GenQ - For the not so straight individual

Last week, I had the pleasure of catching up with Australia's favourite girlgroup, Slinkee Minx. It's the first time I'd caught up with them for a chat since they released their single, Someday, in October 2005, and now they're back with their new single, Way Of Life, and the new album, Electric Dreams. After hearing the album, I just HAD to get on the phone and have a chat with the girls again about this incredible new album!

Hi girls, how are you today?
We've been really well … we're doing a lot of promo work today. We're in Sydney tomorrow to do some more media and a performance there, so it's been a busy week so far.

Cool. Last time we caught up with you, it was October 2005, so what have you been up to since then, other than recording the album?
Well, that's taken up a lot of our time. Over the last 18 months, we've been recording a lot of tracks ... I think we wrote over 40 tracks, and, of that, only 12 made it onto the album. We've been doing a few performances in our hometown Melbourne in between, and also working on a few exciting side projects, which we can't give too much away about at this stage, but we've worked with some pretty cool producers, so hopefully, later on this year, some of that will be revealed.

With the new album (which sounds absolutely amazing, by the way), who are your inspirations behind that?
With the individual tracks, there were so many different things that inspired us, sometimes it starts with a melody, just mucking about, then words just come into your head. Other times it's things that happen, or things we might see, or a dream, or something like that. There's just so many different things that inspire us to write the different tracks on the album.

How about influences with the overall album?
Not really ... I mean, maybe subconsciously, we're influenced by so many people, but we didn't set out to sound like anyone in particular. I think we're lucky that we don't sound like anyone particular that's out there at the moment, we have our own individual sound, we wanna just stand out in our own right. I guess we're influenced by different artists like Madonna, Jamiriquai, a lot of dance artists, but we didn't set out to sound like any particular artists.

One thing I noticed with the album is that it's definitely all dance, and probably the closest to a ballad you have on there is Send Me An Angel, Hold Me, or Nu Love ...
Send Me An Angel is still very dancey though ...

It's still very dancey, but ... that song actually reminded me a bit of Tina Cousins ...
Oh ok ... haven't heard that before, but I guess that's a compliment. She's a very talented lass.

Now, the album, Electric Dreams, is coming out on 28^th July, and your new single, Way Of Life, just came out on Saturday 9^th June...
Yeah, we worked on that track with mrTimothy, which was an amazing opportunity, and he's also worked with us on a couple of other tracks on the album. It's been a fantastic experience, and he's certainly put his signature beats on the album. We hope everyone likes it. We've been getting some great feedback so far, so that's good!

Well, it's definitely an awesome song, and will definitely put you back on the charts again ...
Well, we hope so ... it's tough when you come from an independent label, but we really do appreciate all the support that we do get, so let's hope that everybody out there will buy it.



Summer Rain was released in August 2004, so the album has pretty much been 3 years in the making ...
Yeah, nearly. It's been a really hard task actually, because we are with an independent label, so a lot of it has been self-funded. Unfortunately, we don't have the opportunity to get advances like a lot of other artists on major labels, so it's been a lot of hard work at our end, which we're really proud of. Also, we didn't want to rush the album. When Summer Rain came out, we weren't ready to release an album. We never expected the success that Summer Rain brought us, so it sort of all exploded at once, and really took us by surprise. For a while there, we just had to catch our breath and catch up on everything ... So yeah, we just took our time with the album, and it's something we're really proud of, and worked very hard on, and we just hope that people will now go out there and enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Well, it definitely shows that you took your time with it, it's awesome ... I just can't say enough about it, I mean, I can't even stop listening to it, haha!
Thank you! That is really fantastic to hear, because, as I said before, it's something we put a lot of time and effort into it, and it's something we're very passionate about, so to get really fantastic feedback like that really means a lot to us! We wrote so many songs that we'd demo, and we'd be like "no", or "yep", and decide on what makes the cut, so we're proud of the ones that did make the cut, so yeah, thank you for your positive feedback!

So would the unreleased tracks be coming out as B-sides maybe?
Yeah, there's actually a bonus disc on the album with previously unreleased tracks and some club remixes of some of the songs, so it's a BIG album ... worth the money, that's for sure, haha!

Yeah, definitely. So, other than the album and single, what else have you got coming up in the near future?
Yeah, we've got a tour that we're planning at the moment, where we'll be going around Australia, doing the north, the east coast and west coast, possibly going overseas towards the end of the year ...

Cool, you had a bit of chart success in the UK
Yeah, we had a bit of success overseas which we were surprised about, so we're thinking of going overseas as well to support the new tracks as well as the older stuff, so that's everything in a nutshell, and next year, we might actually release some more stuff, and some side projects that we're working on. We're always constantly writing and recording with different people, so our aim is to get other people to release our tracks. Writing is a very important component of what we do, so ... we're at our best when we're in the studio creating, so there's definitely a lot of options there for the future.

Awesome. I can't wait to find out what these side projects are though!
Oh, we're so excited about it that we never stop working, we're always writing or working with another producer and we've always been really honoured that people have actually approached us and said, you know, "we love what you did with some of these past tracks", and some of them, we're really quite stunned and proud of ourselves that we've been able to generate that sort of talk. It's humbling too. Very exciting, we're really looking forward to being able to release some of these other things later in the year.

You're definitely work-a-holics, aren't you?
Well, yeah, haha! We can't help ourselves! But, you know, you have to, cos if you just sit back and wait for other people to do it for you, especially in the market with how it is now, it won't happen unless you're very, very lucky.

Yeah, true. Do you girls have any messages for our readers?
Again, just thank you so much for all your support, and we hope you enjoy the album just as much as we enjoyed making it and creating it, and we look forward to seeing you all at our gigs in the future! And, don't forget, buy the single for us! Enjoy Way Of Life!

For more information about Slinkee Minx, or to hear some of the tracks from the new album, visit their Official Website, or the Slinkee Minx Myspace.

 
"Way Of Life" is out now through Central Station Records.


"Electric Dreams" will be released on July 28th through Central Station.  To pre-order your copy through JB Hi-Fi, click here.