouble on tour? I know people come out of their shell on tour…
S: Yeah. If you’re in a band for 9 years, then you’re eventually going to have plenty of fights. Absolutely we push each other too far all the time and are constantly abusing each other, so yeah all that sort of stuff. C: What about for the crowd? Have you ever got so into it that the crowd have been pulled into the whole thing? S: Yeah, I mean, look. Sometimes crowds can go a bit bananas and it can start getting a bit dangerous. Usually what we say is that the people should tr y and take care of each other as an audience. I don’t give a shit what people do as long as they don’t impinge upon a good time.
S: Mmm, depends what you mean by trouble. It’s hard to say. I mean, Jake can be trouble in the sense that he can be a pain in the arse or he can find trouble. I don’t mind partying occasionally but usually I don’t do that anymore so… Jerr y does also like to have a few drinks and can occasionally get either super aggro or superweird! So I don’t know. I’d definitely say that Jamie or James wouldn’t be, so it’d be somewhere between Jake, Jerr y and myself. But really, we’re not that much trouble. We’re pretty nerdy. We’re pretty easygoing. Occasionally we find ourselves in trouble. C: Yeah. Moderate amounts of trouble. So what is coming up in the second half of 2010 for the band?
C: So you’d say that maybe there’s a moshpit etiquette? S: Well, yeah. There should be some, you know? You’re not out there to hurt someone or ruin someone’s fun… but certainly if you are, you’re not at our show. We’ve never had to actually stop the show, but we do stop songs or situations as soon as things get out of control. C: Does playing the bigger venues make you feel restricted from the usual antics? S: Not really. The places we’re playing still, even though they’re bigger, they’re not so big that you can’t get audience contact. Whereas the festival stuff, playing to 20 or 30 thousand people, obviously it’s a little more difficult to have an intimate scenario. But no, it doesn’t stop us doing what we do. C: Definitely. Well it hasn’t seemed to stop you pulling out some of these ridiculous costumes which we’ve seen…
S: This month we’re going overseas, then we’re going to be writing a lot more songs, and recording a third album sometime later this year. C: Awesome, and are you feeling good about the mood you’ve set with Head of the Hawk? Or are you going to tr y exploring some new territor y? S: We’re just writing songs that we’re writing. So, it will be a different sounding album, although probably a bit more consistent I would say, and, yeah! We’re in a better position we’ve ever been in as a band, so hopefully people will like the songs! We’re already playing some of them live and they seem to be going down pretty well. C: Well, we’re all loving what you’re doing so it ’s good to see you keeping it up, the unstoppable Bluejuice… S: Yeah, always working, always working.
S: Yeah man, I mean, you know, we just figured we’re doing bdo for the first time, well, not the first time to do the whole tour, first time we’re playing the main stage, so it would be a good idea to make sure the people at the back could see us (laughs).
C: Anything else you want to add for the fans out there? S: (Ruffling Sounds) Yeah man, just here. –
C: So who masterminded some of these costumes?
Sorr y man, I had to give my Cab driver directions, what was that?
S: That one was Jamie’s (our bassist) idea actually, to do those Bruce Lee jumpsuits.
C: Anything else you wanted to add for the readers?
C: So you guys are doing prett y well, but I wanted to talk a little bit about the Sydney music scene. Back in the old days was it an easy ride of getting gigs, sorting out the Sydney live music scene?
S: Nah man I’m pretty sure we covered it all. I always find it funny when someone inter viewing if there was anything else I wanted to add, It’s like, ‘I think I’ve talked enough!’ Thanks ver y much for having me.
S: Not really. For about 7 years we played around regardless of whether it was Sydney or anywhere around the countr y, it was a struggle just to get an audience. At that point the songs we were putting out just weren’t worthy of radio, and as a result received less attention. It wasn’t particularly easy. If you’re talking about venues shutting down – obviously the Hopetoun was a massive loss for the Sydney
C: Cheers Stav! Good luck with the cab ride!
Blue Juice will be playing at Splendour in the Grass, don’t forget to say hi if you manage to nab a ticket! THE SPIT PRESS | SYDNEY’S CREATIVE NEWSPAPER | VOL 1, ISSUE 2 | 15