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Music

Talking To Oscar Key Sung About His Parents

Don’t worry it’s not boring, he also tells us about his budget.

Oscar Key Sung is the kind of dude you'd meet once at a party, and spend the new few weeks talking about your "new best friend". Honestly it would be as much for his down to earth nature as wanting to get in with someone making serious noise across Australia.

He's collaborated with Andras Fox, Charles Murdoch, and Bad Madness, performed in America, and has a stack of VIP festival ticket stubs to make your palms sweat. With all this in mind we obviously sat down to talk about physical fitness. T

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HUMP: Do you feel that your music would be different, if you hadn't spent your teenage years in Melbourne? 
Oscar Key Sung: I reckon Melbourne influenced what I did and what I've done hugely. When I moved here from Sydney as a teenager I was making weird metal music, I then got a lot more into going to small shows. I was really into new wave and punk stuff. My uncle also got me into bands like Primitive Calculators, Boys Next Door and a lot of smaller bands from Melbourne.

What did your uncle do? 
He was kind of a full time eccentric. He was an interesting guy but he was into music, among other things. When he was young, my mum and him were part of the Crystal Ballroom scene

I was reading about your dad's his label Utopia Goods, do you like his work or is it a case of always being embarrassed of your parents no matter how cool? 
Dad's appreciation of process and standards is a really large part of why, and the way I approach things musically. He always tries to have an interesting interpolation with handmade tactics and digital made tactics. He hand draws all his patterns, repeats and digitises them, which is really similar to the way I approach tunes. We talk about practice a lot, it's like we've having a conversation about the same ideas. He's talking about design and I'm talking about music.

Is your mum (fashion designer Sarah Thorn) still making clothes? 
She had a few things but had to slow down because she was unwell last year. She was doing a fulltime health program because she had cancer, but she was recently cleared and is now in remission, which she did entirely by organic, alternative therapies. Are you in to that kind of thing also? Simply because I was taking care of mum and she's so much about that, she is fully about holistic therapies and spirituality.

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Did you go through that rebellious teen stage? Was that when you were into heavy metal? 
The heavy metal was year seven and eight but whilst I was into metal. I was really into jazz, and singers like Nina Simone and Jeff Buckley. Then I went through a crazy teen stage. I was probably the naughty guy at high school. I was always skipping class, taking drugs. I used to wear a leather jacket with Mercedes Benz badges all over it. I was painfully pretentious.

Do your parents watch you perform? 
Dad hasn't seen me play. Mum comes to a bunch of shows. She's always seeing my gigs. She often befriends people my age, she's kind of groovy or whatever. Dad was more showing me music that was new and cool and taking me to record stores, mum and I used to dance together when I was kid. She got me into dancing, she'd always say, "You've got to not think and not be self conscious, let your body guide itself". We'd have big sessions of interpretive dance. Which actually has led me to think that I really want to be more of a serious dancer.

Really, wouldn't pick it? 
I think more as another element. I really like to dance to things like Footwork, stuff that has a progressive nature to it and rhythm that changes a lot. I've been thinking a lot about having elements in my songs in Janet Jackson-esc kind of way. I could have some sort of interpretative dance section. I really enjoy dancing and it's something that a slowly want to make more seriously.

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So you're gaining a bit of attention and the money will eventually start to roll in, but at the moment what's it like having this success but still being broke? 
I'm sort of trying to push through to a point where it's more sustainable, because realistically right now it doesn't look like I can keep putting as much time into my music as I am because I'm not on a salary or a wage. I'll go on tours and be completely flat broke because I'm spending money on food and taxis. It's a real struggle money wise.

I'm putting in all my cards into creating music but I think at the same time it creates this realism to it, I have to make compromises and accept shows that are possibly a bit weird to have enough money to keep doing the ones that I do like and so on.

Do you think there's a next step in music that we haven't explored, considering how tech savvy we are now? 
That's something I think about quite often. You know, there are hologram stars now— I'm sure new genres that will emerge. I think a whole lot of music that exists purely online will continue to be an interesting platform for art.

Oscar will be touring for Thump in April and May:  

11 April at Star Bar in Bendigo 

19 April at Howler in Melbourne 

24 April at GoodGod in Sydney 

26 April at Alhambra in Brisbane 

1 May at The Bird in Perth

3 May at Rocket Bar in Adelaide