the AU interview: Jess Cornelius of Teeth and Tongue (Sydney)

In the midst of a short trip up to Sydney, Jess Cornelius AKA Teeth & Tongue sat down with Larry to discuss her new music video, touring in the US for SXSW and CMJ, and when we can expect the next record.

Welcome back to Sydney! It’s a pretty quick trip from Melbourne to here, isn’t it?

Yeah! We played there yesterday at 9:00 am, and again tomorrow night.

How’d that go?

It was great! One of my favourite gigs. Not counting tonight, of course!

Of course! Well, you’re celebrating a new music video, so let’s talk a little bit about that. It’s for your single “The Party Is You”, and I read that it came about quite sporadically. You put up a message on Twitter saying you needed some people to make you a music video, and it all just fell together.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get, I figure. We didn’t have any money, so they made it for almost nothing. I had an idea about what I wanted to happen in the video, but our director, Alifeleti Tuapasi Toki, developed it sourced everyone. He had these actors on board and we filmed it at my house, and at our local bar. I don’t know where they found the transvestites at the end…

I’m sure they stick out in the crowd! I heard that you, at one point, were going to play the lead?

Yes. Well, the idea was that I was going to be this person that tries to get people to dance with them. And it wasn’t necessarily a drunk girl, or a tragic figure — it was just someone who wanted to dance to a song. But luckily, very early on in the concept, Alifeleti said he knew an actor [Jennifer Lee Moore] who’s actually an actor. And I was like, ‘Yes!’ because I’ve been in every other video, and it’s nice to have a break.

It’s a fun watch, a great song, and I suppose a good taste of what we can expect from you in the next year. Third album in 2013, and all.

Hopefully! It’s a bit slow at the moment, but it’ll get there. It’s about half done.

Excellent! Now talk me through the year a little bit. We first met at South by Southwest [SXSW], then at Canadian Music Week and again at CMJ — so you’ve travelled a lot this year. What do you take away from that?

It’s nice to be able to travel for the sake of music, but it’s left me broke! And it’s hard to make any inroads in the US in particular, but I think we’ve made some. It’s fun, though.

Are you going to keep doing it?

Yeah, but probably not next year. I’ve got a manager in the states, and there’s some good publicity there, so we’ll try and build on it. I just have to assess whether I can pour everything into going back.

Sometimes it comes to a point of focusing on there or here…

Yeah, true. We’ll see.

So what can we expect from tonight? I understand you are playing quite a lot of new material; road testing it and all.

Yeah! We’ve got lots of new songs, and we haven’t played in Sydney for a while, so we’re pretty happy about it.

Well, best of luck with the new record, and congratulations on surviving all the travel this year.

Thank you!

Go to http://teethandtongue.com/ to get a free download of the new single “The Party Is You”, and watch the music video.

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