Forget The Formula, Who's Bringing Presence To The Party?

Ian Svenonius is a man of many and varied talents; a musician, a writer, a film maker, a political activist and commentator, a songwriter and frontman with a long and illustrious music career behind him. He is about to bring his most recent musical project, Chain & The Gang, out to Australia for the very first time, and he has quite a left of centre way of describing them.

"We really are a party band, and by that I mean a party band that communicates," he emphasises from his home in Washington DC. "We've been kind of a fish out of water in the IKEA, Pitchfork, indie era of enforced vacuity and anti-content. We're a dance/party band that actually tries to be present."

"It's all become like 'Oh, you have to hire a publicist, you do this and that, and you're going to be famous!'"

He feels that that feeling of presence and ability to communicate is what's missing in much of today's mainstream pop and rock music, and has some interesting commentary to make regarding today's music scene. "I feel like rock'n'roll has become more and more business-like and more and more careerist," he opines. "It's just gotten safer and safer. When I was growing up, people doing this music, there was no chance of being famous. And now because there is, and everybody is trying to do it, it's all become like 'Oh, you have to hire a publicist, you do this and that, and you're going to be famous!'

"It's become a formula, and part of that formula is being very safe. I don't want to complain about music, about the state of the music business, but you just can't help yourself sometimes."

Svenonius has been involved in a myriad of different bands and musical projects over the years since his beginnings in the late '80s/early '90s, however this tour is all about the current project. "This tour is just about Chain & The Gang," he states definitively. "We have four albums behind us now, and we have a couple of new records that are coming out. I don't think they're going to be out for the Australia trip, we're trying to do it, but these days the record plants are all jammed up, I don't think we'll have the vinyl. But in any case, we're psyched to be coming down there for the first time with this band."

Almost 30 years, over 20 albums and countless tours down the road, Svenonius is quick to understate his career and legacy as he reflects on it all, and prefers to cite the journey that the industry has been on over that time rather than his own. "Oh, you know, it's been fun," he says laconically. "I've been putting out records since the early '90s, and I've played a lot of shows. It's been really interesting to see the changes, not only with the approach to the economy, but with the way that bands approach things with their career, it's kind of a night and day difference to when I started out."