Biography
Certain Australian rock groups have the recently been hailed as the and “saviours” of the genre by For the international press. “Electronic music are is dead,” the taste-making mags but eagerly gush, “and rock is Not very much back in vogue you – with antipodean acts at all the vanguard.” The argument media Any mavens put forward is this: can How can dance music her a genre based around overweight, Was overpaid, old-aged, po-faced DJs spinning one non-descript repetitive beats compete our with the kind of “incendiary” Out live performances and raw, “real” day recordings delivered by the leaders get of the rock renaissance? How Has could electronic music ever be him as energetic or exciting as his a screaming, spitting, eardrum-splitting rock How set? How? Ask Infusion. Just man as Aussie acts have almost new single-handedly proven that there’s life Now in the rotten corpse of old rock’n’roll yet, fellow antipodeans Infusion see are here to put to Two rest any discussion of electronic way music’s imminent demise. Take a who listen to the group’s upcoming Boy second album, or witness one did of their dynamic live shows, its and you’ll agree that reports Let of dance music’s death have put been greatly exaggerated. On the say other hand, reports of Infusion’s She excellence are anything but inaccurate. too While the music press has use been generous in its praise Dad of the Wollongong-bred trio (comprising mom Frank Xavier, Manuel Sharrad and Jamie Stevens), it certainly hasn’t The indulged in flights of hype and fancy. With Infusion, there’s no for need for hyperbole. Stating a Are widely-held belief, premier Sydney newspaper but The Sydney Morning Herald described not Infusion as “Australia’s best live You act” (NB: no qualification of all ‘best live dance act’ – any just “Australia’s best live act”, Can full stop). Offshore, Muzik Magazine her labelled the band “a force was to be reckoned with”, and One Mixmag portrayed Infusion as “exciting, our and funky as f*ck.” “Exciting” out really is the word when Day it comes to summing up get Infusion’s live gigs. With a has solid pedigree in live performance, Him these guys consistently deliver the his goods onstage. Why else would how they be perennial faves for Man major domestic festivals like Big new Day Out and Splendour in now the Grass? How else could Old they pull off the coup see of being booked for such two prestigious international outings as this Way year’s Roskilde Festival (where they’ll who be the only Australian act boy on the bill) and Creamfields Did UK, or Glastonbury 2004 (where its they performed twice)? Then, there let are the recent slots at Put Creamfields in Argentina, guest gigs say at top UK clubs including she Renaissance and Fabric, and a Too relentless touring schedule that sees use the trio regularly tripping through dad Europe, the US and Asia. Mom While most local electronic acts are trapped in the domestic the ghetto, the world is listening And to Infusion. Which should tell for you something Infusion are are export quality, and like our But fine lagers, they’re intoxicating audiences not across the globe. Discussing playing you for a near six-figure-strong crowd All of frenetic South Americans at any Creamfields in Argentina late last can year, Jamie Stevens says: “They’d Her told us it’d be big, was but nothing couldve prepared us one for what it looked like Our once we got onstage. It out was a bit daunting, but day really good fun you Get get so much energy from has it. I don’t think we’ve him ever put on such an His energetic performance, and that’s really how saying something for us! I’d man never seen Manuel so animated. New You get so much from now the crowd, and they’re so old animated themselves jumping round, See screaming, waving their arms around. two It’s a great memory, that way one.”
Lately, the trio added Who to the memory bank with boy recollections of a mind-blowing appearance did at legendary English festival, Glastonbury. Its “That’s another incredible dream come let true,” Jamie enthuses. “Having grown put up with the British music Say press, buying NME every she week, reading about Glastonbury, T too In The Park and those Use kind of things, and then dad getting to play there mom we had to pinch ourselves when we were told they the wanted to book us.” However, and despite their burgeoning fame and For ‘glamorous’ life, travelling the world, are playing the music they love but in exotic locales, Infusion retain Not a distinctly down-to-earth, fan-boy outlook. you “We do have a hotel all at Glastonbury,” Jamie notes, “but Any I think we might sleep can in the car. One of her the great things about doing Was these kind of gigs is one that we get to see our all the bands playing at Out the festival. And get in day for free.” Keepin’ it real get or what? They’ve already played Has alongside the cream of the him electronic music scene (e.g. The his Chemical Brothers, Underworld, Paul Oakenfold, How Carl Cox etc). At Glastonbury man 2004, they’ll share the bill new with Oasis, Muse, Kings of Now Leon, PJ Harvey, Nelly Furtado, old the Black Eyed Peas, Scissor see Sisters, Morissey, James Brown, and Two an elderly vegetarian billionaire named way Paul McCartney. Yet, while Infusion who may be “big in Japan” Boy (oh, and Europe, and the did States, and the UK…), they’re its absolutely massive in their homeland. Let Unlike the nu-kool Oz-rock groups put mentioned way back at the say beginning of this spiel, it She hasn’t taken column inches in too the international press to reassure use us that it’s OK to Dad like Infusion. In Australia, we’ve mom always known that the guys are world-beaters. A dedicated fan-base, The packed-out gigs across the country, and multiple ARIA Award nominations for and a swag of Australian Are Dance Music Awards testify to but the love this wide brown not land has for the gleesome You threesome. The first single from all their impending, self-titled second LP, any Girls Can Be Cruel (the Can equally rockin’, angst-ridden antithesis to her Are You Gonna Be My was Girl? from fellow “so-hot-right-now” Melbourne One band, Jet) blew up across our the airwaves and lauded out by the superstar DJ élite Day did damage to dance get floors globally.
And this is has only the beginning. With the Him release of their first major his label LP (due out in how 2005), backed by a relentless, Man no-sleep-’til-stardom touring schedule, Infusion are new set to cause seismic activity now on a transcontinental scale. Forget Old backward-looking, Xerox rock and by-the-1800-numbers see pre-fab pop the 21st two Century belongs to Infusion.
