Outta Juice

“If we stay together then we’ll start getting openly bad press. And we’ve always managed that well in the past. These little caveats that we’ve built into the band that allow us to still be in the pockets of people we’ve despised, and I was one of those indie people too, but we’ve managed to stay in those people’s pockets by rolling on our backs like dogs for them when necessary, and being submissive when we need to pretend to be, and then revealing in the live arena and in singles recording that we’re as good a band as any,” says Stone. Yiannoukas laughs along into his whiskey. A head shake speaks volumes. Agreement? Fatigue?

“There is an indie [subgroup of the industry] who think we’re a bunch of unsophisticated average bogans, but there’s more to it than that. And it’s more to the average person than that. I won’t let the gatekeepers and tastemakers keep us from the audience that we deserve. And we did find them, but I still can’t stand that kind of downtalk,” Stone continues. While TISM and Machine Gun Fellatio are the go-to type of comparisons in terms of Bluejuice’s likely legacy, they're not comparisons they’re down with. “We hate all those bands because we’re a pop band, we’re not a joke band… TISM were a great socially aware band, MGF were a joke band… great song with Unsent Letter, but a joke band. Songs like Act Your Age, I’ll Go Crazy, they’re not joke songs, when you listen there’s no joke there at all. People get distracted by this thing that we built, this visual key, and we’re not that at all.”

“There is an indie [subgroup of the industry] who think we’re a bunch of unsophisticated average bogans"

“We did it by having funny clips, basically, and joking around in interviews,” chimes in Yiannoukas. “And the other similarity with MGF is that they wore costumes, and that’s part of the comparisons too. You see You Am I and Tim Rogers, or The Cruel Sea and Tex Perkins or whatever, as the version of themselves that they want people to see – it’s a look. Whereas we wear stupid costumes because we want attention, we want it to look bright and brilliant.”

Talk of legacies, genres and comparisons gets the pair contemplating why they positioned themselves with such ‘joke’ stock in the first place. Fans will attest, as has much of the industry, that Bluejuice certainly had the tunes and chops to outshine any sequined jumpsuit. “For me it was a real protest against the idea that we weren’t allowed into this very dour indie scene that was very managed, visually or otherwise,” says Stone. “We’re a fucking great live band, and the point is it’s not a joke. It is funny, but there’s a great deal more violence in it than that.”

Denying Bluejuice’s energy and willingness to play would do them a disservice, so as part of the eulogy we’re writing we raise the suggestion that maybe The Cruel Sea, or Custard or Regurgitator, might be a better fit. “We did sell ourselves short, we have the whole time… I love Regurgitator as an example because I think that band is much more consistent with what we do. I think they want to make contemporary pop music,” says Stone. “And they do eclectic; not every record sounds the same, they are a band, band,” adds Yiannoukas.

So if Bluejuice were to start again now, would they do it differently?

“We wouldn’t be sitting here doing this interview if we’d done it differently. Nobody would have cared about us if we’d done it differently – nobody cared about us. We played the cards and the hand we had to play. We are nothing if not extremely pragmatic. We were in a band together for seven years before anyone gave a shit,” says Stone. “But because of the way we look and the type of music that we make, we don’t play that game of being cool, and can’t. We have to play that game anyway – it’s a game. So then we have to wear stupid statements from people who say stuff like we’re visually distracting to make up for never having had a hit. I mean, I don’t know what eight high-rotation singles means to you, but that’s success.”