Features Tim & Jean

Jean-Christophe Capotorto - of Australian duo Tim & Jean - tells us about his band, and their new single. ‘Come Around’ is as sunny as you’d expect from a band that originates from down under, and it’s the youngsters’ UK debut. Due out on 8th April, it’ll be followed by a few festival spots, including The Great Escape.

What got you into making music?
I got into playing music when I was around 13. I hassled my Dad into buying me a guitar after hearing Sonic Youth for the first time. After messing around on the guitar for a while I started to experiment with putting songs together by recording them on to my computer through a crappy, little computer microphone.

You guys got together pretty young (17 and 15); how has your music evolved since then?
I’m just 17 now so we’ve been together for getting on for two years. The biggest difference in our music from then to now is that we don’t create it or play it in a way that is totally computer based. We have a few of our friends that play with us live so it’s much more organic than it was at the beginning. We’re bringing in more sounds and expanding things. We recently toured with Erykah Badu and hung out with her amazing band, they were really inspiring to watch. It pushes you on and makes you realise you’ve got a long way to go.

You’ve been doing pretty big things in your native Australia, how quickly has it all happened? Have you been plugging away for long?
We’ve been together for just over a year now so it’s all happened really quickly. I can remember being in class at school around the same time last year, struggling to get my homework in on time, to being thrown straight into this which is a totally different world. We’ve been really privileged to have done some amazing things so far. One of our first shows was supporting Moby at the Sydney Opera House which was a totally crazy experience. I think we’d been a band for around a month or so when we flew to the US for the first time, neither of us having been out of Australia before. Even though it’s still early days for us we’ve been really privileged to have everything that has taken place over the past year happen. We’ve played loads of festivals and toured with the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Two Door Cinema Club, La Roux, Empire Of The Sun… lots of great stuff.

So, your debut single is out over here in a few weeks; can you tell us a bit about it?
It’s called ‘Come Around’ and was one of the first tracks we jammed in the early hours after Tim and I had met. We recorded that and the title track of our album ‘Like What’. We put ‘Come Around’ up on the web and it was quickly picked up by a cool radio station called Triple J. That was the inspiration to keep going. It got us a spot on the Parklife festival alongside Empire Of The Sun, which was our first gig.

Are you a prolific band? Did you have many songs to choose from when picking your debut release?
The tracks that are on the record are the first tracks we wrote when we started hanging out back in 2009 so we’ve just been super keen just to get them out. We didn’t really think about it twice in terms of what went on the record. They were the songs that were floating around at the time so they just kind of stuck. We’re always jamming and writing though so we constantly have new songs that we want to get out there. We just thought record them quick and put them out then move on to the next thing rather than spending ages thinking about what might work or not. We just want to make music. We went to new york to mix it-the second time we’d been there and it was just great to hang out in greenwich village and harlem and soak up the history of the place.

We know you’ve been working on your debut album; is it finished yet? Where did you record, and how long did you spend on it?
We recorded the album in my bedroom at home except it wasn’t like we were doing it for anything at the time. It was basically making music for the sake of hanging out and making music. I wouldn’t have done it any other way really because we were both just super comfortable and having fun with what we were doing. We finished it around the end of 2009 and went to New York to have it mixed in June, 2010. It was all very quick.

And finally: What are your aspirations as a band? Do you have any particular goals in mind?
I think for us we just want to keep playing music and having fun with what we’re doing. We don’t take it too seriously otherwise what’s the point? It takes away from what originally brought us together in the first place. It’s just a good experience. Going on the road with great bands, seeing places like LA and New York.

Tim & Jean’s debut single ‘Come Around’ will be released on 8th April via Publica Records.

1 Track 01 by TIM AND JEAN

3 Track 03 by TIM AND JEAN

8 Track 08 by TIM AND JEAN