CLOSE COUNTERS Allan McConnell Join us for this interview with Tassie born Allan McConnell from CLOSE COUNTERS. As an electronic duo with an emphasis on dance, soul, jazz and funk, Allan McConnell and Finn Rees are now making serious waves on the global music scene! They grew up as Tasmanian neighbours and connected in 2012, at a Scientists of Modern Music gig at Youth ARC. Since forming in 2013, the pair have toured the world performing at clubs like the Night Cat in Melbourne’s Fitzroy, and at Festivals such as Party in The Paddock, Meredith and DARK MOFO. Tell us a bit about your main music project. My main music project is called CLOSE COUNTERS and it’s an electronic duo that makes mostly dance music with a bit of influence from soul, funk and jazz music. My band mate Finn Rees and I have been making music together for seven years now. Finn and I are both former residents of the same street in Taroona, and we were very familiar faces to each other. We didn’t properly start doing music stuff together until we went to Scientists of Modern Music at Youth ARC in 2012. Then I think both of us were pestering Cal Young from Scientists of Modern Music, asking about all of his gear and we were like ‘Hey, we live near each other, so we may as well make some music!’ We had about four years playing and gigging in
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Hobart together while we were completing our studies, and then we both moved to Melbourne where we’ve been playing for about three years now. In Melbourne, we actually have a couple of extra members as a bit of an extension to perform with us as a live band too. Sometimes we just see who’s around to jump on with some vocals, horns or flute if the time is right. Right now where are you playing? Right now? (Haha) Nowhere! Due to the whole pandemic, the last gigs we did were at the Night Cat in Fitzroy, which both were sold out gigs. Then we had some pretty exciting gigs planned, but unfortunately they got shelved for the moment until we push through the pandemic. Tell us about your touring adventures. I guess up until about a year ago, we tried to organise everything ourselves, which was very stressful but we then started working with a booking agent, ‘Under Control’, in Sydney. They look after a lot of electronic acts and particularly ones we looked up to. They helped us get a slot at Splendour in The Grass and also Meredith, which was the big one! I think there were about 10,000 to 13,000 people there! I’ve never been so nervous for a show! That was with the full band and that was the biggest show we’ve ever done. I kind of compared the performance to when you
