If you saw the Funkoars last time they were in town, Adelaide phenom K21 might look kind of familiar. 

“The first time I went to Brisbane was with the Funkoars,” the young producer and MC laughs. “I played as Trials, because he did his neck in and he couldn't play shows for six months. I actually went up there and rhymed Trials' rhymes at a Funkoars set... [K21's next Brisbane show] is going to be a total headfuck for people who were there, because I'm bringing up Trials as well. They'll think Trials has a twin or something.”

He's barely 22 and he's only just released his first album, but K21 already counts some of the biggest names in Australian hip hop as friends. After dropping a guest verse and remixing a bonus track on the Funkoars' last album, 'The Quickening', The Hilltop Hoods  turned to him to remix 'Good For Nothing' on their 'Drinking From The Sun' LP. Since then, The Hoods have called him back to work on two more remixes (one of which appeared on the deluxe iTunes edition of the album).

Surely spending so much time with veterans of the local scene is a little intimidating for a relative newcomer? “Definitely,” he admits, “but I've hung with some of those guys for such a long time now that we're just really comfortable around each other. I actually met Trials when I was 16 years old. He used to live a street away from me and a street away from my school. I used to wag school and get drunk with him. I've known the Hoods for about the same time. So they've always just been there, and they're such great guys and really supportive.”

Unsurprisingly, it was the Hoods that got K21 hooked on the local product in the first place. “I was inspired by the American stuff first,” he remembers. “NWA, Eminem... all those big US artists. My older brother was always playing Snoop Dogg's 'Doggystyle'. I always loved those tunes when I was younger; they're the first tunes I remember hearing. I stumbled across Hilltops when I was about 14, 15. I was playing footy and somebody burnt me a disc and said, 'have a listen to this'.

“At first it was like my ears weren't tuned into it. I'd never heard anybody spit in an Australian accent before. But once I listened to it a few more times, it got stuck in my head and I fell in love with it. That's how I discovered the local scene.”

It didn't take long for the local scene to return the favour. Debut album 'Single Minded Civilian', which rocketed to number three on the iTunes hip hop charts on the day of its release, features guest spots from the Funkoars, Vents and Brad Strut, as well as production from Trials, Sesta, Vampts and mdusu (responsible for horn-laden lead single 'Won't Stop'). The roll call says a lot about the raspy MC's collaborative spirit.

“I'm not really looking at the scene competitively,” he says. “I don't think it's a race. Everybody does their own thing in their own way. There are definitely some artists that are more successful than others, and I'm inspired to be as successful as possible and to get my music to as many people as I can. But I definitely think it's a personal thing, as well. That's how I treat my music.”

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the success of 'Single Minded Civilian' is that K21 has released it independently through his own Greenhouse label, without any help from the majors.  “I didn't have a record deal and I really wanted to get the album out as quickly as possible,” he explains, “so I ended up doing it independently. I'm really glad I did, because it's been really successful. I haven't put any money into promo; it's all just been from word of mouth, through Facebook and YouTube and stuff.”

Much of that word of mouth has centred on K21's live show, which he's bringing to The Jubilee in all its glory this month. “The show's going to be packed full of energy,” he promises. “It's going to be rowdy fun! If you haven't heard the music beforehand, that's cool, because I think the live show is my strongest suit. That's the best time to hear it.”

‘Single Minded Civilian’ is out now. K21 plays The Jubilee Hotel on Friday July 13 with Realizm and Trials. 

When it was announced that Charlize Theron would star in Prometheus (a sci-fi epic from legendary director Ridley Scott) and Snow White & The Huntsman (a gritty fairytale from commercial director Rupert Sanders), there weren't many people who thought Snow White would end up being the better film. And yet, here we are.

Sanders has pulled off something of a minor miracle with Snow White, infusing a visually spectacular blockbuster with three things films of that ilk so often lack — humanity, humour and heart. It's a tall order for a first time filmmaker, but perhaps not such a surprise when you consider his award winning commercials for Microsoft, Nike, Adidas, Nokia, Activision and Sears (highlighted by his stunning work with the Halo franchise).

I asked Sanders about assembling his all-star cast, reinventing a classic and making his own blood sacrifice.

This is your first feature, Rupert — why did you pick Snow White to be your entrance into feature filmmaking?
I think, a lot of the time, the material picks you. I've been working on other projects that have been very close to happening and then got pulled back at the last minute. I'd fallen down and dusted myself off a few times. Then I read this, and I saw an opportunity to create a world and to change a story that we know well, and to work with solid material. All of those things were very intoxicating.

Obviously everybody already knows the Snow White fairytale, but the way you've laid it out in this film, it's very much a classic hero's journey, isn't it?
Yes, it's very Joseph Campbell, you know, Hero With A Thousand Faces. It's an archetypal rise of a medieval figure. I think fairytales deal with archetypes well, and that was an instinctual decision, to follow that kind of journey in the fairytale world. I think the mixture of 'medieval epic' and 'magical fairytale' is something we haven't really seen before.

Audiences have seen so many fantasy creatures and fantasy landscapes. How did you go about showing them something new?
You know, I didn't draw up a chart of what had seen before and what hadn't. It was about following the journey, and that journey felt like it needed brightness and it needed a sanctuary so we understood what we were fighting for. They're really just artistic, instinctual decisions, you know?

