Sneaky Sound System is Sydney trio Miss Connie (Connie Mitchell), Black Angus (Angus McDonald), and MC Double D (Daimon Downey). Their origins lie in the hugely successful club night Sneaky Sundays, thus they make music imbued with frolicking nightlife energy but flecked with sing-along radio-friendly 1980s electro-pop.
Their story began back in 2001 when Daimon met Angus at a fancy dress party and stole the flute from his mariachi costume. They became friends and decided to start a club on the quietest night of the week. Angus spun tunes and Daimon hyped on the mic. It wasn’t some trendy minimal techno joint, but unpretentious hands-in-the-air fun. “No shoe-gazing, no wallflowers,” as Angus describes it. Still going strong eight years later, it packs in around 1000 people each Sunday, and guests have included Tiga, LCD’s James Murphy, Mylo, Hot Chip and MGMT.
“I got fired from my job after that first Sneaky night,” Daimon recalls, “because we had such a good time I didn’t go to work the next day. Angus was in publishing and was made redundant the next week. We thought, ‘Fuck it, let’s keep doing this and see how far we can go’’”.
One day, as Connie sat in a park playing guitar to a friend, Angus and Daimon happened by and asked her to sing for them.
“I thought they were a bit dodgy,” recollects Connie. They did, however, have a recording set up - Whack Studios - and when Connie sang on what was to be their breakthrough single, the contagious dance-pop of I Love It, Sneaky Sound System had their vocalist.
Within days they’d laid down vocals to their eponymous debut album. “We were told by every label we might sell 10,000 copies and it wasn’t worth it,” says Angus, “so we decided to do it ourselves.” That self-titled album went on to become their multi-platinum, ARIA-Award winning debut. Its successor, ‘2’, entered the Australian charts at #1, and Connie went on to make guest appearances on albums by Kanye West and Snoop Dogg.
In the ensuing years Sneaky has toured with Robbie Williams, Jamiroquai, The Scissor Sisters, Sam Sparro, Lady GaGa and on festivals as varied as the Glastonbury, Wireless, Oxegen, Big Day Out, Homebake, Good Vibrations, Live Earth and V Festival.
Source: www.sneakysoundsystem.com
Pic: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images