Sneaky little thing: interview with effervescent Miss Connie of Sneaky Sound System

By creammagazine, May 23, 2016

Sneaky Sound System formed back in Spring 2001, when a guy named Double D (actually Daimon Downey) met a guy named Black Angus (actually Angus Macdonald) at “some rich dude’s fancy dress party”. Both discovered they shared a love for electro, house, disco and funk, in no particular order, with their unique combination of the genres giving club music a major jump-start.

Not before long, the pair cut a track called ‘Hip Hip Hooray’, complete with a ‘Poxymusic Handstand Mix’ that could best be described as the Beastie Boys sharing a bag of acid and swapping helium balloons with The Human League. It had everything: loops, beats, sampled guitar, rap with gusto one minute, novelty banter the next.

They needed just one more ingredient: a female vocal. Enter the effervescent Miss Connie Mitchell. Not before long, Sneaky Sound System became renowned as one of Australia’s greatest sounding (and looking) threesomes on the music scene.

Then, in 2009, Sneaky dwindled down to two, with Double D calling it a day – to focus on visual art. Still, the music just seemed to get better and better.

Miss Connie chats with Cream about changes in the music-scape, working with big boys like Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg, and how house music will always rule over redundant EDM.

Interview by Antonino Tati

 

Hi Connie. I believe you’ve been busy in the US, doing some singing and songwriting for a few pretty prestigious guys…

Pretty much so. And also when they come out here [to Australia].

 

When you’re working with the likes of Jay-Z, Kanye West and Snoop Dogg, how do those projects come about? Do you simply bump into them at a party and strike up a chat, or does the record company line the meetings up?

Well, with Kanye West, Angus met him in a restaurant – Icebergs in Bondi. Kanye said he was looking for collaborations for his album, ’cause the guy is making albums all the time, you know what I mean? And Angus said, ‘Why don’t you meet our singer?’ to which Kanye was like, ‘Yeah, great’. And we thought, ‘Yeah, right, sure’ but then the very next day I’m in the studio, and he shows up. And that was the start of that relationship.

 

You’ve worked on more than one album for Kanye?

Yes, he flew me over to America three times to work on albums.

 

And the other guys?

When Jay-Z was out here with Beyonce, Kanye was with them and they invited me down to a studio and house they were staying at in Bellevue Hill. As for Snoop, we were doing a show and he was on the same bill; he saw me sing and invited me into the studio with him.

 

Do those guys get up to shenanigans in the studio; is there a bit of partying going on, in between recordings?

Not a lot. Snoop likes his fried chicken, though! He has his own fried chicken maker, which is his uncle who regularly tours with him.

 

Soul food I believe they call that.

I think so, yep.

 

Well let’s get to your own music. Your new single ‘I Ain’t Over You’ is reminiscent of club music in the early Naughties. What made you look to that style of music?

We’d been spending so much time in Europe, and that was the sound we were hearing in the clubs there. London, Ibiza, Mykonos – they were all playing house there again.

 

 

And you yourselves have a club residency in Mykonos?

Yeah, this will be our second year and residency in Mykonos. We play every Sunday and so we’ve got a bit of a base there now. We can fly over, keep Mykonos as our base, then fly across to London or Turkey to do gigs. Whereas if we travelled constantly to these places from Australia, it’d be a $25,000 flight every time you’d wanna go [naturally, Sneaky would fly ‘music business’ class].

 

What drew you to Mykonos?

The sun!

 

And the boys, are they quite hot?

Oh yeah. And the island is predominantly packed with boys.

 

How does that work? In Australia club owners like to draw more girls into the clubs than guys, whereas in Mykonos its more guys than girls. What other differences to you notice about our club cultures?

In Mykonos, the clubs are outside. They start at sunset. They don’t finish until 11am the next day, and you’re still on the beach, mind you. But it’s totally, 100% about the music, and if you’re not playing very well, they’ll boo you!

 

So you’ve really got to be in top form?

Yeah, you’ve really got to be on point. Which is great because everybody lifts their game. The music is incredible; the setting is incredible; and it’s just about the sheer love of dancing outdoors.

 

They also mix it up more with their audiences. I mean, you’ve got more of a mix of straight people, gay people and bi people out there dancing for the love it.

There is a bigger mix. Your name is Italian, right? Well Italians, too, are incredibly on it when it comes to what’s hot – especially in the house genre. I really do agree that Italians do it better!

 

Why do you think club music has gone back to that house-like style?

Well it had to go back, compared to that god-awful EDM.

 

Electronic dance music can get relentless and redundant after a while…

Yeah, after a while it’s like, ‘Come on guys, you can come up with something else’… When you start to have songs about being happy when you know it, clap you’re hands… I mean, seriously…

 

Then there’s the sort of EDM where there are no lyrics and it just starts sounding so repetitive. I mean, it could be good if you’re on the gear and off of it…

Totally! There’s a time and place for that but when the clubs and airwaves are just clogged with it, it gets a bit much. We took a hiatus for so long because we didn’t want to go down that avenue of making that kind of music. We just wanted to wait it out; and stick to our roots, essentially.

 

 

Sneaky Sound System have a gift of combining pop with dance. Were you listening to a lot of pop music and dance when you were growing up?

Actually I was a little more esoteric in my musical tastes. I liked the Cocteau Twins, Siouxsie & The Banshees, the Cure, Simple Minds and Iggy Pop.

 

Like all of those artists, you like to incorporate a bit of theatre into your stage shows and videos…

I love a sense of theatre. I think if someone’s going to perform for you, they best turn it up and give you something that’s worth being called a performance. I’m a bit of a show-snob. If I’m going to pay money to see a show, I really want to get my money’s worth. I want the singer to sing in tune, and I want something to look at.

 

Click on the YouTube clip above for Sneaky Sound System’s latest single ‘I Ain’t Over You’.
And for good cheeky retro measure, check out the clip for ‘We Love’ here.