"I had to make sure that I didn’t murder one of the dancers with my headpiece."
Luke Steele strikes me as the kind of man who gets bored quite easily. That might explain his penchant for seeking out new and varied musical collaborators as often as, say, Lady Gaga changes outfits. Though if you saw Steele’s latest project, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, play at the Parklife Festival recently you’d be forgiven for arguing that Steele’s extravagant costume changes rival that of the American pop oddity. But I digress. The point is the man likes to change things up musically, whether it be within indie, mainstream or even, gasp, hip-hop circles.
Empire of the Sun, in case you’re unaware, make music that is at times comfortably cruisey electronica and others funked up, tripped out psychedelia. The eccentric duo is comprised of Steele and that mane-haired purveyor of delectable dance we’ve become particularly familiar with over the past few years – Nick Littlemore of Pnau. The pairing wasn’t hastily put together overnight, Steele informs me. “I first met Nick back in 2000,” he confirms, and after taking a few years to devote attention to their respective primary musical interests – Littlemore with the aforementioned Pnau and Steele with his band The Sleepy Jackson – the seeds of Empire of the Sun were sown with a collaboration. Steele elaborates, telling me that Littlemore wanted him to “sing on the Pnau track, With You Forever, and from that we realised that it was a bit of a waste not capitalising on our magical chemistry. That’s the way it started.”
Thankfully the duo didn’t call it quits after just the one song. The “magical chemistry” Steele describes managed to elicit an entire album’s worth of material that the pair christened Walking On a Dream. With the record being released in late 2008, it was only at the recent Parklife Festival, which Empire of the Sun headlined, that patrons were lucky enough to catch the first glimpse of exactly what the group’s live show would entail. It was a highly anticipated event, with rumours of the involvement of backup dancers, elaborate costumes and tigers and elephants setting the crowd abuzz with excited whispers. The stage was set for a bombastic debut performance, but there was just one problem – Nick Littlemore was nowhere to be found.
I think I smell a scoop, so I tread carefully as I press Steele for answers, keeping in mind that this could well be sensitive territory for the singer. “It was a bit disheartening at first,” he says of his partner’s no-show. “I don’t really know why he did it.” I offer that I’ve heard that Littlemore left so he could concentrate his efforts on completing the next Pnau record, leaving Steele in the lurch. “Yeah, that’s kind of the crux of it but it wasn’t negative,” he reveals. “It was more like ‘I’m going’ and that was that. It wasn’t malicious, it was kind of bizarre. I think he just needed to disappear.”
The desertion must have dealt a hefty blow to Steele’s confidence so close to the group’s live debut, surely? “Well, after two weeks of doing my best job as a full on alcoholic, I’d kind of gotten over it and took my father’s advice of ‘you’ve got to keep the show on the road’ and pretty much took it in my stride,” he says. “I didn’t really feel alone because there was a band and ten people on stage. It didn’t really take too long to get over it, a little heartbreak...” He trails off, leaving me simultaneously unconvinced by the sincerity of his response but full of admiration for his determination to perform for his fans with or without his bandmate.
Despite the absence of live animals in the Empire set at Parklife (tigers cost thousands of dollars a night to hire – who would have thought?), all reports suggest the tour was a smashing success. “It was a great tour,” Steele affirms. “It took quite a few months to put it all together because it took on a theatre project kind of environment – dancers, narration with the music and visuals. [I had to work out] how the songs would be played and make sure that I didn’t murder one of the dancers with my headpiece,” he laughs. “They’re so sharp, those things!”
Creative costumes and hefty headpieces are all part of the elaborate imagery that Steele has concocted to generate interest in the Empire of the Sun brand. The cover image of Walking On a Dream attempts to paint a complete story within the single picture, in a similar vein to the captivating Star Wars movie posters of decades past. “You’ve got the sun illuminated in the background, the goddess and the other characters,” Steele says. “The vision was to get that same impression you have as a child when you see these different cartoon characters and they just don’t belong anywhere except for another world. If an album is accompanied by imaginative visuals, it’ll be double as powerful.”
If you didn’t get a chance to see Steele and company perform live at Parklife, you’ll have another chance when the band take to the stage at the ARIA Awards in late November. The pair have been nominated in a whopping 11 categories (take that Gabriella Cilmi!), including Best Group, Single and Album of the Year. “I think it matters if you win something,” Steele says of all the recognition and fuss. “But if I get beaten by Jessica Mauboy then the whole thing is a joke!” he laughs. “Being nominated is great and confirmation of where the band – where I’m going. But you know these competitions sometimes – like when Sleepy got beaten by Delta every time it’s like ‘hey, she’s a babe, but how many awards does she need?!’”
Due to the bizarre and unreliable actions of one half of the duo, the future of Empire of the Sun as an entity is certainly not set in stone. Steele tells me that in terms of future plans he may “work on new Empire Stuff, new Sleepy stuff... but I could be playing the pokies in Germany next year for all I know, really.” It doesn’t sound like he’s too bothered by the uncertainty, but why should he be? The man has a project lined up with Daniel Johns under the moniker Hathaway/Palmer, during the interview he plays me a garbled snippet of a song he recorded with sister Katy from Little Birdy just because “she was in town” and he delights in regaling me with tales of how he came to provide guest vocals for the opening track of rapper Jay-Z’s latest album (“My main man Jay called up and had a track which needed some vocals. I was going to fly to New York, but it was going to take too long. I did it at home, sent it over and he called me in the morning and loved it. It was a pretty jam-packed 24 hours.” Indeed!). It really is anyone’s guess as to where Steele will end up next. But whether or not his mantelpiece is soon to be lined with pointy statues, it’s certain you’ll be hearing from Luke Steele, in one form or another, very soon.
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