Electro-pop kings Dirty Laundry return this weekend for Freedom Of Sound at AJ Hackett

It's been a while since we heard from Dirty Laundry up in Far North Queensland.

The five-piece live dance-pop crossover act have always been high on the favourites list for Cairns music fans, with their full-tilt audio-visual spectacular garnering massive responses from fans when they hit the north.

But as timeOUT’s Jesse Kuch found out this week, their return to the north to celebrate AJ Hackett’s 20 years birthday has a bit more resonance with leader singer Dean Cherny than you may think.

"I think it’s been about a year, we were up for the Saints and Sinners thing last year and also for Bellavista’s birthday," Dean says.

"It’s been an interesting year for Dirty Laundry. We were working on an album but the relationship with the label broke down, so that’s set us back about six months. We had a big year in the studio last year but didn’t get the end result we were looking for. We just went back to the drawing board and used the time to do a few of our own little solo projects as well. But we’ve just released our new single, I Want You To Fly. It’s doing really well and getting good support from the DJs."

Dean says achieving the balance between their pop and dance influences has always been a bit of a challenge.

"We are a little bit schizophrenic like that," he says with a laugh.

"We realise we are a pop act, but we’d like to think we are on the ‘cooler’ side of pop at least. It’s hard with commercial radio, they don’t add a great deal of stuff, like three or four songs a week. So really you are competing with everything that gets released on a global scale, with your Kylies and your Mumford And Sons, or Katy Perry or Justin Bieber. For a band like us, that doesn’t necessarily make certified pop hits that fit into a typical style, it can be hard. For us, we try and think outside the square so live performance is really how we generate interest in the band. We have as good a live show as anyone and better than most. When people come to see it, they love it."

He says the whole band looks forward to taking to the stage in the lush tropical rainforest surrounds of AJ Hackett, and for him it’s even a bit more special.

"I’m pretty excited about it all, it’s a great line-up with Butterfingers, Sam La More, MC Shureshock and the local supports," he says.

"It’s really funny, I recently moved house and I was going through some boxes with my wife. One of the first things that I pulled out of the box was an AJ Hackett Bungy certificate from 1992 in Cairns. It must have been like two years after they opened... I hadn’t seen that certificate for 10 years. I’m hoping I can get the full adrenaline rush by doing a jump before the show. Do they still give you free bungy if you go naked? If they do, I’ll get Lee Lee (singer of Dirty Laundry) to do it."

>> Freedom Of Sound – celebrating 20 years of AJ Hackett in Cairns is on this Saturday night from 7pm-3am. Tickets are $60 presale, available now online from www.oztix.com.au or at AJ Hackett Cairns, Shiva Moon and Tastey, or $65 on the door (if still available).

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