Total Giovanni. The complete package. A crew of charismatic performers with an immaculate sense of timing and style. They've got hypnotising grooves, mesmerising choreography and stories to tell. We're listening. We've also been dancing to their live bacchanalian boogie for a while now and are pleased to bring the first of their recorded material. Here's the first single "Human Animals", and an insightful chat with the whole group following their recent signing to local legends Two Bright Lakes.THUMP: Firstly, congratulations on joining the Two Bright Lakes family. How did this relationship develop?
JINGLES: Well we have actually known the crew at TBL for a while now. Appropriately it was a relationship cemented on dance floors across Melbourne. A big crew of us used to congregate at Horse Bazaar when Tig and Blake DJ'd there and it was a weekly shakedown of great disco and deep house. We used to spin records around a bit as well and spend time talking records with those guys. Funnily enough if you were to take a snap shot of that dancefloor circa 2009 you'd probably see every current TBL artist jumpin around somewhere.Your live shows are exceptional and have already made a major impact. Can you take us backstage and into rehearsals to describe how it all comes together?
VINCENT: Thanks for the props - yeah we love playing live. We were jamming off and on for about a year before we played our first gig which was really important i think. We sort of got time to find the grooves we were after in private before unleashing it. It also meant that things were fairly tight from the get-go which helped. I definitely think the energy of the live shows is really important to us and we want to keep raising the bar on that front.
SPIKE: We're currently looking into a hovercraft for Golden Plains but if that doesn't work out we'll settle for back up dancers on rollerblades.
VINCENT: As for songs, i tend to write the basic structure- verse, bridge, hook etc and then we build the jams as a band. We're getting better at it too- we're all really excited about this next wave of songs we are writing at the moment.
CREDENZA: Just want to give some props to Josh from Smooch (aka Josh from Rat & Co) for doing the recording of these first few tracks and also to our band-mate resident genius Cavallo for mixing the fucker. The man has endless patience.
VINCENT: I still want to make some revisions.There's a lot to explore within the music, but can you discuss the physical language of Total Giovanni, perhaps a little about the choreography, dancing, and movement and the part they play?
SPIKE: Well Vince and i became best mates at around 15 when I was the only other dude at the highschool social who would dance around his shoe with him.
VINCENT: Don't know why the shoe was important but it was a call to arms and he answered.
SPIKE: So we've kind of been dancing around inanimate objects together for fifteen years. Same goes for the other guys in the band- we're all old mates so its quite an organic thing. Its not like- 'hey buddy better practice your two step!' its just that we are genuinely having a ball cutting up on stage together…and the crazy stuff just comes out.
VINCENT: Last show i licked Spike from his hip to his face (he was topless) while we were dancing. He was so sweaty i literally got a mouthful of liquid then had to sing a line. It was interesting.
JINGLES: Yeah we always wanted to create a dance music outfit that puts on a show. I think these days especially, as so much dance music just comes straight off a laptop, you pay your $20 to go see a live show and its just some dude on stage checking his email. Fuck that.If you had to describe Total Giovanni as a cultural movement or a musical revolution, what would be some of the guiding principles/philosophies of the band?
VINCENT: Its about setting Australian masculinity free. We need to loose this uptight stoic macho bullshit and dance and make love more. Have pleasure in your body, act with love, take psychedelics, quit your job, listen to the wind.
CREDENZA: Yeah Get loose. Keep it positive. Fuck anyone that votes liberal, don't bother showing up dickheads. Be good at what you do, respect the audience's intelligence and musical nous and try to make your thing as interesting as you can. It's about everyone getting together, right?Definitely. You're doing a good job by yourselves, but what artists do you identify with that are most strongly related to your musical interests?
CAVALLO: I think the biggest influence on our vibe is all the great dance music both continental and anglophone from the late 70s and 80s. There's a real purity to how things were constructed then. You could dance to them but they were still songs that had a story to tell- heartbreak, success, jealousy…all that greek tragedy shit.
SPIKE: Also back then, how you presented live was an integral part of who you were. Being in a band is like being in a gang and your live show is how you front. Its a bit like that Warriors movie.
JINGLES: Yeah we really take a lot of influence from all those seminal disco dub edits- the B sides, the jams, that whole Larry Levan approach to remixing the entire thing for maximum danceability. That era of records really represents what TG is about – our attempt to play the extended dub-side of a disco track with all the breakdowns, build-ups and cut-outs. We try to take that approach to house and boogie and all the styles we DJ'd for years in our live sound.Human Animal is the first single, a faintly melancholic modern dance hit. How does it all end up? Is there any room for hope here for the protangonist?