Everybody knew this movie was going to look great, but I don't know if people expected it to have as much heart as it has. Was it a challenge for you to find the soul and the emotion in this story we've all seen before?
Yeah. I mean, when I first pitched the studio, I told them I wanted to make an emotional blockbuster, because too many blockbuster films take and they don't give anything back. What was important for me was to find the heart of the story, and ironically the heart is Snow White's. But I wanted something that would stay with people after they left the cinema; I wanted an emotional piece of film. They're so often separated, blockbuster and emotion, and I don't see why they need to be.

Charlize Theron's Queen Ravenna might end up being regarded as one of the all-time great villains. But she's kind of the hero of her own story, isn't she?
Yeah, I think it was important in the genesis of the story to create someone we understood. I wouldn't say we empathise with her, but we have to understood why villains are who they are, and I think that makes them more frightening. Seeing her becoming unhinged, and knowing why she is, is really fascinating.

Obviously Charlize's performance is amazing; did she bring anything to the role that you weren't expecting?
I think the wounded quality was something she was always really excited about. This idea of someone who is backed into a corner like a wounded animal, and therefore far more vicious. Especially in her death scene... she really dies like a wounded animal.

Kristen Stewart, as Snow White, almost has a White Swan/Black Swan thing going on in this film. She's an innocent beauty at times, but she also has to be a hard-as-nails warrior. That can't have been easy to cast.
We looked at a lot of young actors in that age group early on, and I think when I first met Kristen... I saw a spirit that I hadn't seen in some of her films. That really captured me. When I got to spend more time with her, she and I crafted the Snow White we felt was right, that would be a contemporary version of the character. A character who's so weak and scared but strong, and really finds in others what they've lost.

Chris Hemsworth plays The Huntsman. This is maybe the most challenging thing we've seen him do so far. What was it about his other performances that made you think he'd be right for this?
I think, you know, again, you have to meet actors. You can't just look at the work and take everything from that, because you have to be instinctual in the room. Obviously, I saw Thor quite early on and I thought he was very good in that, and then when I went to meet him I saw that he has an incredible presence. He's much darker than what you see in Thor; he's got a brooding quality to him. But we really cast the die with each other, because he didn't really know what I was capable of and I didn't really know what he was capable of.
His first scenes with Charlize... that was the first stuff he did, and I remember watching the dailies that night and saying, 'wow, Chris Hemsworth is fucking good'. And that continued throughout. He gives a very rich and emotional performance, which I do think is something we haven't seen from him yet.

Yeah. My favourite part of the film, and I suspect a lot of people's favourite part of the film, is the dwarves. These are veteran talents [Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Johnny Harris, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Brian Gleeson]. Was there ever talk of hiring actual 'dwarves', or was the plan always to get guys of this stature on board?
Well, it's kind of a complicated question. What is an 'actual dwarf'?

Well, somebody with dwarfism, obviously.
To me, we were casting mythical fairytale dwarves, and I wanted to get the best group of actors that was humanly possible, and a group of actors who'd worked together and came with that kind of camaraderie. When they come on the screen, the audience just goes, 'wow, that's amazing!' It's not something that hasn't been done before, of course. Lord Of The Rings did a lot of that kind of work. We're not changing anything, we're not groundbreaking any rules.

It's interesting, though, because you used practical effects wherever possible to achieve the look of the dwarves, rather than CGI.
Yeah. Yeah, we chose practical effects for 90 per cent of the film. There's very little green screen. It's the same with the dwarves. I didn't want their performances to be limited by us, so it was important their whole body was part of the performance. We had to figure out ways of working in camera with them, with a bit of smoke and mirrors and Hollywood magic.

Speaking of Hollywood magic, you literally put your blood into this film. How did that come about?
At the end of a big film like this, you end up with hundreds of little inserts you have to do in the last couple of nights, and they're all very laborious. One of the important ones was the blood drop. We were shooting at a very high speed, and the fake blood just kept looking like raspberry jam. I asked them if they had anything else, and they said no. So I asked if anyone had a syringe. They had some syringes, so they just took me behind the set and took out a couple of vials of blood, and then we used my blood. It worked really well! It was congealing quickly, but we got the shot and everyone got home on time. And it looks like blood!

Funny, that. We're out of time, but best of luck with the film!
Thanks, Rohan! See you.

Snow White & The Huntsman is now showing.

You might wonder why it took Muscles five years to release a follow-up to ‘Guns Babes Lemonade’. It’s not really that mysterious.

“I’m just writing up a diagram at the moment," the one-man party machine says, describing just one of the many projects that have been keeping him busy, "for how people with different personalities should listen to the album. Listening from tracks 1 to 12 might work for some people, but for people with their iPods on shuffle… if you’re that kind of personality, it might be better to listen to these tracks in this order. And if you’re another kind of personality, do it this way.

"So I’m putting this diagram together… I don’t know what it’s called, it’s like a yes/ no diagram [flowchart], where you arrive at what personality you are. It ties into the album artwork. We have these four characters that I’ve designed in my mind. We’ve called them Father Muscles, Future Muscles, Past Muscles and Evil Muscles. So I’m writing up a guide, and I think everyone will fall into one of those four categories."

I attempt to ask Muscles a serious question about the diagram, and how someone would be able to tell if they were an 'Evil Muscles'. Thankfully, he interrupts. "It’s going to be completely ridiculous," he laughs, somewhat reassuringly. "It’s going to be really dumb and stupid and fun. But that’s what Muscles is! There are no rules... there are no boundaries, really. It’s just me. Let’s just do something as big and as epic as possible, and continue to evolve that."

Evolution is at the heart of his long awaited second album, ‘Manhood’. The title is a loaded word for the controversial talent. "When I made my first album, I knew my second album was going to be called ‘Manhood’," he says matter-of-factly, "but I didn’t really have any idea what the songs were going to sound like. I’ve just had that word in the back of my mind for the last five or six years. I’ve been growing older and maturing very quickly and, I guess, I want to become a father one day.

