MANUEL SHARRAD from INFUSION sums up what a mixed blend their new live shows will be for JODY MACGREGOR.

What are your live shows like?

It’s an electronic show more or less, but it’s as live as we can possibly make it using electronic gear. All the sound is being triggered on the spot rather than playing an audio file or a sequence or anything like that. It gives us the freedom to create the tracks as written on the spot and arrange them on the spot and keep the thing quite freeform.

So there’s room for improvisation.

Because it’s being arranged on the spot it’s, for want of a better term, like jazz [laughs]. Because we’ve been playing like that for so long it’s got to the point we know which way we’re going to head and if we’re gonna build it up or quiet it down or slide into another track. If the crowd’s going off we’re not going to go into something slow, we just keep the momentum rolling. It’s a weird mix between what DJs do, in that they’re playing to a crowd and reacting to a crowd and playing records that will continue a vibe and evolve over time, and a band, which is completely the opposite, but we’ve always been like that. These new shows are going to be interesting because we’ve got a drummer and a guitarist, mates of ours, on board, which is something we haven’t done for a while.

Is there a stage code you’ll have to teach them?

We’re gonna have to figure that out when we start rehearsing with these guys. It’s just been the three of us in the band and we’re pretty good at using telepathy to tell each other what’s gonna happen next, but now that we’ve got people who want to know when the fuck they’re going to start playing a part or stop or anything like that we’re going to have to get to grips with the songs so that they are comfortable enough. Maybe we’ll just have a ten-minute drum solo. ‘Right, over to you!’

How different are your new songs?

Our first album, the shortest track’s like six minutes long. We wanted to write an album where the tracks are a lot more up-front and you didn’t have to wait three minutes to say, ‘Yeah, I’m getting into this now.’ We wanted to write catchy, good songs that grab you straight away rather than ten-minute prog tracks. A lot of people have issues listening to dance music, sometimes it takes five listens to get into the groove or the vibe This time we went, ‘We’re sick of that, we want people to get this straight away.’ The new stuff is a lot more full-on, there’s a lot more live instruments in it. It is a little bit more rocky, but it comes from an electronica core. A lot more singing too, we want people to sing along. We want to be stadium rock now [laughs].

Will you have the big stadium rock light show? Will there be lasers?

We’re not going to rely too much on lighting as the main thing because we’ve got all the visuals going, that’s really gonna be a major focus. We just want some decent lighting so we can see what the hell we’re doing.

Have you seen those visuals yet?

We’ve seen bits. They’re still working hard at away at it but we’ve seen clips of short little stuff that we’ve just gone ‘Yeah, that looks cool.’ They’ve got massive hard drives whirring away constantly rendering graphics which takes days or weeks to finish, hopefully we’ll get to see some stuff real soon.

INFUSION appear at The Smirnoff Experience this Sunday July 13 alongside Tom Middleton, Mark Pritchard, Dexter, DJ Yoda and more. Visit www.smirnoff.com.au  to obtain an invite and venue details.

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