VINCENT: Yeah look, I wrote that about a year ago and i was still in a fairly melancholy place. I liked the idea of reflecting on monotony and loss over a big polyrhythmic groove, but I also think there is liberation in the end. 'I'm a human animal and i'm leaving it all behind' is kind of like the shedding of that skin. If you let go of the bullshit it all works out in the end, you know? Quit your job. Make boogie tunes. Seriously.Join Total Giovanni, and liberate yourself with the new single Human Animal here
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JINGLES: Well we have actually known the crew at TBL for a while now. Appropriately it was a relationship cemented on dance floors across Melbourne. A big crew of us used to congregate at Horse Bazaar when Tig and Blake DJ'd there and it was a weekly shakedown of great disco and deep house. We used to spin records around a bit as well and spend time talking records with those guys. Funnily enough if you were to take a snap shot of that dancefloor circa 2009 you'd probably see every current TBL artist jumpin around somewhere.Your live shows are exceptional and have already made a major impact. Can you take us backstage and into rehearsals to describe how it all comes together?
VINCENT: Thanks for the props - yeah we love playing live. We were jamming off and on for about a year before we played our first gig which was really important i think. We sort of got time to find the grooves we were after in private before unleashing it. It also meant that things were fairly tight from the get-go which helped. I definitely think the energy of the live shows is really important to us and we want to keep raising the bar on that front.
SPIKE: We're currently looking into a hovercraft for Golden Plains but if that doesn't work out we'll settle for back up dancers on rollerblades.
VINCENT: As for songs, i tend to write the basic structure- verse, bridge, hook etc and then we build the jams as a band. We're getting better at it too- we're all really excited about this next wave of songs we are writing at the moment.
CREDENZA: Just want to give some props to Josh from Smooch (aka Josh from Rat & Co) for doing the recording of these first few tracks and also to our band-mate resident genius Cavallo for mixing the fucker. The man has endless patience.
VINCENT: I still want to make some revisions.
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SPIKE: Well Vince and i became best mates at around 15 when I was the only other dude at the highschool social who would dance around his shoe with him.
VINCENT: Don't know why the shoe was important but it was a call to arms and he answered.
SPIKE: So we've kind of been dancing around inanimate objects together for fifteen years. Same goes for the other guys in the band- we're all old mates so its quite an organic thing. Its not like- 'hey buddy better practice your two step!' its just that we are genuinely having a ball cutting up on stage together…and the crazy stuff just comes out.
VINCENT: Last show i licked Spike from his hip to his face (he was topless) while we were dancing. He was so sweaty i literally got a mouthful of liquid then had to sing a line. It was interesting.
JINGLES: Yeah we always wanted to create a dance music outfit that puts on a show. I think these days especially, as so much dance music just comes straight off a laptop, you pay your $20 to go see a live show and its just some dude on stage checking his email. Fuck that.If you had to describe Total Giovanni as a cultural movement or a musical revolution, what would be some of the guiding principles/philosophies of the band?
VINCENT: Its about setting Australian masculinity free. We need to loose this uptight stoic macho bullshit and dance and make love more. Have pleasure in your body, act with love, take psychedelics, quit your job, listen to the wind.
CREDENZA: Yeah Get loose. Keep it positive. Fuck anyone that votes liberal, don't bother showing up dickheads. Be good at what you do, respect the audience's intelligence and musical nous and try to make your thing as interesting as you can. It's about everyone getting together, right?Definitely. You're doing a good job by yourselves, but what artists do you identify with that are most strongly related to your musical interests?
CAVALLO: I think the biggest influence on our vibe is all the great dance music both continental and anglophone from the late 70s and 80s. There's a real purity to how things were constructed then. You could dance to them but they were still songs that had a story to tell- heartbreak, success, jealousy…all that greek tragedy shit.
SPIKE: Also back then, how you presented live was an integral part of who you were. Being in a band is like being in a gang and your live show is how you front. Its a bit like that Warriors movie.
JINGLES: Yeah we really take a lot of influence from all those seminal disco dub edits- the B sides, the jams, that whole Larry Levan approach to remixing the entire thing for maximum danceability. That era of records really represents what TG is about – our attempt to play the extended dub-side of a disco track with all the breakdowns, build-ups and cut-outs. We try to take that approach to house and boogie and all the styles we DJ'd for years in our live sound.Human Animal is the first single, a faintly melancholic modern dance hit. How does it all end up? Is there any room for hope here for the protangonist?
VINCENT: Yeah look, I wrote that about a year ago and i was still in a fairly melancholy place. I liked the idea of reflecting on monotony and loss over a big polyrhythmic groove, but I also think there is liberation in the end. 'I'm a human animal and i'm leaving it all behind' is kind of like the shedding of that skin. If you let go of the bullshit it all works out in the end, you know? Quit your job. Make boogie tunes. Seriously.Join Total Giovanni, and liberate yourself with the new single Human Animal here