"[The definition of 'manhood'] changes every week for me, every time I get a haircut or shave my beard and my moustache. It’s always evolving. It’s about experience, I think, just being out there and and working with different people. I’ve been doing a lot of travelling in the past few years and experiencing different cultures and different languages.

"It's a constant process. I didn’t wake up one morning and think, ‘okay, today I’m a man; yesterday I was a boy’. But compared to the first album… [‘Manhood’] is a lot darker, and a lot more representative of who I am now. The first album was very naïve, and not very self-conscious, and now I have a greater idea of the larger picture of who I want to be as an artist."

Muscles thinks of ‘Manhood’ as a "transitionary" album, with the first four tracks (including new single 'Ready For A Fight') bearing a close resemblance to ‘Guns Babes Lemonade’ and the last eight veering off in a new direction. All the same (and regardless of personality type), he'd prefer you viewed them as a cohesive whole.

"You need to listen to everything on there to really gauge it. I feel like it is an over-arching story, from start to finish. I’m an ‘albums’ kind of guy, and a storyteller. It’s not just a dance album, like... not to say Calvin Harris, but it’s not one of those albums where there’s three singles and the rest of it’s kind of crap. I feel like every song is special in its own way and could be its own single in a different universe, in a different world.

"As a fan of music, when I go to buy an album, and it costs maybe 15, 20 bucks, unless it’s a big top 40 artist like Katy Perry or Nicki Minaj, you expect to find at least five tracks that you really love and maybe five or seven other tracks that aren’t so good that you don’t really want to listen to."

Muscles will be introducing his precious new creations to the world via his elaborate stage show, which has probably changed a little since you last saw it.

"I’ve got some customised Muscles sunglasses made for me that I wear on stage," he explains. "Then I’ve got this thing… we call it the brain, the party brain. It’s this giant space helmet that lights up and syncs up with Ableton. Different notes on the keyboard light up as different colours on the helmet, and there’s an ‘M’ shape for Muscles on the helmet as well. Then I’m standing inside this giant four-metre-by-four-metre thing… we call it a diamond; the geometric name for it is an icosahedron. It’s made up of 30 equilateral triangles, all even and symmetrical. It looks really cool on stage. The last couple of months I’ve been designing this thing and taking a big risk, and we’ll get to test it out on the album launch tour.

"When I started playing live it was just me and a keyboard and a laptop. Sometimes I had two keyboards and a mic. I never thought people would really go for that as a live show, so I just feel really blessed and lucky that I’ve been able to build such a strong fanbase. The live show, over four years, has stepped up its game. You don’t want to change something that isn’t broken, but you do want to give your fans a new experience."

Of course, his live show's not the only thing that's changed. "It’s been a strange five years," he reflects. "I mean, the amount of dance music and dirty basslines and epic trance pop that's been in the top 40… it’s a totally different music landscape to when I started. I listen to lots of different types of music, and try to get influenced by different decades and different artists, but when I was writing this album I was never like, okay, I need to do a dubstep breakdown in the bridge and have all this hyperactive vocal editing, Nicki Minaj-style, where it’s just so over the top and so over-produced.

"Keeping that warm sound and listening to old vinyl records is the way… I recorded and mixed this album in my home studio, and then we took it to 301 in Sydney and pretty much ran it through all this amazing, expensive, really great sounding equipment. These tracks sound really big. You can really hear the kick drum and the snare. It’s a big, epic album, I think."

He's not wrong. And the best part is that you won't have to wait too long for the next one. "I’ve started working on album three, and I’ve got an idea for album four. It’s definitely not going to be a five year wait until the next album. I’ve got a very clear idea in my mind... Music really is survival of the fittest. If I keep going out there, as long as people keep coming to my gigs, then music is my number one priority. If a day comes when people stop coming to my tours and people stop caring about Muscles, I’ll just say goodbye and start a new project."

‘Manhood’ is out now. Muscles plays Cobra Kai Club at Oh Hello! this Friday June 22.

Melbourne indie trio The Red Lights — who can't tousle their hair without a review comparing them to The Strokes falling out — are headed to Brisbane to launch debut EP Not In This Town.

Currently basking in positive notices for singles 'In A Daze' and 'Dancing With Us' (and their support slots for Hunting Grounds and Strange Talk), they'll put all that early buzz on the line when they launch the five-track EP at Fortitude Valley hangout The Hideaway next Thursday June 21.

Jeremy Neale (Velociraptor) supports. The Red Lights' EP will be available via Gaga Digi on Wednesday June 20, giving you a whole day to learn the songs and memorise the best moments to get your lighter out.

Now in its third year, Brisbane's all-ages 4 Walls Festival is set to offer up three stages and eight hours of non-stop music across a massive variety of genres. In previous years, the event has spotlighted acts like Matt Corby and Last Dinosaurs, and this installment hasn't skipped a beat.

The 2012 lineup is headlined by folkies The Paper Kites, exhilarating rockers The Medics, garage heroes Millions, indie poppers Cub Scouts, party starters The Belligerents and GC rockers Fairchild Republic.

The full lineup includes:

The Paper Kites
The Medics
Millions
Cub Scouts
The Belligerents
Fairchild Republic
Stu Larsen
Avaberee
Tundra
Stephen Smith
Red Revolver
The Decider
Mountains
Hannah Karydas
Bandito Folk
The Vernons
Trepidation
Payne Rd
Moonshine Sally
Amela'D

4 Walls Festival will be held at the Queensland Academy of Creative Industries (in the heart of Kelvin Grove's urban village) on Saturday August 4. Tickets go on sale this Monday June 18 from moshtix.com.au.

