AS BIG AS A POUND

Melbourne based electronica outfit Pound System have of late become one of Australia's best known dance bands, recently releasing an ep titled The Counterfeit Bootleg. Consisting of a duo called Woody & The Reverend, Pound System already had one prior album to their credit, plus a load of experience through other projects.

I recently got the chance to catch up with the pair who were in Sydney doing promo duties in support of the ep & although fairly short, I gleaned enough information from them to get an insight into this interesting band who are growing more popular as the months go by.

First up, I asked the band how they'd fared with radio play on stations like Triple J.

"I guess we can't say that Triple J's support has been overwhelming, but they have certainly played the opening track of the ep, Big As Yer Like. It's not disappointing at all as we didn't really make it for that market anyway. We've had a lot of support in Melbourne & from some of the community stations there as well, such as 3RRR, plus the clubs have gotten into the sound."

There's a perception that electronic music isn't all that popular in Australia for some reason, no doubt fueled by commercial stations like Triple M & I found out the band's view on that score fairly quickly.

"It's just not really the true case. Dance & electronic music is very popular, it just doesn't seem to get the coverage in a lot of media, which is somewhat surprising. A lot of stories surrounding electronic music seem to be centred on things like rave parties & that sort of stuff, but most people who are into the dance scene are more into the music than anything else."

With that out of the way, the question of why there don't seem to be a lot of electronic bands in Australia who have a high profile.

"That's only true to a certain extent though. There are a lot of dance & electronic bands doing some really interesting things & the scene is growing a lot. You only need to look at people like Josh Abrahams & Amiel to see that things are moving along a bit differently to what they were. It all goes back to the media thing we were talking about earlier, because a lot of the media don't seem to get electronic & dance music, so they don't give it much attention. Maybe they don't understand it, but the perception is definitely changing."

As a band who seem to be right into technology, I had to ask what the pair thought about the emergence of MP3 & the piracy issues which have arisen from it.

"We're really looking forward to doing something with things like MP3. The piracy thing is as much about money as that it's kind of a rebel thing. We're not sure what we're going to do about this, but we're looking at maybe putting something like a low quality stream up so that people can hear if they like the music first. It's like people who tape stuff off the radio & video programs. Those people are quite happy with the quality they've got on cassette, but people who like the full frequency experience aren't going to be happy with streams or even with MP3, because that's why they've spent their money on their stereos. They're the people who are into the music & they're prepared to pay something for it. That's who we're making our music for."

Finally, I found out what the pair thought of the Internet.

"Quite honestly, we know this sounds strange for a band who are into technology, but we have quite an old Mac which is really too slow for anything other than email, but we're looking at getting a newer one & then we'll do something more serious. There's definitely potential there & we want to do something with it."

Check out Pound System's new ep The Counterfeit Bootleg through Mushroom now or watch for them in performance near you.