Leave it to an exuberant Danish duo to put radio programmers and
other media types into a tizzy of cultural confusion. Ever since
Junior Senior’s party vibes made its U.S. debut this summer,
it’s been labeled as rock, dance, punk, funk and even house.
And before setting out on a U.S. tour with Electric Six, the
group’s itinerary has included a number of television
appearances, ranging from “Jimmy Kimmel Live” to
“Live with Regis and Kelly.”
But the group doesn’t sound like it has any lofty
ambitions to cross over or break musical ground. The group just
wants to start a party, with its own Technicolor rave-ups providing
the soundtrack. Junior (small, 27, straight) and Senior (big, 28,
gay) know how to put on a live show, too. Along with a troupe of
accompanying musicians, drum machines and back-up singers, they
will play the Troubadour on Sept. 4. Oh yeah, and the show’s
sponsored by KIIS-FM.
Senior, whose real name is Jeppe Breum, is conscious of the
crosscutting attention. “Even in the U.K., when the new
single came out, it was played on urban radio, R&B radio,
alternative radio and student radio,” he said. “And it
makes us proud because that’s kind of representative of what
a good song should do. A lot of people can understand it, so
it’s not about style or genre.”
The first single off of Junior Senior’s debut LP
“D-D-Don’t Don’t Stop the Beat,” the
internationally successful “Move Your Feet,” is three
minutes of jittery disco-punk accompanied by the best Prince
impression Junior can muster (his real name is Jester Mortensen).
The two show their go-go side on the bass heavy “Shake Your
Coconuts,” which, like other numbers in their repertoire,
sounds like it has about three different choruses.
Elsewhere they expound on their mantra with ease ““
“We wanna wear the same as Sonny and Cher/ And show
we’ve got balls like the New York Dolls,” sings Junior
with garage-rock flair on “White Trash.” As absurd as
it sounds, Junior Senior’s musical alchemy is completely
natural. It may be fitting that at ten years old, they
weren’t listening to the Beatles, but Wham!
“Denmark’s a really small country so it’s not
like the U.S. where different styles are really separated,”
Senior said. “In Denmark it’s just, “˜everything
goes.'”
The group spent the past few weeks playing in festivals around
the United Kingdom, where “Move Your Feet” spent nine
weeks in the top 10 of the U.K. singles chart. But Senior still
thinks rock clubs are the best venue to showcase their music.
“That’s really the kind of background we come from
““ we’ve always played small clubs,” Senior said.
“It’s much better to see us there than at festivals,
because our live shows are really kind of rough and trashy.
It’s really in your face, energetic ““ there’s a
lot of sweat. And it always just turns into one big
party.”
And now that Junior and Senior have started their steady
dominance over the airwaves, maybe they can focus on the subject of
so many of their songs: hitting on their gender of choice.
Unfortunately, the duo has yet to find much luck with groupies.
“We’re sort of really bad at that stuff,”
Senior said. “But people are welcome to come up ““ and
we’ll take it from there.”
Junior Senior play the Troubadour on Sept. 4. For more
information, visit www.troubadour.com.