Ever wondered what life was like in Prince's entourage in the '80s? Paul Peterson (aka St Paul) has a pretty good idea.

As a young and promising Minneapolis funk and R&B musician, Peterson joined Prince associates The Time in 1983, appearing with them in the classic Purple Rain the next year. When lead singer Morris Day left the group and others followed, Prince threw the remaining members — Peterson, Jellybean Johnson and Jerome Benton — together with his then-fiance, Susannah Melvoin, and his tour manager's brother, Eric Leeds. They became The Family, with Peterson as the frontman.

They recorded one album in '85, consisting almost entirely of tracks written and demoed by Prince (including the original version of 'Nothing Compares 2 U', later to become a mega-hit for Sinead O'Connor). Peterson left soon after, the rest of the group moved on to other projects and the criminally unheralded record has been out of print for decades. End of story, right?

It would have been, if they hadn't gotten a call from Sheila E. (another Prince protege) almost 20 years later to reform for a charity concert. A year later, Questlove persuaded them to play his Grammys afterparty. Finally, after a series of false starts, the band (minus Jerome) has released Gaslight, their first new album in 26 years, to rave reviews from The Sunday Times, The Daily Mirror, Uncut and The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Of course, you won't find it if you look under 'The Family'. Prince — none too happy with the reunion — refused to let them use the Family name, leaving them with the somewhat cumbersome 'fDeluxe' moniker (at that point, they'd already recorded the album). Despite this, they remain forever connected to The Purple One, even engaging in a musical slanging match with him recently.

I got Paul on the phone to talk about his complicated relationship with Prince, how he compares with Sinead O'Connor, and his band's unlikely revival.

This is the latest chapter in something you started 27 years ago, but the band has a different name now for legal reasons. Can you talk about that?
I really don’t know what to say to you, man. I struggle to answer that question, simply because I have a profound respect for what Prince did and what he put together on our behalf. Little did anyone know the rest of us would be friends, let alone still making music, 25 years later. Am I disappointed we couldn’t call it The Family? To a certain extent, I guess, but you try searching 'The Family' on Google and see what comes up first. It probably isn’t the old band, so on that level it’s okay that we got renamed. Did we lose some fans along the way? Maybe.
The Family name has a stigma, it’s very underground and very loved by that whole culture. But those people already knew we were coming back with a new record, and they were part of the name change, and instrumental throughout the process. Who knows whether it hurt us at all? It was unfortunate that we didn’t get Prince to go, ‘aww man, go ahead! Of course! I love the record!’ But that’s not in him, so whatever. It’s a big whatever.

When Sheila E. got in touch with you guys about a reunion, did you need some convincing?
I didn’t. I had already been playing with Eric (Leeds) and (Jelly)Bean (Johnson) for years. The only people that I wasn’t able to play with, but was still in touch with, were Susannah and Jerome. The stars aligned and those guys were into it and I was into it and our schedules were free; we put it on and went out there. It was the biggest family reunion, no pun intended, of all time. It just felt so natural, and I guess we rehearsed enough when we were kids, that we stepped into rehearsal for an hour and we had our set down cold. It was literally just a love fest. We just missed each other. It felt so good. We had no plans to make a record, it was just a reunion.
We didn’t think about it, but we got offstage and went, 'holy shit, that was fun!' We were thinking about going out on the road, and then we found out Susannah was pregnant. So it was like, alright, I guess we’ll go about our lives. And then Questlove called a few years later and said, 'you guys have gotta open up for us for this Grammy party we’re doing'. We thought it was fun last time and Susannah had already had [her child], so we went and did it again. It was as much fun as the first reunion, and we realised, you know… there’s a reason for all this. Let’s just see what happens. Let’s get in a room together and write and see if we’re compatible.
Nearly four and a half years after that, the record came out. It was like giving birth. The world’s longest pregnancy.

You had your own stuff going on in 1990 [Peterson has recorded solo albums and toured with Kenny Loggins and the Steve Miller Band, while other members of The Family continued to play with Prince]. When 'Nothing Compares 2 U' became such a huge hit for Sinead, did you feel like that should have been you? Or did you not take much notice?
Oh no, we took notice. [Laughs] I took notice. I’m sure we all reacted differently. I was not… I don’t know if I wasn’t a fan of the treatment of the song, or if I wasn’t a fan of it not being me making it famous. There were many different feelings.
A little bit of it was jealousy. But I honestly love the treatment that Prince, David Z and Clare Fischer gave it. It's one of the most brilliant songs Prince has ever written in his entire life… that song deserved the treatment that it got with The Family. When it got turned into something that was a little more commercial… for me, it didn’t move me. But obviously that isn’t the case for a billion other people on the planet.
The song really did get exposed. I’m glad Prince was able to expose that song, because I really do think that rivals some of his best work, that particular song. You know, I really do have mixed feelings about it. It wasn’t the best treatment, but it’s our claim to fame now. ‘We did that first!’ We have to remind people in concert that are new to fDeluxe… some people don’t know that we were The Family and we actually recorded that first. They’re like, ‘why are they covering a Sinead O’Connor song?’ We’re not, you idiots!

A lot of people think Prince either wrote it for her or it was a cover of a Prince B-Side.
Yeah, but that’s the way the whole Family vibe was. It was very underground, very understated... I don’t even know what (Prince's) reaction was! I don’t know if he liked it or not. He usually didn’t like other people covering his songs, so…

He’s blocked people from covering his songs before, so…
I bet he didn’t block people from delivering that cheque, though!

