8 35LINKEDINCOMMENTMORE
CHICAGO — USA TODAY went backstage at Lollapalooza to chat up several Saturday performers.
CUT COPY
It's been a decade since Lolla's Saturday headlinersCut Copy arrived with debut album Bright Like Neon Love, so this is a group that knows a thing or ten about electronic dance music. The Melbourne band's most recent effort, the '60s psychedelic/'90s underground house, Summer of Love-inspiredFree Your Mind, received the deluxe-edition treatment last month, which includes several new songs.
On the acronym EDM: "I think 'EDM' is a funny term," says drummer Mitchell Scott. "There's a lot of tasteful dance music and a lot of sort of trashy, bottle-popping dance music. It's just a funny term that gets thrown around — it could be anybody."
On the group's rise to fame: "When we started, our goals and our world were very small," says singer Dan Whitford. "We would play at local bars and were happy if we sold out one of our local venues, you know, 100, 200 people — that would be almost like a career achievement. But things have gone (so far) beyond that, it's ridiculous. We have a band that can tour internationally and play in places we never thought we would visit and have thousands of people come to our show. It's exciting that we can hopefully continue to keep doing that for another 10 years.
VANCE JOY
One of USA TODAY's "Five Australian acts you need to know now," James Keogh, better known as Vance Joy, drew fans to his early Saturday set with hit Riptide. His forthcoming album, Dream Your Life Away, is expected Sept. 9.
What he's reading on tour: Joy took his moniker from Australian novelist Peter Carey's 1981 book Bliss. On the road, "I read Murder In Mississippi, which is a really cool true crime book by a really cool Australian author, John Safran," he says. "I loveStephen King's books, like great stories and great plots, but it doesn't have to be easy stuff — it can be stuff you can sink your teeth into."
DUKE DUMONT
Dumont, given name Adam Dyment, made USA TODAY's short list of electrifying EDM artists for 2014. He nabbed a best dance recording Grammy Award nomination forNeed U (100%) featuring A*M*E*, but he'd already made a name for himself as a remixer for acts such as Missy Elliott, Bat for Lashes, Lily Allen, and more recently, Haim. Mentored by Switch, the producer is prepping his debut full-length forAstralwerks.
On learning he was up for a Grammy: "It was cool, I didn't expect it. But things like that, it's like ticking the box. If I don't get it, I'm not going to cry, but I appreciate everything like that. It's quite nice the last couple of years, there's been a lot of ticks."