INTERVIEW: Rufus

RÜFÜS are about to embark on a full scale national tour in support of their already hugely successful single, ‘Take Me’. We thought we'd sit the band down to get a feel for what to expect from their new record.

'Take Me' is the first single of oh so many hot songs contained within ATLAS, the debut album by RÜFÜS. Its future pop tech in sunglasses served just on sunset, out doing any genre's is one hell of a song! The track has had some big love on the DJ front with the likes of Tommy Sunshine, Slopprock, Benson, Nick Catchdubs, and Peking Duck, all giving the package stellar reviews.

This is only a taste of things to come from the band. With another single down the line and ATLAS set to drop mid-year, RÜFÜS are truly here to stay.

Plug into the latest music with our FREE weekly newsletter

Your Australian tour starts this week, how much new material can we expect to hear at these shows?

Well after nine months of being caged in the studio writing our debut album we're hoping to play half the tracks from it. So if anyone's heading along they'll get a good idea of what's to come from it...

Other than your new tracks, is there anything different you've decided to add into your live show for this tour?

I guess we're just treating this tour as more of a celebration of finishing an album's worth of tracks that we're over the moon about. We can promise plenty of cowbell, some housey grooves and a vocal effect that makes Tyrone's voice sound like an Afro soul singer.

I really like the house music feel your new single 'Take Me' has. What are some of your favourite house tracks?

We've been really digging tracks like Duke Dumont - Need You (100%), DEVolution - My Friend, Julio Bashmore - Au Seve, Soulmagic - Someone Like You, Jonas Rathsman - Since I Don't Have You and anything from Justin Martin.

Are there any songs in particular that inspired the track?

Yeah actually, we're all massive fans of Cassius 'Sound Of Violence' Narcotics Mix and its summery house vibe and we wanted the album to have a 50/50 split of deeper, darker tunes with some lighter summery tracks. I guess 'Sound Of Violence' was the exact feeling we were after and we just went from there. Coma Cat and Disclosure were also big influences on this one.

What has been the overall response to the single?

We started playing 'Take Me' late last year when we travelled to New York and we got such a good reaction to it over there. Over the festival season the track kept getting a really good response but you always doubt whether it will get similar reactions once it's out there and on the interwebs.

Nek minnit - we've been totally blown away by how much everyone has embraced it and we just really can't wait for the rest of the album to tickle their ears.

I saw you perform 'Take Me' at Tropfest in Sydney recently. What was that show like as an experience? Any celebrity encounters?

That crowd is fucking huge! It was a pretty surreal experience standing under the screens setting up and turning 360 degrees to only see people from every angle. I'd like to say they were all there to see us, but truth is we were just the cheeky piece of afternoon delight. As for celebrity encounters, I'm pretty sure the Avatar dude looked at me once.

Some artists find it difficult to nail down 10-15 tracks for an album out of sometimes around 40-50. Has this been the same for you? Talk us through your writing process.

That's impressive! We certainly didn't have 40-50 tracks. We like to think of it like more of a loving girlfriend telling you that size doesn't matter. We went down the south coast of NSW last year to start writing the album, rented a house for a month and kitted it out with all our studio gear. From there we came out with 14 tracks and proceeded to renovate an old water tank that Jon's parents owned in Sydney, into a studio space with help from swamp.net.au to deck it out acoustically and cabling wise.

We actually have written about another 6 tracks since then and have now finally cramped it in to an 11 track album that we couldn't be happier with. So we got about 20 tracks out - that's big enough right?

What is one thing you've all learnt from the recording of your new album?

We learnt that Jimbo has a sugarfree Red Bull addiction, Jon's quite the chef and like clockwork, five hours after having a coffee Tyrone wigs out and starts speaking other languages. We also learnt that writing an album is the hardest thing we've ever done but easily the most rewarding!

I've noticed that Royksopp are one of your favourite artists. In January last year you were given the privilege to support them. What was it like supporting one of your biggest influences?

It was a pretty ridiculous experience really, being able to warm up the room for a band you've been listening to for as long as you can remember. We had a good chat to them before the show and they're super nice dudes (and by we, I mean Tyrone spoke to them in Swedish and we just smiled and nodded our heads). Their live show was mindblowing and we definitely walked away from that night feeling pretty inspired about everything that was happening.

What do the next six months hold for you as a band?

The next 6 months looks like a lot of the Australian landscape as we navigate our way around the country with this single tour and then our biggest tour yet for the Australian album tour. The album comes out June/July. After being locked away in a studio for so long, we're going from one extreme to the other and we're not complaining!

RUFUS TOUR DATES

Fri 05 April

Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane QLD

Sat 06 April

Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta QLD

Sun 07 April

Great Northern, Byron Bay NSW

Thu 11 April

Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW

Fri 12 April

Oxford Art Factory, Sydney NSW

Sat 13 April