On the eve of Prince's recent Australian tour, he sent a recording of a rehearsal jam to Peterson (and Terry Lewis, another member of The Time who went his own way). Incorporating altered lyrics ('Takin' back the ship / You should've been a little more hip') into The Time and The Family tracks 'Ice Cream Castles' and 'Mutiny', it was a none-too-subtle dig at his former associates.
The Family responded in kind with 'Hot Summer At Menards', a diss track likening Prince's awful 2010 track 'Hot Summer' to a hardware store jingle (Menards is a Mid-West hardware store).

You guys recorded a pretty funny cover of ‘Hot Summer’ recently. For people who don’t know the backstory there, how’d that come about?
It was completely out of left field. He and I have had interesting interactions in the last three or four years. Usually it’s “don’t use the name or I’ll sue you!” That’s usually it. So basically, he sent me the file and I wrote back and said, ‘is this spam? Did somebody hack your account?’ The last time I received a song from Prince was in 1984 when I was sitting beside my mum’s pool trying to learn 'High Fashion'! So it transported me back about 25 years.
I download the track and it’s ‘Ice Cream Castles’ and ‘Mutiny’ mixed in together with a change of lyric. I knew he was ribbin’ us. It reminded us of what we used to do, back and forth, with Sheila E. We’d rib each other in songs, sending cassette tapes back and forth from San Francisco to Minneapolis. So I’m like, ‘hey, maybe he’s coming around here! This is kind of funny!’
First of all, it was funky as hell. Secondly, I knew exactly what was going on. But it was funny because he said, ‘would you please promote our tour coming up in Australia?’ And I’m thinking to myself, ‘aah… why on God’s green earth would you be asking me to do that? It’s not like you need my help!’ But sure! I played along, so I put it up and I said, ‘here’s the present we got from Prince’.
It was just funny to read… if you look at the feed on Facebook or Soundcloud or whatever, people's reactions were hilarious. 'Why would he ever put that up on the site? Doesn’t he know? Is he an idiot? Doesn’t he know Prince is making fun of him?' And I’m just laughing out loud. So I thought, ‘okay, that’s a good one, I have a little rebuttal for him’. I thought I’d give him a little ‘Hot Summer’. I thought that was a better use of that song than the original.

So it's fair to say 'Hot Summer' is not one of your favourite latter day Prince tunes?
Oh no, I thought it was perfect for use in a Menards commercial.

Given that so many of your fans are also Prince fans, were you worried about a backlash?
No, because I made sure to phrase it in a way that was playful. That’s all it is. I can’t be completely worried about how people are going to react to it. You have to choose your words very, very carefully, of course, because that’s all it is. It’s very playful. It’s just a conversation that he made public. I’m 47 years old, I’m not just going to say, ‘oh, that was great, Prince, and I don’t have anything to say about it’. I got plenty to say.

It's a conversation that's been public for a while, because he wrote 'Dream Factory' about you leaving The Family in 1986 [he also incorporated the chant 'St Paul! Punk of the Month!' into his performances for a time]. Did you expect your departure to have such an effect on him?
No, because we really didn’t interact very much. It was a very one-dimensional relationship, as far as I knew. It was very much… I interpreted it as a non-event. I could be totally wrong, because we never got to a point in our relationship where I’d be able to realise it was anything other than that. We weren’t necessarily friends. He was the guy, and I was a green little kid, following instructions from one of the most brilliant superstars of his time. I was in the most enviable position of any young musician.
I really didn’t think it would affect him like that, but I had an opportunity that I couldn’t refuse. Let’s just put it that way. We don’t have to get into flinging anything back and forth, but you know, it provided me with an outlet for my own music, and also, financially, it was a no-brainer. So, regardless of the success I would have had if I’d stayed with The Family… we’ll never know!
But I can tell you one thing, I don’t regret the decision and I’m very proud of everything I’ve done. I’m happy sittin’ here in the Lunds & Byerly's grocery store talking to you over Skype. I think I turned out okay.

Were you frustrated with the situation? He installed you as the leader of the band, but he didn't let you write your own songs, so...
Oh, it was the coolest thing on the planet. No, it was great while it was happening. I wasn’t in a position to say, nor did I care to say, ‘oh, I’m going to write everything myself!’ I had the guy who was The King... He wasn’t Prince, he was King, at that time. So I wasn’t in any position, nor did I want to be any position, to try to make any musical statement other than translating his stuff, because anything he touched was gold. As you know, that period of time was one of the most brilliant times he’s ever had. The only thing that’s funny was the business, man. That’s it. Musically speaking, it was a ten. Business speaking, not so much.

Given that things have worked out for you in the long run — as you say, you’re quite happy where you are — how do you feel about him now? Can you listen to his music without thinking about everything that went on?
Oh, boy, that’s a great question. No, I think… I don’t necessarily seek out new Prince material. Although, obviously, with the resurgence of The Family/fDeluxe there have been opportunities for me to pay a little bit more attention to what he’s doing. But what brings me the most joy is to hear the old stuff. It reminds me of when I was a kid, with Purple Rain and The Time and all those really good times. It really brings me back.
It feels, almost 30 years later, like such a different life. I’m proud of that history that we have and that I am a part of. I tend to look at it as a positive. I don’t have any ill will towards the man at all. I think he’s a brilliant musician and I wish him well. I would love to have a different relationship with him, as probably 99 per cent of the people who’ve been through his camp would like to as well, but that’s his choice. And that’s totally cool.

