ALBUM NUMBER TWO

Calling in from “freezing” London, Sneaky Sound System's Daimon Downey (aka MC Double D) is excited about his group's upcoming tour of Australia. The Sydney-siders are gearing up to play a few shows in SE Queensland and this time they’re making sure they turn up to the airport extra early.

The last time the group were booked in to play Brisbane, it was to headline BBQ Beats - but they missed their flight. “Have you ever flown with those cheap airlines?” Downey explains, exasperated. “They are a pain in the arse! We were one minute late! You have to get there 30 minutes before the plane takes off and we were there 29 minutes before and we didn't even have any luggage. But they wouldn't let us on.

“We even looked into hiring a jet but the paperwork to get that done was so much. In the end, we were in the airport for the duration of how long our set would have been. In all the time we have been a band, we have never missed a show; so apologies all round.”

The past few years for Downey and fellow bandmates Connie Mitchell and Angus McDonald have been packed with shows, with the trio supporting their self-titled debut album. While the touring has been constant (“we have kind of mastered it and I don't really have a house! I can live in hotel rooms, I quite like it”), the trio are happy to be on the road again, this time with a shiny new album to show off.

Starting off their ‘Poptronica Tour’ in Brisbane, it will be a chance for fans to hear their new tracks in a club setting. "It's about pop music and popular culture and electronic music, so we thought the name summed it up,” Downey says of the tour. “And we will be going back to the clubs on this tour. It means we can come up with a few little surprises and hopefully we can play a few of our remixes live. But we don't really rehearse our set until the soundcheck because we like to keep our set pretty flexible.”

While they like to keep things loose, Downey assures us that being the first cab off the rank, Brisbane fans will be able to see the band at their prime.
“Brisbane, it is a great place to start! And the good thing about this show is we will be completely warmed up,” Downey laughs. “We are doing some shows in the UK and the US first, but we will still be fresh for Brisbane; this is the home town of Angus, so we like coming back up here.”

Their new album, aptly titled '2' given it is their sophomore release, was ready to go even before the fans were ready to hear it and that's just the way the band wanted it to happen.  “The time it took to put it together was a lot shorter than the first album,” Downey says. “We had an idea of what we wanted to do and it only took a few months. It wasn't too hard to put it together. And it didn't take long to think of an album title!”

Downey says the whole project came together before there was time for people to ask about what their plans were for the second album, so outward pressure and expectations didn't impair on the writing process at all.   “When we told people we were ready to record our second album, people were surprised with the fact we had already finished (writing) the album because we were still doing shows for the first album,” Downey says.  “You don't want to live with the expectation of the previous album. But we put pressure on ourselves to write a good album.”

Sneaky Sound System will kickstart the Queensland leg of their tour at Family on Thursday April 2, Platinum Nightclub, Gold Coast, on Friday April 3 and Alexandra Hills Hotel on Saturday April 4. Their album '2' is out now through Whack/MGM.