Known for their crazy live shows, inventive costumes, and questionable skin infections, Bluejuice have had a string of hits over 3 albums such as ‘Vitriol’ (which still holds the record for most played song on triple j) and ‘Broken Leg’. The band was perhaps cemented in music history as ‘the guys who really couldn’t give a rat’s arse, but played good music anyway’.
Beginning as a mainly instrumental outfit, Bluejuice evolved organically into the band we are about to farewell through a series of tweaking to get it essentially right. Their film clips supported the band’s daring outlook and their creative use of media to tell their story as a signature. Calling it quits after 13 years, Stavros Yiannoukas from Bluejuice is quite philosophical about his decision to soon move into his role as a High School Teacher. A far cry from the zany antics Bluejuice are known for, but no doubt some kids are in for a real eye-opener of an education once Stav gets there at the end of this year/early next year! Stav had this to say to Glamadelaide.
“ We shot ‘Vitriol’ for $1200, so we had to try make it funny and we wanted it to be tongue in cheek, it got more attention that way,” says Yiannoukas.
‘The Reductionist‘ was filmed during a skydive jump which Yiannoukas says was “an exciting idea that no-one had really done before, and although there have been more funnier & sillier clips this was a personal favourite. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t really a hit with radio like the other songs ”.
To stay as a viable band for 13 years, you’d have to be doing something right and Yiannoukas says that Bluejuice’s greatest career achievement was simply “surviving as an incredibly unfashionable band, along with making the triple j Hottest 100 Top 20 three times, playing every music festival we wanted to play that would have us (laughs), I guess to just be around and grab people’s attention”. They definitely grabbed the attention of one fan in particular, who requested that the band sign his testicles after a show- the band kindly obliged! Bluejuice were cool like that.
“We’ve had a really fantastic career, an enviable career to some end. There’s certainly things we didn’t achieve or didn’t do, but we did lots of great stuff, met fun people, and played a shit load of shows and festivals- we’re going out on a high! We never wanted to become shit & like a good painter we know when to stop- everything ends!” says Yiannoukas. Disappointing for fans maybe, but nobody can argue that Bluejuice gave it their all and left a decent mark behind. We wish them the very best!
To coincide with the band’s National Farewell Tour in September, they are releasing a Greatest Hits Album called ‘Retrospectable’ on September 19 through Dew Process and have recently released a new single called ‘I’ll Go Crazy’.
Retrospectable: The Farewell Tour dates
THU 25 SEPT: UNI BAR ADELAIDE SA (LIC/ALL AGES).Tix: Avail via www.oztix.com.au
Further dates & info- http://www.bluejuice.info
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