We're coming up on the 30th anniversary of Purple Rain. Do you think there's any chance Prince and everybody from his camp back then will be able to sort out their differences in time to celebrate that together?
Well, if I could predict what that guy’s going to do, or anybody like that, I’d go to Las Vegas and start laying odds. I have no idea. But wouldn’t that be nice? That’s about all I have to say. I mean, that would be the right thing to do! I’d pay money to see that! I really would. I’d pay money to see that, and I think the entire planet would, too... It wasn't even on my radar that Purple Rain was coming up on 30 years. Isn't that funny?

Well, it's still a couple of years away. There's time.
Thank god! I don’t want to consider myself that old yet. Thank god I was just a baby! I don’t know, I would be surprised if he would sanction that. But then again, what do I know? Maybe he will! Maybe he’ll have a change of heart and totally say, ‘c’moooon, let’s do this, let’s have a BBQ’. Who knows?
I always tend to look on the bright side of things, man, I really do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way, and that’s disappointing, but it’s not my life. I’m happy where I’m at, I’m glad to be a part of that history, and I forge ahead.

Listen to Gaslight here. fDeluxe hope to tour Australia this summer; follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

The Walkmen haven’t had it easy since their formation in 2000.

They’ve developed a devoted audience and cultivated critical acclaim, but unlike so many of their New York contemporaries, they’ve never been the ‘it’ band, and they’ve never had a breakthrough record rocket them to real stardom. They’ve struggled for almost every scrap of recognition they’ve received. But sometimes things just work out.

“Well, we got that new Fleet Foxes record,” bassist and lyricist Walter Martin remembers, “which we all loved. Right around the time it came out, we were trying to figure out how to make our next record. We were all in the van together, actually, talking about how we wanted to track [producer] Phil Ek down and meet with him. And then he called our manager that day, saying he wanted to talk about making our next record. The stars aligned, and we just did it.”

The result is Heaven, a gorgeous record that sounds like a logical progression from 2010’s Lisbon, while still wearing the influence of Fleet Foxes’ Helplessness Blues proudly on its sleeve. Not only does it share a producer with that record, but that band’s leader, Robin Pecknold, lends his distinctive vocals to four of the album’s best tracks. “We did a long tour with them last September,” Martin explains, “and we became good buddies with them. Robin said that if we ever wanted him to come sing or anything, he'd love to. So we took him up on that.”

Despite Pecknold’s influence on the record, Martin says those parts weren’t written specifically for him, “but he really made them. He changed the parts a little bit when he came in to sound less like the Fleet Foxes, actually. He was amazing. He was so creative, and he instantly thought of cooler ways to do what we were trying to do.”

While Ek and Pecknold had an obvious impact on the sound of Heaven, other changes came from within. The band’s lyrics have traditionally been somewhat oblique, but this time around, Martin wanted to make an easier connection with audiences.

“Yeah, I think we were aiming to be a little clearer in our message,” he says. “There's a tendency when you're younger to just think that any sort of babble is fine in the context of a rock song, which, a lot of the times, it is. A lot of the songs I love don't make any sense whatsoever. But there comes a point when you've been doing it for a long time and you sort of feel like you're putting a hell of a lot of effort into all the music, so it feels kind of weird to have the thing that's really leading it, which is the lyric, not really mean anything. We worked hard on getting the lyrics to a place where we were excited about them, and also to clarify things, and to make them serve a real purpose in the songs.”

In Martin’s estimation, this new approach makes songs like ‘We Can’t Be Beat’, ‘Love Is Luck’ and the title track — songs built on “very traditional pop structures” — more likely to appeal to listeners who haven’t had much time for The Walkmen before.

“Definitely... it’s a little bit more of an open record, a friendly record, where people might enjoy it more than other Walkmen albums, just because it’s a little more inclusive of people. In the past we tended to exclude people, and stick in one part of the song that made people scratch their heads. I think we did that deliberately a lot when we were younger. I think we sort of got to a point where we were like, ‘you know, maybe we don't need to do that? Maybe it's nice to entertain people.’”

There are no guarantees, of course, that this album will contain the mythical ‘hit record’ that puts The Walkmen over the top. But it sure wouldn’t hurt.

“It'd be nice,” Martin admits. “It would make our lives easier. We do get good reviews and things like that, [but] it gets to a point where it feels like you're playing to the same audience over and over again. Like you're playing to a slightly exclusive club of music nerds. Maybe it's better to try to broaden your horizons a little bit.

“The musical inside jokes and stuff like that we've always liked putting in our music… it gets old after a while. It feels like we go to the same towns, and the same people are there, watching us do the same things. So it's nice to try to reach different people.”

Heaven is out June 8 through Inertia.

Australian musicians don’t come much more beloved and admired than Glenn Thompson and Adele Pickvance.

Best known collectively as the rhythm section for the second incarnation of The Go-Betweens, Glenn is also a member of Custard. The pair’s latest record, Carrington St, sees them collaborating on the purest pop of their careers.

“We didn’t set out with any specific idea in mind other than to make the best record the two of us could possibly make with the skills and equipment we had available,” Thompson says. “It’s funny, I listened to it again just recently because I had to check some files, and I hadn’t listened to it for ages, and I just thought, ‘huh, that’s not bad! That actually sounds pretty good!’ So I’m happy.”

Thompson and Pickvance can take particular pride in Carrington St, given their involvement in every stage of its creation. Recorded at Glenn’s studio in Sydney’s inner west, the pair didn’t bring in any outside producers, mixers or engineers to work on the album.

