Empire of the Sun are an Australian electronic music duo from Sydney, formed in 2008. The
duo consists of longtime collaborators Luke Steele of alternative rock act The Sleepy
Jackson, and Nick Littlemore of electronic dance outfit Pnau.
Their award-winning, 2008 debut album Walking on a Dream shot the duo to international success
and to date has been certified double platinum in Australia and gold in United States. The
album has sparked a number of internationally charting singles including "Walking on a Dream"
which peaked at number ten on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and reached number sixty
four on the UK Singles Chart, and "We Are the People", which peaked at number fourteen
on the UK Singles Chart. The duo's second album Ice on the Dune was
released on 14 June 2013 in Australia, and was preceded by lead single "Alive" on 16
April. They are currently signed to EMI Australia and Virgin UK.
History Formation
Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore met in 2000 after being introduced by Steele's A&R executive,
Simon Moor, in a bar in Sydney. Both were at the time signed to EMI and had already
been working on their own independent projects. Although they did not initially capitalize
on their instant creative chemistry, the two consistently collaborated over the years.
Littlemore helped write the song "Tell the Girls That I'm Not Hangin' Out", which appeared
on The Sleepy Jackson's 2003 debut album, Lovers, and Steele had artistic input in Littlemore's
2006 art-rock project Teenager. The two officially reunited together for two
songs on Pnau's self-titled album Pnau in 2007—"Freedom" and the opener "With You
Forever". Littlemore commented "when [Peter Mayes and I] wrote 'With You Forever', I knew
straight away I had to send it to Luke. A day later, he called me up and sang the whole
thing over the phone to me." Luke Steele's contribution to the track was so influential
to Nick and Pete that they scrapped over 200 songs worth of material for the album, and
began to craft a work more vocally-centered than they ever had before. A track-by-track
analysis of the album Pnau by Nick and Pete reveals that writing "With You Forever" with
Luke Steele was such an exciting experience that it directly inspired the two to begin
work on another project together. Littlemore said, "We fell in love with music again with
[With You Forever]; I think this is [Pnau's] first great song." The release of Pnau unexpectedly
brought acclaim from music icon Elton John, who, after befriending Littlemore, became
involved in some of the early planning of Nick and Luke's new project.
The new project began to develop into what would later become Empire of the Sun. As Steele
was living in Perth at the time and Littlemore was in Sydney for the next few months the
pair independently continued to write songs for the project and organized meetings in
Sydney where they decided on the album's musical direction and style. Eventually the pair went
into the studio with Peter Mayes to record the final material, all of which was entirely
produced by themselves. Although the name of the project has been
attributed to the 1984 novel of the same name by J. G. Ballard, Littlemore denies this and
offers an explanation, saying, "the name comes more from the idea of the fact that we're
traveling around the world going to all the places of empires of the civilization where
the sun has been a theme of worship. It's not based on the Ballard novel nor the Spielberg
film of the same name." 2008: Walking on a Dream
After several months of consulting on the material for the album, Littlemore and Steele
went into the studio to record their debut album. Titled Walking on a Dream, the album
was released on 3 October 2008. Prior to its release six tracks were put up on the social
networking site Myspace for fans to listen to.
The album debuted at number eight on the ARIA Albums Charts and eventually peaked at number
six. The album's lead single, "Walking on a Dream", was released digitally on 30 August
2008. The single received airtime from many Australian radio stations and has since reached
number ten on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart. The second single released from the
album, titled "We Are the People", peaked at number twenty-four in Australia. In September
2009 this song was used in an American advertising campaign for Vizio televisions. The third
single, "Standing on the Shore" was released on iTunes on 12 June and for general release
on 23 June. The video was filmed in Lancelin in April 2009. "Without You" was released
as the album's fourth single. Critical response to the album was generally
positive, generating a score of 60 on the review aggregator Metacritic. Martin Robinson
in his review for NME described their debut as "silly but their songs demand to be taken
seriously, just like Prince, Ultravox and Bowie. And yes, they're like MGMT – in that
they're great." Under the Radar also rated it favourably describing it as "a highly visual
experience". Rolling Stone Australia awarded the album a positive 3.5 out of 5, describing
it as "gorgeously plaintive electro-pop", but noted "the gold is harder to find in the
record's hazy second half". Critics with mixed reactions largely expressed
their discontent with the album's second half, particularly marked by the unsettling introduction
of the fifth track, "Delta Bay". Mike Orme of Pitchfork Media claimed that "few buzzes
die so abruptly as in the transition of the complex, ethereal melodies of 'We Are the
People' into the following cut 'Delta Bay', which sounds like 'Thriller' sung by cats."
PopMatters made a similar comment that "We Are the People" "proves the duo's talent for
making great music... it's just unfortunate the song bleeds into 'Delta Bay'... why would
you want to do that?" Dorian Lynskey of The Guardian rated Walking on a Dream 3 out of
5 stars, explaining "the slick, pastel-wardrobed MOR of the title track and We Are the People
demonstrate melodic agility and sun-dazzled charm" but that the album as a whole is "a
ripe cheese, best not consumed whole." 2013–onwards: Ice on the Dune
On 11 March 2013, Empire of the Sun revealed the debut trailer for their upcoming second
album Ice on the Dune—the trailer was produced by Kelvin Optical, Inc., a production division
of Bad Robot, and was directed by J.D. Dillard. The album's release date was revealed as June
2013. The newly launched website for the album featured placeholder links for upcoming content,
with dates allocated for 15 March, 22 March, 29 March, and 8 April.
