Made up of members from two of Australia’s most sought after musical acts, Twinsy are Australia’s newest self-described “D-list supergroup.”
A collaboration between Ballarat’s Guy Chappell of Yacht Club DJs and Michael Belsar of Hunting Grounds, the band has already had a huge 2012. Their debut EP, which was released earlier in the year, is gathering buzz across the country as well as interest overseas, and the duo also have an upcoming tour with Last Dinosaurs to look forward to.
Not bad for a band who played their first live show only a few days ago.
“We told our manager we wanted to do a show, just to see how it would all sound and what not,” says chief songwriter and drummer Guy Chappell, “it could suck, let’s just see what happens, we’ve never played live before,” he says, just two days after their first show at Karova Lounge in Ballarat.
Judging by the overwhelmingly good feedback and growing excitement for the national tour with Last Dinosaurs, he had nothing to worry about.
Playing an eclectic brand of music that incorporates driving drums, strong vocals as well as various electronic elements and samples, it was always going to be a hard task to translate it into the live setting, especially with only two members.
“It actually took a bit more than we expected…” continues Chappell, “we really wanted to play as much of it live as we can but there’s only two of us. We had to work out what parts that we wanted to keep and what we wanted to get rid of.”Twinsy are Australia’s newest self-described “D-list supergroup.”
The self-titled EP is an upbeat and dancey collection of four tropical-infused songs that has proved to be a reviewer’s nightmare, with genre-defying songs that are impossible to pin down.
Chappell says that this was deliberate, “I remember Damon Albarn when he was being interviewed about Gorillaz, he wanted to make a style of music where you couldn’t automatically tie a genre to it straight away; and that was roughly what I was trying to do as well.”
The side project began as the brainchild of Chappell, who started songwriting at the start of 2011 to combat the cold weather of his hometown. “I started writing songs to cheer me up during the Ballarat Winter. I had an idea to sort of do just collaborative efforts with all the people I’ve met over the last few years.”
He soon recruited fellow Ballarat local Belsar on first single ‘Water Bombs’, with the pair hitting it off and eventually joining forces to form what is now Twinsy.
“Everything he was coming back with was so good I was just like ‘do you just want to join the band and start making music?’ and that was pretty much the conception of Twinsy.”
With both members coming from acts that are renowned for crazy, high octane antics on stage, fans can expect “high energy and good times” at a Twinsy show, although the first live show didn’t get too out of hand.
“It was incredibly quick, there wasn’t really enough time for any crazy antics, possibly in some later shows…obviously I can get pretty pooped after playing with Yacht Club, but it’s a whole other level playing drums flat out for half an hour.”
Chappell, who was a drums teacher before his success with Yacht Club DJs, said that although the pair are involved in so many projects at the same time, finding the time for Twinsy hadn’t been too hard, “particularly because there’s only two of us, if there were four of us with four different bands who were also doing different stuff it would have been impossible.”“Everything he was coming back with was so good I was just like ‘do you just want to join the band and start making music?’ and that was pretty much the conception of Twinsy.”
Twinsy will be playing shows across the country with Last Dinosaurs, who will also be joined by The Jungle Giants, and Chappell says that the band can’t wait to begin the tour. “They’re really cool guys and we’re really glad we get to do our first tour with them. We’re really excited for it.” A debut album is also in the works, with Chappell saying that they’ll be aiming for a release in mid-to-late next year.
“It’ll be similar.. .we haven’t been trying to write anything specific, just keeping things upbeat and dancey, with an unusual element in each song,” the Yacht Club DJ said, while keeping coy on possible international shows in the future.
Fans of the mash-up masters need not worry though, with Chappell stating that writing his own music has re-ignited a passion for DJing, “I think since I’ve been writing the original music it’s sort of given me a flair for making mash-up music again…we’ve got a specific idea of what Yacht Club is already. I can just step into it and start making stuff, with Twinsy it’s a bit more open-ended.”
Although the pair’s main projects will remain their primary focus, the future is very exciting for the Ballarat superduo, with Chappell saying that while Yacht Club “pays the bills”, Twinsy will continue to play shows and make music.
“We’re still pretty keen to do Twinsy shows and have a good time with that and see what we can get out of it.”
Take a listen to Twinsy’s self-titled EP below, and they’ve been announced to play Hobart’s Soundscape Festival in November.