“I’ve been collecting gear for about ten years,” Thompson says of his labour of love, “and more importantly, I’ve been collecting the knowledge of how to use it... I didn’t used to know anything. I’d just get to the studio and play my part and think, ‘well, I don’t need to know that stuff’, which is fine. But then it got to a point where I thought, ‘well, I can’t afford to go into a studio and say that anymore, I have to figure out how to do it at home’. I’m really into it now, I love that side of it.

“I’m a student of the University of the Newsagent. I learn by reading magazines. I did that when I first got a computer, to figure out how to use it, you know, how to use different professional programs... I go and get all the magazines on a particular subject and read through them, and even if I don’t understand what they’re saying, I always pick up a bit here and there and then it starts to make sense. I still do that.”

It might surprise some readers to learn Thompson is based in Sydney at all, given his association with so many great ‘Brisbane’ bands. “I moved to Sydney in the last year of Custard,” he says. “In fact, three of us did. Matthew (Strong) and David (McCormack) and myself moved to Sydney. I just think we were looking for an adventure, for somewhere new to live. At that stage, too, Custard’s management was in Sydney, and we were always flying down to Sydney for all sorts of gigs. So we decided to just move down there… and then the band broke up. It was bizarre. We’d just moved there!”

Custard stayed broken up longer than most bands of their stature, but inevitably reunited in 2009. They’ve played one or two gigs a year since then. Late last year, McCormack hinted at the possibility of new Custard material, and Thompson’s not about to rule it out.

“Yeah, that's actually on the cards,” he admits, “definitely. We've played a few of these shows, and it's hard to call them reunion shows now, because there's been so many of them. I think we've done five already. I feel like the band's just going again, but on a different level to how it used to. It's been great. It's just been so easy. It's funny, we all got together and rehearsed one day; the first half an hour was a mess and then it all fell into place. So, yeah... I reckon there's going to be some new stuff sooner or later.”

Thompson says there are also more records from Beachfield, his solo moniker, “on the horizon”. But for now, the focus is on Adele & Glenn, with a European tour scheduled for October and the distinct possibility of another album from the duo after that.

“I actually want to make another album as soon as we finish this one. It's good having two people who can work really closely every step of the way, because quite often Adele's ideas are not ideas I would have had. But they work! It's good to have that. I always think the best bands are the bands who are made up of people who are quite different... if you get a group of guys who wouldn't normally be at the same party together, it can be pretty interesting.”

Having had such a storied career, Carrington St is just the latest in a long line of great records to bear the Thompson name in its liner notes. Just don’t ask him to choose a favourite child from that discography.

“There are none that really stand out in my mind as a favourite, but there are none that I wish didn't happen, either. Making a record is a really different experience each time. You work on a project and you're in a certain headspace at the time, you work with certain people... they're all documents of different periods of time. I look back at them a bit like, you know, 'oh, that was when I was living in that house, with those people'.

"There are good bits and bits that probably aren't so good, but seemed like good ideas at the time."

Carrington St will be released in June. Adele & Glenn play Black Bear Lodge Thursday May 31.

As one of the most prominent members of The Wu-Tang Clan and as a solo superstar, Ghostface Killah has been in the game for 20 years now. Just don’t call him an ‘old school’ MC.

“I pray to God,” he laughs, “to please never make me an old school MC. Some people have a tendency to lose they flow, nah mean? And once you lose your flow... once you lose your flow, you fucked up. Sometimes, for some people, it’s hard to get it back.”

He’s not in danger of losing his flow anytime soon. His most recent LP, ‘Apollo Kids’, was more than worthy of the legacy of ‘Ironman’ and ‘Supreme Clientele’. His next could see him go head-to-head with DOOM under their ‘DOOMSTARKS’ moniker. “Right now the album is in DOOM's hands,” Ghostface says of the record, which was first announced in 2006. “We've talked about it, I've told him the people want it, but it's like... he been had the records, B! It's on him, nah mean? It's on him! I wish he would have been had it done. It's on DOOM!”

The two MCs will tour Australia together next month on the Rap City bill, which should give them plenty of time to collaborate. It’s a working relationship that goes back to Ghostface’s 2006 LP, ‘FishScale’. “I had this Metal Fingers CD,” he remembers, “but he had no number, no nothin', on it. So I told [manager] Mike [Caruso], 'yo, just find this Metal Fingers right here for me, I need this Metal Fingers'. Mike came back and Metal Fingers was fuckin' DOOM! He came to the studio and played me some beats and stuff like that, and then we just started gettin' it in.”

They’ve got a lot in common, from their love of Marvel Comics (Ghostface’s aliases include Ironman, Tony Starks and Starky Love) to the impersonators they’ve spawned. DOOM is infamous for sending imposters on the road to perform on his behalf, while Ghostface’s unique turns of phrase inspired ‘Big Ghost Chronicles’, an unauthorised blog written in his ‘voice’.

As it happens, the real Ghostface doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with his virtual counterpart. The fake Ghost has been vocal in his distaste for rappers who can sing (i.e. Drake), but the real deal doesn’t see the problem. “Music's music, man, nah mean? Shit. I wish I could fuck around and sing! I'd have all the ladies! I'd have all the ladies, y'feel me?”

Ghostface’s fallen Wu-Tang brother, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, is about to have his identity lifted, too. He’ll be played by Michael K. Williams in upcoming film ‘Dirty White Boy’, a project Ghostface isn’t quite sold on. “Me and Ol' Dirty was close,” he says hesitantly. “We was close. And they ain't come to me for an interview yet, or even talked to me, to be like, 'yo, can you tell me how Ol' Dirty was, and this and that and the third?’ So I hope they just get it right.”