The lead single "Alive" was released on 16 April and on the same day, the album was made
available for pre-order on iTunes. The music video for "Alive", also produced by Kelvin
Optical, Inc., was directed by Charles Scott and Alex Theurer. On 18 April 2013, the Farrelly
brothers announced that the band will score Dumb and Dumber To.
Ice on the Dune was released on 14 June 2013 in Australia and New Zealand. Following the
release of the second album, Littlemore revealed details about a potential film in a June 2013
interview:
We've written a treatment for [a film] but I guess we're just waiting for that person
with a sackful of money to come along and pay for it. We hope there'll be a film somewhere
down the road and a Vegas-style show. We want to do it properly with animals and everything.
We've always wanted elephants and tigers.
Steele received global media attention following an interview he completed with music publication
NME in August 2013 at the Sziget Festival in Budapest. During the interview, Steele
compared Ice on the Dune with Daft Punk's 2013 album release Random Access Memories,
stating: "They had a great marketing campaign, but we’ve got better songs."
Touring On 22 July 2009, Empire of the Sun made a
special broadcast in conjunction with the solar eclipse that occurred on that day, which
included a sneak preview of their forthcoming performance at the Parklife Festival in Australia.
Luke Steele performed "Breakdown" and "Swordfish Hotkiss Night".
Contrary to previous suggestions that they would remain a studio band, Empire of the
Sun performed live, alongside Lady Sovereign and La Roux, at Australia's Parklife Festival
during September/October 2009. In September 2009 Luke Steele revealed that
his Empire of the Sun bandmate Nick Littlemore had been missing for five months and that
he would also be performing a series of upcoming shows in the duo's native Australia solo.
Asked whether Littlemore was still a member of the band, Steele said: "I really don't
know, hey, he's just left me with the baby." However on 26 November 2010, Littlemore, in
an interview with internet music site The Music Network, said, "I talked to Luke the
other day; we're doing a new record. We've already written a couple of tunes. You know
when it's right I guess." In July 2011, Littlemore announced that Empire
of the Sun had gone into the studio at the end of June to begin working on a second Empire
of the Sun album. In an interview with Confidential, he explained that he and Steele had not, as
reported, fallen out, but that Littlemore had been heavily involved in writing music
for Cirque du Soleil and was therefore unable to tour. However, while playing a track from
the new album to the interviewer, Littlemore confirmed he would "come on board this time,
actually come together and tour." Media appearances
In the UK, they gained fourth position on the BBC News website's Sound of 2009 poll.
Empire of the Sun appeared for the first time in a Triple J Hottest 100 with two entries
in the 2008 countdown: "We Are the People" at number sixty-eight and "Walking on a Dream"
at number four. "Walking on a Dream" had been nominated as
Song of the Year at the 2009 Australian Performing Rights Association awards.
Empire of the Sun were nominated for six awards at the 2009 ARIA Awards. They were nominated
for Album of the Year, Single of the Year, Best Group, Best Pop Release, Best Selling
Single and Best Selling Album, winning all but the Best Selling awards. Luke Steele also
performed "Walking on a Dream" at the event. Empire of the Sun also received an additional
5 nominations as part of the Artisan Awards section of the 2009 ARIA Awards, the winners
of which were announced on 10 November, prior to the official ceremony. They won all but
2 of these awards, one nomination of which was in the same category they won in for "Walking
on a Dream". In October 2010, "We Are the People" was used
as the soundtrack for a Vodafone TV commercial in Germany and subsequently topped the German
Singles Chart. "We Are the People" is included on the soundtrack
for the 2011 film The Roommate and "Walking on a Dream" is included on the soundtrack
for the 2011 film Hall Pass. "Alive" was used in the introduction video
for Google I/O 2013. It was also played within the introduction video of the new Yahoo! logo
on 5 September 2013. "Alive" was also a featured song on the soundtrack
of EA Sport's FIFA 14. Discography
Studio albums Singles
B-sides Other appearances
Remixes Music videos
Awards and nominations ARIA Awards
The ARIA Music Awards of 2009 nominations were announced on 8 October 2009. Empire of
the Sun received the most nominations of any artist, with a total of eleven. The winners
were announced on 26 November 2009 with Empire of the Sun winning in seven categories.
The nominations for the ARIA Music Awards of 2010 were announced on 28 September 2010
and the winners were announced on 7 November 2010. The final nominees for the ARIA Music
Awards of 2013 were announced on 14 October, as well as the nominees and winners for the
Fine Arts Awards and Artisan Awards. APRA Awards
The APRA Awards are presented annually from 1982 by the Australasian Performing Right
Association. Live performance band members
Luke Steele – lead vocals, guitar, keyboards Surahn Sidhu – guitar, backing vocals, percussion
Tony Mitolo – drums References
External links Official website