INTERVIEW: Janet Planet of Confidence Man on their new album 'Tilt': “I’m definitely the most intense person at the wedding. I’m always throwing it down.”
Text and interview: Emma Driver
Image: Josh Hourigan
Janet Planet is lead vocalist, dance guru and style empress of Confidence Man, a four-piece born in Brisbane that trades in extremely infectious dance-pop with a quirky charm all its own. Along with Janet Planet, the tightknit band has three other psueudonymous members: Janet’s best friend (Sugar Bones), her brother (Reggie Goodchild) and her partner (Clarence McGuffie).
Their second albumTilt released 1 April, follows on from their 2018 debut Confident Music for Confident People, plus a bundle of sharp remixes and standalone gems like 2020’s feisty ‘First Class Bitch’.
With a deliberate and affectionate nod to the dancefloors of the ’90s, Tilt is perfect for festivals everywhere, but the band offers more than a few tunes for the party: there are witty lyrics, epic costume changes and a video aesthetic that’s unpredictable and completely original. (Take a look at Tilt’s second single, ‘Feels Like a Different Thing’, shot in Mad Max location Coober Pedy and featuring Janet in a fluffy white catsuit.)
Ahead of the album’s release, Women In Pop chatted with Janet about making music while house-sharing with her bandmates, screaming into a mic in an Airbnb, mangling French phrases, making costumes with metal poles, and how to terrify mums everywhere by hooning around Coober Pedy hanging out of a car window.
Hi Janet, it’s very exciting to be speaking with you! First, congratulations on the new album. I defy anyone to not dance to every single track. Can you tell us a little about the process of making Tilt? Was there an overarching idea or manifesto behind it? Or did it come together organically?
I think it came together pretty organically. I think the track ‘Woman’ [Tilt’s third single] wraps it up in a really awesome way. We didn’t write that song intentionally. My brother and I actually wrote it together. We were in the studio, and we had a big fight. He didn’t even realise we were fighting – I just stormed out. He called me half an hour later, going ‘Where are you?’ and I said, ‘I’m angry. You’re not listening to me!’ And it was really funny, because the whole song is about this powerful moment. And he was telling me what to do, and and I was: ‘No, no no …’
Like the song says: ‘I am the fire and the flame’ …
Yeah. So I think that, in the end, the song wrapped up how we were feeling at the time. I feel that’s a good round-up … The album was a very natural, organic thing. You know, we just did it. We normally write albums by just getting drunk and singing around a microphone. But [this time] we were all living together for the first time in five years. It was a bit of a weird, different dynamic.
Was that when COVID hit?
Yeah, so we moved back in together, because we thought, ‘Well, we have spare time, we can’t go anywhere or do anything. We might as well move in together, so we’re not doing anything illegal.’ And then we could just live there together and write the album, in this weird, insular house.
It’s great that you could still write an album the way you usually would – you once said your usual process is ‘getting drunk and shouting at my brother on the computer’ …
Yeah, I could still do that! It probably would have been a completely different record if we weren’t writing it in isolation. Because it was just the four of us and my brother’s girlfriend, it was created in this weird little hole in space and time. Also the record was written all at the same time, whereas usually we write songs here and there over a few years. It was all this one moment in time.
You’ve said that ‘Woman’ is the encapsulation of the album, but did you find the tracks evolving along the way? Were there particular threads running through Tilt that you wanted to pursue?
I think we didn’t intentionally really do anything. It was just what naturally came out of us.
The last song we wrote for the record was ‘Angry Girl’. My brother and I went away on a writing trip – I think it was in between lockdowns. We just got really drunk, and I must have had all this rage inside of me. My brother was saying, ‘You know, I used to be in a rock band. I used to be able to run around with a microphone. But you never really had the opportunity to do that. So here’s a really long microphone lead …’ We were in this Airbnb and he says, ‘Just walk around and scream. You’ve been saying you want to scream for ages.’
And I was like, OK! So I was storming around the house, walking up the stairs, just screaming. Within two hours we had this song pretty much written, and the track has all the original vocals from the Airbnb.
Do you reckon you can relive that on stage?
I don’t know if I’m mad anymore! I’m pretty happy now we’re out of lockdown.
Yeah, that does change things. And I guess being on stage is like more of a freeing and less of an angry experience?
I’m sure I’ll be able to find it. I’ll probably just get in the mood and go for it.
Yes! So, you said that you had some favourite tracks on the album, other than ‘Woman’. What are your current favourites?
Probably ‘Relieve the Pressure’, which is the last song on the record.
I lived in France when I was about seventeen, and I had all this French [language]. I mean, I’m not very good. I’ve forgotten everything. I worked with a whole bunch of French people on the lyrics, but I wanted them to be kind of bad, because I wanted to destroy the language in the way that only we could.