Seven years after his death, ODB is still on Ghost’s mind. “Hell, yeah! I keep the picture right there on my kitchen table... pray for him all the time, all a' that. I keep him right there on the kitchen table. “We both was into Islam, and it did help me understand... that one day we all gonna face the same music. His body is just gone, but his spirit lives on. He just went to another stage... I don't believe in reincarnation and stuff like that, things of that nature. I believe God is a good God, and he is a merciful God, nah mean? Compassionate. I don't believe he would send us back here to keep going through Hell time after time after time after time.

"I believe that what we do here on Earth right now... we are here to get judged. We're being held accountable. You got an angel on your left side and your right side, and they just jottin' down the notes. Y’understand what I'm sayin'? It's a trial. It's a trial. And when your passing comes, on that day of judgement, if your good outweighs your bad, you're in the good seat. But if the bad outweighs the good, you're gonna have to face that music!

“Only God knows the torment that he has, that he's gonna put us through if we was really a messed up person who did no good deeds and a lot of bad deeds. So I understand that. So I know Dirty's there with all his family, my family's with all my family, your family's with your family. Nah mean? I understood life and death, and that's what made it easier for me.”

In fact, Ghostface Killah thinks society could use a little more spirituality. “Oh, sure! Indeed! Yeah, of course! You know why? Because it's a sense of guidance. If you don't know yourself, you don't know where you're goin'. “It's like the world is becoming more corrupt, day by day. More babies are bein' born, and the parents that's bornin' 'em, they already lost. It's like, if your kid is a reflection of you, then what do you think your kid's gonna be? They gonna be lost. These kids, these babies, they need guidance.

“When I was young, church was a good thing. Even though I'm into Islam, you know... your grandparents and them, they was old school. They believed in the church. They believed in God. Nowadays, the kids that's growin' up don't believe in anything. Not even they parents. If they believed in the Word, I believe our kids wouldn't grow up the way they're growin' up. Y'understand what I'm sayin'?

“Families, back in the day, they were closer. Every Sunday they was in that church. And I know it made a difference! Because it's like, yo, it always put you back on track. You hear 'God this', 'God that', you're hearin' his name so much, and it becomes you! He's inside of you!

"I mean, he's in there regardless, but, you know, [church] makes you feel it more, it makes you be like, 'yo, I can't do that, I can't do that'. Nowadays, these kids do anything without no consequences, without nothin' inside. They just doin' it. It's like, yo, of course we need more guidance. Everybody needs guidance. Because don't get me wrong, it's hell out there, man! It's hell! Sometimes these kids don't got nowhere to go, man! They look outside, because the parents is not there to do what they supposed to do, even if it's just to help them read a book... and it's sad, yo. It's very, very, very, very sad.

“So of course I believe we all need guidance. You're never too old for guidance. But as long as you're lovin' your God to the fullest, and you worship him and nothin' else but him, then you're on that path, and he loves you the same way. But even more. Even more. I don't care if your mother had you, and she loves you, God loves you more than your own mother loves you.

“That's where I'm at with mine. People can tell me I'm wrong, but that's my belief. That's what I feel inside, based on what I have studied and what I have read.”

Ghostface Killah plays Rap City at The Arena on Friday June 8 with DOOM and Chino XL.

PRINCE & THE NEW POWER GENERATION
THE HI-FI, MAY 19

Talk about shock and awe. At 7pm on Friday night, I was planning a quiet one in. Nine hours later, I was stumbling out of The Hi-Fi having witnessed the greatest live show I’m ever likely to experience. Almost entirely removed from the pomp and ceremony of his stadium show, Prince — the musician, not the caricature — reminded us why he’s worth the spectacle.

After a mood-setting selection of ‘70s funk and ‘80s pop from DJ Rashida, capably tiding over fans who have shown up at the drop of a hat and queued for hours, the clock strikes 2. The NPG starts up on the unmistakable groove of ‘Musicology’ from behind the curtain, while the backing singers go to work on Bobby Byrd’s ‘I Know You Got Soul’. The curtains open, and there’s Prince, about to play to a room of 650 people on Boundary St and loving it. “Got soul,” he says, dripping with understatement. It is, quite frankly, one of the greatest moments in the history of Brisbane’s live music scene, and we are there.

What follows exceeds our wildest expectations. A positively glowing Prince (I can see his aura, and it’s purple) rips through a set that includes Charlie Parker’s ‘Scrapple From The Apple’, Chaka Khan’s ‘Ain’t Nobody’, Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)’, The Ohio Players’ ‘Love Rollercoaster’, Wild Cherry’s ‘Play That Funky Music’; even India.Arie’s ‘Brown Skin’ (a showcase for powerhouse vocalist Shelby J). If you were trying to explain funk music to an alien, you’d bring them to this show. Musicology, indeed.

His Royal Purpleness dips into his own hefty back catalogue, too, pulling out live favourite ‘Days Of Wild’; a slow, bluesy take on ‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ that builds to an emotionally charged solo worthy of the heavens; and closer ‘Controversy’ (including the ‘Housequake’ chant!), one of the tracks that broke him over here in the first place. Through it all, he is the consummate frontman, guiding his band and his audience (and the lighting crew) through every step of his genius.

We don’t see a diva, or even an icon, tonight, but of course what we do see is inextricably tied up in all that — we see an incredibly gifted man, doing what he does best for an audience that won’t ever forget it.