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Sneaky man claims Empire sound as his own
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 29 July 2009
Sneaky Sound System’s Donnie Sloan has claimed responsibility for the Empire Of The Sun sound, telling Australian newspaper The Herald Sun that he wrote four of the songs on the duo’s debut album, ‘We Are The People’, ‘Walking On A Dream’, ‘Half Mast’ and ‘Without You’, in 2005. He is credited with doing so on their debut album, so it’s safe to assume he’s telling the truth. Though the credits were only added after the threat of legal action, Sloan says he still has a good working relationship with the pair, The Sleepy Jackson’s Luke Steele and Pnau’s Nick Littlemore.
He told the newspaper that he had written the songs for a possible solo project, and had asked Littlemore to consider creating Pnau remixes of them, saying: “I created these tracks, on my own in 2005, long before Empire Of The Sun existed. Musically, the template for Empire Of The Sun is mine. They pulled the rug from under my feet and took my sound. I told Nick I didn’t want him to use the tracks. I was hoping to save them for my own project”.
It was only two years later that Sloan heard the songs again, reworked by Littlemore and Steele. Realising that if they wrote new songs based on his original tracks he would have little chance of claiming any royalties from them, he allowed the duo to use his original versions instead. He said: “They were trying to copy and recreate my music. This would have, in effect, left me with nothing. So my hand was forced into allowing them to use the backing tracks”.
However, it still took the threat of legal action to get acknowledgement of his involvement. He revealed that he hired a team of lawyers who successfully convinced Steele and Littlemore to credit Sloan as a writer, performer and producer on their album. He explained: “It did not quite get to the legal stage, but I had to threaten it in order for them to recognise my contribution. It has been a bittersweet experience. But I have worked hard to move on. I’m not bitter about it any more”.
Following the publication of the interview, Sloan took to his MySpace blog to clarify things a little, and denyied that there is any bad blood between him and Empire Of The Sun while revealing that he will also play a role in the duo’s second album. He wrote: “For anyone who may have read any recent press regarding my involvement with Empire Of The Sun I would like to make it absolutely clear that I am very happy with my credits and thank you on the album art. Any statements to the contrary have been taken out of context. I enjoy a great working relationship with Empire Of The Sun and we’re all very excited about continuing this especially in the form of the second Empire LP”.
