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Monday, 14 August 2006 |
 MOSCOW SCHOOLBOY are raunchy, fearless, and a tad wild. The following interview with JESS CORNELIUS contains sexual references and nudity. JADE PHAM reports.
It’s all happening for Melbourne four-piece Moscow Schoolboy. Triple J were spinning their demo before an EP happened. The quartet were set to release their EP independently when Silent Partner Recordings came knocking with a record deal. Hungry Films commissioned songs for an indie erotic film. They’ve been invited to tour with moody American post-punks She Wants Revenge early next year. So who are Moscow Schoolboy?
There’s Nils Arnold, the youngest in the band, “he’s gorgeous and quite dirty” and brings an experimental edge with his creative guitar licks. Billy McCabe Jnr plays bass and sings; he also acts as tour manager yet likes to stumble in at nine in the morning with no recollection of last night. Fortunately, drummer Jay Richmond is “very practical and keeps us all in line.” As for our leading lady?
“I’m the one who is probably the most bossy, and occasionally I just crack it and have mental breakdowns,” says Jess Cornelius. Waitress by day, femme fatale by night, Cornelius adds sass to this rock & roll circus. She also adds drama, having locked herself in the bathroom for hours during a recording session gone wrong. Not to worry, she survived and so did the My Sister And The Devil EP.
“That was a drawn-out process. We were a three-piece when we went in to record the EP and we were a four-piece when we came out,” says Cornelius. “We had three songs that we wanted to record and we were planning on recording demos – one of them Use Me Back got picked up by Triple J. We actually ditched the other two songs then recorded another four in three separate sessions.”
My Sister And The Devil is a collection of five lo-fi songs that make good use of vintage guitar sounds, tacky late ‘60s organ and alluring dual vocals in a disco rock meets honky-tonk blues sound. Talk of their EP turns to talk of their EP cover – who’s the guy in red undies straddling the bike?
“We took some random photos at my warehouse, taking band photos, and then Billy just started taking his clothes off. He was a bit boozed so he got on this BMX bike and we took photos of him. They worked out so well that we ended up using his crotch as the cover.”
It’s not only members of the band that like taking their gear off.
“We’ve had like random genital flashing from members of the audience. We’ve had an old man flash his willie at us once, we had a girl get up onstage – we weren’t actually playing at the time, it was just after we played – but a woman got her boobs out and was running around the stage and getting on the microphone. There’s generally a fair bit of weird unwanted nudity that goes on. I don’t know why!”
Maybe it’s the underlying sexuality in their weird but sexy sound that brings out the stripper in us all. Cornelius assures me stripping is an elective at Moscow Schoolboy shows, though dancing and fun may be compulsory.
My Sister And The Devil is out now through Silent Partner / Inertia
1. Written by hayley, on 11-03-2008 08:54 , IP: 210.80.182.230
love 'em nils is my bf's cuz!!!
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Last Updated ( Monday, 21 August 2006 )
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