When Aussie boys Kyle Gibson and Lucas Gianello arrived in the UK they only had one career path in mind – to be popstars.Fortunately, it turns out that they’re bloody brilliant at it, as their work as pop duo Visitor proves. We sat down with Kyle and Luc, drank their beer, smoked their cigarettes and asked them a load of questions we’d written down in a notepad.
Some would call it an interview – others would call it an intrusion. It all went a bit like this.
Hello Visitor. When you came over from Australia, did you have to fill in a form to declare your intentions to become amazing popstars?
Lucas: Yes. That’s exactly how it happened.
Kyle: We’ve had to do some really dodgy things on our way though. My first job was working in Holland and Barrett on a Sunday – there were no other shifts. I found them incredibly pricey.
But we're not here to talk about Vitamins. Do you know any good facts about pigeons?
Lucas: Are you familiar with the wood pigeon? Half of my family live in Italy and when I visit I’m woken every morning by wood pigeons and I think it’s the most beautiful sound that you can hear. It goes like this: ‘hooo hooo - hooo’. It’s like nature’s alarm clock.
Speaking of things happening early, are you surprised at the amount of interest Visitor has received so quickly?
Lucas: We’ve tried to keep it really quiet and low key and it’s turning into being anything but. It’s great though, although it has forced our hands slightly.
How close are you to having an album finished?
Kyle: It’s half finished but we just want it to be just 12 hit singles.
Lucas: That’s the bit that’s taking up our time.
Kyle: We’ve got half an album of singles and a half that’s quite good but we’ll probably sack off as b-sides. And you need a lot of b-sides if you’ve got 12 singles. As far as gigs are concerned we’re kinda conscious of not becoming a London circuit band and just become a London act, it’s an easy trap to fall into.
What’s your favourite food that comes in a tin?
Lucas: Green Giant sweetcorn. I was at a party and someone gave me a tin of it with a fork in it and it was the greatest thing ever. Before anyone casts any aspersions over Green Giant sweetcorn it is actually the best tinned corn you can find.
Kyle: I like giant beans. I’m vegetarian so I do eat a lot of beans and pulses – out of a tin. Lentils too, I could go on all day…
Or we could go back to the music… Where did you lose the T from ‘Los Feeling’?
Lucas: The title of the song came before the lyrics actually, which might explain things slightly. We wrote the words afterwards and didn’t see any point in changing the title.
Kyle: We could call it Lost Feeling but that’s a bit obvious really.
Lucas: And also it’s as if you’ve lost the T from Lost Feeling.
Visitor 'Los Feeling' (Fear of Tigers remix)
You’re making it up as you go along!
Lucas: We might put the T back in on the final mix.
Kyle: But if we put the T back in then we’re clearly just giving into peer pressure and we’re going to get pushed around.
Lucas: We’re forced to keep it now and that’s the end of it.
What’s the best robot of all time?
Lucas: I like Hal from 2001 or Daft Punk; they’re the experts on robots. Or what about those Japanese ones that are like humans.
Kyle: Nah, they’re shit - a complete let down. C3-PO from Star Wars is pretty cool.
Lucas: What? Over R2-D2? I don’t think so.
Kyle: OK then, what about Wall-E, he’s kinda cool right?
Lucas: And I’m going to go with R2, he sounds a bit like a wood pigeon.
Are you worried about being lumped together with all the other eighties stuff that’s around right now?
Lucas: Kyle’s just got an inherently eighties-sounding voice and people like to reference that because it’s something they know and it’s the flavour of the day right now. Of course those comparisons are going to be drawn.
Kyle: We’re not going to fight against but we’re not going to chase it. We don’t have a chip on our shoulder about it. Stylistically we’re very conscious not to do anything to tie ourselves down because that’s just style over substance.
Lucas, we’ve seen you sporting a gold, sequined jacket at your live shows. That’s pretty eighties wouldn’t you say?
Lucas: Well let me explain the jacket; firstly, it’s David Bowie’s jacket. That jacket holds a special place in our hearts - it was a jacket that David Bowie wore on his Ziggy Stardust tour. We like to whip it out every year or so on a special occasion. My aunt knew Bowie in the eighties and she has two of them in her closet and gave one of them to me.
What does the continent of Australia make of Visitor?
Kyle: It’s kicking off over there. We came here when we were in our late teens so we never grew up clubbing in Australia, but dance music in Australia is a lot more evolved and a lot more embraced than it is in the UK.
Lucas: I think our links with Diamond Cut and Van She Tech has stood us well for us over there.
Kyle: Well, we think that, we’ll probably go over there and all we’ll hear is ‘BOOOOOO…’
We doubt that somehow. Thank you very much Visitor.
Visitor MySpace.
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