Scandal with Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun won't let the press photograph them. They prefer only to be viewed through the illustrations and videos they've produced in order to maintain their image as mythic alien beings. We'll allow them the slightly (very) pretentious luxury as we've been playing their album in the office for a while now... and we like their brand of cheesy synth-pop god damn it! But now everyone's talking about them, we're a bit over it, you know. Cos that's how we do. There are bands we're listening to in the office right now that you probably won't hear about till like 2012 or something. Anyway, they begged us for an interview, so we said 'okay' and they gave us Luke (previously of Sleepy Jackson) to speak to, but not Nick ( previously from PNAU). Luke is the one on the left above with the blond hair and the Zinc on his face, looking some kind of futuristic Shane Warne. What is it with Australians and Zinc?

You have awesome costumes and have lots of cool monster friends. Could you explain the Empire of the Sun myth/story/legend?

We wanted to do something that'd recreate the wild colours and excitement of being a kid, so that's what the aliens are about. And we wanted to take people to places with heritage. The Walking on a Dream video, for instance, was filmed in Shanghai where the old and new worlds meet, which helped to make things a bit Blade Runner.

Detail from American Dream, Brett Whiteley

You've described yourselves as similar to Rothko's earlier work. What other paintings or art would you compare yourself to and why?

There's a painting by [Australian artist] Brett Whiteley called American Dream (above) that's in a gallery here in Perth. It's got a lot of colour, a lot of movement - it's 3D and has sirens on it. It's a pretty mega piece.

The band name comes from a JG Ballard novel. Are you fans of the author?

Yeah. He died recently didn't he? I guess filming Walking on a Dream in Shanghai was a bit of a giveaway [the novel is set there too]. His name became an adjective (Ballardian) though, so I guess we ripped off one of the best!

Walking on a Dream

He also wrote a short story collection called Myths of the Near Future, so I guess he's popular with synth-pop groups. What sci fi myths would you like to see come true?

I've always loved those shoes that have skates built into them. In Shanghai's Times Square there were hundreds of kids selling them, so we bought some. Broke my arm and leg. Skating's romantic though, so it would be cool if everyone had those.

EOTS

Have you heard or read any false rumours about yourselves?

Not really.

Okay, let's start some then.

Alright, well I'm a bigamist and I have forty wives. Also, I had $50 million in NASA shares... oh no, wait - that's a bit overblown.

Don't worry.

Okay, so I own an endangered salmon fishery just off the coast of Reykjavik. Do they even have salmon there? Oh, and I was at Richard Branson's daughter's 21st birthday party, could we do something with that?

Sure - I heard he wanted to use photos of Empire of the Sun on the Virgin Atlantic livery.

Yeah, Richard wanted to invest in the band and he thought having our faces on the fleet would be great for Virgin’s image. After we visited Mexico (for the We Are The People video), Corona wanted to sponsor us too. Penelope Cruz saw us and wants to be in the next video.

Okay, enough. Are you playing England any time soon?

Yeah, we're playing Buckingham Palace later this summer. Special request of the Queen.

Listen to more Empire of the Sun and watch their bizarre videos at www.myspace.com/empireofthesunsound