We always wanted to try to write a journey track, but we always just kept writing pop songs. And I thought: on this record, we’re going to get a journey that’s going to go somewhere and become its own little world. It was the first time we’ve been able to actually do that and be stoked with it.
I don’t speak French – what’s going on in those lyrics?
I remember initially, it was just Sugar and me in the studio. And he’s like, ‘What French sayings do you know?’ Then I switched them around and made them nonsensical. So it started out that way. When I started working on it with French people, they were like, ‘Actually, it’s not that you flip it, and turn it around on its head – this actually just doesn’t make sense!’ So we kept a few of the original lyrics: one of the original lyrics was ‘Impossible ce n'est pas moi’, which is ‘Impossible, that’s not me’. That was probably one of the only original lyrics. We kept kept nothing else.
It’s a great album closer. Are there any other songs on there you’re especially looking forward to doing live?
We haven’t played a lot of them live yet, really – we’ve only played about four of them live – but we have a plan for a lot of tracks. Probably the one I’m most excited about is ‘Toy Boy’ because I’ve been working on these costumes for that track which are just wild. I’m working with an artist and I’m making a costume with moving shoulders that are moved by our fingers. Just really weird pole suits. It’s going to be awesome. I can’t hold drinks or anything, because my arms have to be straight – I can’t bend them because there’s metal poles along my arms underneat the suit.
Like a robot?
Yeah, it’s a bit robotic – I press a button and then it moves the shoulders. It’s really over the top.
It sounds perfect because ‘Toy Boy’ is an over-the-top song, in some ways. I was getting big Spice Girls vibes off it.
I was fully channelling a ’90s R&B vibe as well.
‘Toy Boy’ and the next track, ‘Loving You is Easy’, also seem to show interesting sides to your Janet Planet character. You’ve said that Janet is an exaggerated part of your real self – how’s Janet doing these days?
I suppose I was always a little bit worried about showing a softer side to Janet, like on ‘Loving You is Easy’, but I feel like you can still show a softer side while remaining powerful – like with ‘Woman’. That was a natural thing for us; we kept writing prettier songs and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if that’s Janet.’ Then I realised that, actually, Janet can be whatever she wants to be. And I think that’s the power of it.
Yeah, that’s interesting. Because every woman, every character, can have juxtapositions that sound contradictory, but that’s who they are. Some of the songs on Tilt – like ‘Woman’ – take up that idea: ‘Treat me like a woman’, but also ‘Treat me with respect, because I can blow up my own house!’ So do you feel that power in Janet – that even when she’s kind of snippy and bitchy, that’s another part of her power?
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And I think also having Sugar behind me – there’s not many female singers who have a guy as a backing vocalist. It always seems to be the other way around. And I’m not saying Sugar’s a back-up vocalist – he would be offended by that! – but he’s kind of my sidekick. I think I like flipping these stereotypes on their head in that way.
Both of you together bring different elements to the party.
Yeah, exactly. And also Sugar brings a whole bunch of feminine energy, which I think is also really awesome to see in a male character as well.
Yes, some excellent eyeliner!
He’s so good, and actually he does all the make-up. He’s so much better than me at it. Steady hand.
Well, that brings us quite neatly to your visual aesthetic, which is clearly an important part of the Confidence Man set-up. You do have a definite style, and I don’t really have the words to describe it. It’s completely endearing, and charming and cool. Did you come up with that styling instinctively, or was it something that you worked on consciously, to create that aesthetic?
Well, I think it was a growing thing. I remember our first gig – it was bright, gold, shiny, sparkly outfits that my mum made me. And I think it was just too much with this happy music, and these bright outfits, and we were smiling. And I thought: we need some kind of contrast here, so it doesn’t become a second wave of ABBA or something! So I think we needed to bring it down to earth and make it fresh, but also keep some element of mystery and cool.
Since then, it’s actually been good for me to have some kind of restraint. Because if I could use colour and stuff, I’d just lose it – I’d just go crazy. It’s good, sticking to black and white. I also feel like my natural style is a very ’90s aesthetic anyway, so these are all things I would probably wear in my normal life.
I love that outfit in the ‘Feels Like a Different Thing’ video – I call it the Fluffy Luge Suit. And it looks so great in the Coober Pedy setting.
It’s very unnatural there, isn’t it? I have to tell you, it was completely destroyed by the time we left!
Ha, I wondered about that. That video looked like a lot of fun but also a lot of hard work. What was it like to make?
It was like a crazy adventure because you never really go anywhere and actively try to meet all the people there. We had no plan of what the film clip was going to be – all we knew was that we wanted it in the desert, and maybe with some motorbikes. So the director, Bill [Bleakley], just took us out there and talked to all the locals, and he’s like, ‘I met this cowboy, and he’s gonna do this for us, and I met these policemen, and they’re all chill with whatever you guys want to do.’
