First things first, BIGSOUND is the realest... and it's shown it by selling out! That's right, the reports are in that conference + live tickets for this year's BIGSOUND showcase are goneskies. Or are they? The good people at QMusic have released a limited amount of bonus tickets to the live music showcase, so if you want to see artists like Little May, SAFIA, Tkay Maidza, Ruby Boots, Halfway, Coach Bombay or today's featured act, LANKS, you've got to get in quick! Where can you find these tickets? Head to OzTix, dear reader. Now, onto our chat with LANKS, another emerging Australian artist on the rise. Hailing from Melbourne, this one man electronic music making machine has been hard at work, recently releasing the brilliant new track 'Brave Man'. He'll be taking to the Ric's Bar stage this week to deliver what we already know will be a set to remember. Without further chit chat, here's our... chit chat... with LANKS. Enjoy!
LANKS
aka WILL CUMING
Performing as part of BIGSOUND Live 2014
Wednesday 10 September - 10:50pm @ Ric's Bar
Hello and thanks for joining us at It's My Kind of Scene! How are you on this fine day?
Will: Very well thank you. My new single just premiered online, so it's pretty exciting. It's also quite cold.
First things first... Moustaches or beards?
Will: Beards. I'm all about the beard, since I haven't been clean shaven for a couple of years now.
BIGSOUND Live brings together a huge range of incredible acts from Australia and overseas. How do you feel being part of what's quickly become one of Australia's most well regarded music showcases?
Will: I feel honoured to have been included in this line-up of stellar acts at the 2014 Bigsound. It truly blows my mind to be showcasing such a young project (first single came out in Feb) and to have been given that opportunity. I'm really excited to catch some of the other performers' sets there also.
For me, seeing musicians I may not normally be inclined to see is one of the best things about the BIGSOUND Live experience. You have a short space of time to play for people who may not know you or your material well. So, how do you decide what or which songs to play?
Will: It's a challenge, writing a set list for this kind of occasion. It's a short set, only 30 mins, and people might not be there the whole time so you can't just leave your big guns until the end of the set. I have already built up enough material with LANKS for almost an hour worth of songs too which makes it difficult. Mostly I went with the singles I have released so far, that people may possibly know, and there was a real focus on playing the songs that are the most fun and exciting to play live.
Speaking of punters who may not normally attend one of your shows, have you got a fave memory of someone who may have come to see one of your shows? What about a least favourite? Gig from hell you don't want to re-visit? (Hopefully it's hilarious with hindsight?!)
Will: It wasn't anyone famous, as far as I'm aware, but a punter came down to see my other band play a couple of years ago and half way through a song came up to the other guitarist and threw $300 cash on his pedal board, and asked if he could get a copy of our CD. The next day we were laughing about it and discovered that he had given one of the other members of the band $300 for a CD also, so we sold 2 CDs for a total of $600 that night. I still wonder if he woke up the next morning, looked in his wallet, and said, 'oh no, not again!'
If you get a chance to run around like a crazy person on the night/s to check out some other BIGSOUND Live acts, who would you want to see?
Will: I'lls, Remi, Saskwatch, LUCIANBLOMKAMP, Hayden Calnin, All Our Exes Live in Texas, Thief. The list could go miles longer than that, but that's a start. I'm playing at the same time as a few of these also which kinda sucks for me, hopefully some people still come to see me hah.
We all know of the awesomeness of BIGSOUND and we've all heard that SXSW is pretty darn good as well, but are there any other similar showcases in the world that you'd like to play, that we should know about? Anywhere else we should be dreaming of visiting before BIGSOUND returns to us, September 2015?
Will: I think I'd just love to hit up some festivals in Europe. That would be great. I speak a bit of German so I'd really love to go and play some festivals over there for their next Summer, if they'll have me.
What have you got planned for the rest of 2014, post-BIGSOUND? Any tours, festivals, stand-alone gigs, cake decorating courses, TV marathons or anything else we should know about that you'll be involved in?
Will: I just put out my new single, Brave Man, and I'll be doing a tour for that a little later in the year as well as being fortunate enough to be playing at Paradise Music Festival in late November. There will also be a few cool remixes dropping here and there and most definitely an album of Christmas jingles.
Do you love song covers? If you could cover one song, right here/right now... what would it be and why?
Will: I love other people's songs, but I'm never sure if I can bring much to the original. Like, I love it the way it is, and if I covered something I'd probably want to rip it apart and make it completely different. To actually answer your question, if I had to do one right now, it would probably be 'Graceland' by Paul Simon.
Something I often wonder. How often do you think to yourself; "is this the real life, or is this just fantasy?" I think the latter all the time...
Will: I mostly think that this is the real life to be honest. It's not that I don't find that an interesting notion still. I just think things are what they are, and then I love art/films/music because you can explore all sorts of crazy worlds that don't exist here in the real world, it's a chance to do anything and everything. Having said that, I do think the world is a pretty incredible place and at the rate that things have progressed for me this year there have been countless times that I have wondered how it has all happened so quick!
When they air the MTV Behind The Music special about you 31 years from now, what are they going to say about you?
Will: Probably that I am a prolific writer. I really just love writing and I make sure I sit down and write music as close to daily as possible. Music is really great huh?
Music's the best! You know who else is the best? LANKS. A huge thanks to Will Cuming for answering our Q's. He's definitely going to move to even bigger and better things in the coming months, so stay up to date with what's going on his musical world by checking out the LANKS Facey-book page. And don't forget to pencil LANKS into your schedule for Wednesday night! Oh... and get excited about the LANKS Christmas album. We think it's going to be called LANKSMAS. Merry LANKSMAS everyone!