All the driving, Sugar was doing, and I remember he looked over at me – the director was like, ‘You need to go faster because on film it looks a lot slower in cars’ – and I remember Sugar looking over at me, and me just thinking, ‘My mum would be so angry at me right now.’ And then he just floors the car.
By the time we left like we were just so tired, I think we had used too much adrenaline. We were ruined for maybe two weeks.
I have to say, the speed of the car when you’re hanging out the side – it really does make the tassels on that amazing outfit really fly! Well worth it. So are you still making all your outfits with your mum? At Women In Pop we’re very excited about multigenerational music/style making …
Poor old Mum – I think I overloaded her at one point because I was like, ‘I need six new costumes!’ And then it was also during COVID, so I couldn’t go up [to see her] for fittings. But she did the catsuit in ‘Feels Like a Different Thing’, and she’s done the next costume for the next single. But then, for all the other ones, I have this guy called Ivan, who’s in Collingwood and he’s just awesome, with a kind of faster turnaround than poor old Mum, who’s also a nurse.
You’re still designing, though? Coming up with all of the concepts?
I’m way too intense to let anyone else do that!
Well, you’re the one who has to wear it …
No one else is gonna wear it. So someone has to do it.
And I guess you know how you move. I love your dance style – you brought back Snake Arms, which are underused, I think, in modern pop videos. Is that your natural style of dancing? Say, you’re at a wedding – is that how you dance?
I’m definitely the most intense person at the wedding. I’m always throwing it down. I probably do the movements less hard, because I feel like on stage that you need to work harder for people to see your moves. On stage I probably put my arms out more than I would in my normal dance style, because I feel like people from far away won’t see me if I’m just doing casual stuff. But I’m definitely the most intense person at the wedding. It is real.
That speaks volumes! So: next up is touring time, and I do think this album is tailor-made for the European summer. You’ve got a bunch of dates in Europe, and presumably a few more to come with festivals?
Yeah, lots of stuff coming.
Anything in particular you’re looking forward to on the tour?
We’re looking forward to our London headline show [at the O2 Forum], because we’ve had that booked in for two years. And it’s going to be the biggest venue we’ve ever played. And I know a lot of these people have had tickets for two years. So it’s going to be awesome. Now we can go over there we can play these new songs, whereas before we would have gone over and just played the songs from the last record. It’s going to be nice and fresh, and they’re going to be pretty shocked, I think.
Shock is good! What’s the ideal Confidence Man gig set-up for you – what type of crowd, what kind of venue?
I think [when the gig is] too big – I find there’s a little too much distance between us and the crowd. I like being able to like get to them, and be able to get in their faces. I remember one time there was a guy at this really small gig we played in the UK somewhere. And he was really up in my face. Then I had champagne in my mouth and I spat it on him. I could tell that he wanted me to. He came up to me after the gig and he said, ‘When you spat that champagne in my face, that was the best moment of my life.’ And I was like, ‘My god!’ I like gigs like that. Like really close.
And he’ll remember it. I mean, that is memorable. You used to just get the drummer’s drumstick if you were lucky.
We don’t have much time left, so if we can quickly jump back to the beginning. Here at Women in Pop we’re very interested in women’s experiences in the music industry, so where did you spring from, music-wise? Were you in bands before Confidence Man?
I was a keyboardist in another band. But I was only in that for maybe a month before we started Confidence Man. And I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m a kind of back-up girl. I think I should be at the front.’ I always played instruments – piano and violin and stuff – but I was doing marketing and then just kind of fell into this, which is really weird. It’s probably why I’m good at it – it’s probably my marketer’s brain!
In the industry, we know women have historically had a hard time, though I know that’s changing a lot. What’s been your experience? Has the tightknit nature of Confidence Man helped you manage the industry?
Well, the three boys around me support me and defend me in many ways. But then I also defend myself as well. It’s never been such a big issue for me. I suppose the main thing has just been feeling left out – like bathrooms and things, when we’re on tour and people aren’t looking after women in that way, or not having locks on the doors … but I haven’t really felt left out in any other way, I think.
And I guess you’re all creating your music as a true collaborative, so you don’t have a Powerful Man Producer telling you how to be …
Yeah, I’ve always kind of laid it down with the boys – if they get in my way … ! I suppose there are other things as well, where people just assume that I’m not writing songs. And I’ve had a lot of people say that kind of stuff. Which is the most annoying thing in the world.
I do hope that’s changing – with women doing more production and writing, surely people will not assume those things?
It’s so ridiculous. It’s like: how could you imagine a man would write this kind of stuff? Because it’s the opposite of what a man would write.
Yes! All the best with Tilt, and for the tour too. And thank you so much for chatting to us.
Thank you!
Tilt is out now via I OH YOU. You can download and stream here.
To keep up with all things Janet Planet and Confidence Man, you can follow them on Instagram and Facebook, or check out their website.
