Jep And Dep are an underground folk-noir duo formed in Sydney.
Described as desirably dark and dramatic, the duo have drawn comparisons to Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue's song 'Where The Wild Roses Grow'.
The cinematic duo are set to release their second album, 'THEY'VEBEENCALLED', in early August and Darren Cross (the Dep of Jep And Dep and ex-Gerling) is beyond excited to finally share it. “I'm psyched, it's been a long time coming,” he says.
“Everything we've done has been by ourselves and for ourselves, on our own label. We've produced it, so it's like our little baby,” Darren says.
“We don't have a baby,” Darren laughs.
Darren says they have a number of plans after the album release. “We've got a bunch of shows on the east coast in New South Wales, Melbourne and Adelaide at the moment and then we will just keep playing shows,” Darren says.
“Because we're our own label it's pretty old-school [to] do it yourself and because we're a folk band we pretty much have a punk ethos and ethics running the label ourselves. We will go out and play anywhere and hopefully people will like it.”
Jep And Dep run their own independent label called No Drums Records from Sydney. Darren says he's against commercial music platforms. “We're anti Spotify and Apple Music. The only time you're going to hear our music online is if you buy it off Bandcamp or there's some videos online, or stream it, it's really cheap,” Darren says.
“[Spotify/Apple Music] just devaluates music. We're such a small band as well. Taylor Swift or Gang Of Youths probably make money off [major streaming services].” Darren says.
'THEY'VEBEENCALLED' has a different sound to their first album being written between the hours of 11pm and 5am. “This is our second album, so this time we knew what we wanted. It's definitely more folk and pretty gentrification,” Darren says.
“We live in Sydney and our home studio was right next to a place that was getting redeveloped and that went for a year. So we had to record between the hours of 11pm and 5am everyday,” Darren says. “So the album has a kind of spooky vibe.”
Jep And Dep have played numerous tours the past few years, but Darren says it's the other musicians that have been the most memorable. “We supported Johnny Marr of The Smiths [in 2014]. That was amazing and we a hung out with him afterwards and he really liked our music,” Darren says.
“That kind of blew me away, that freaked us out.
“Touring Europe was cool also. We've been really lucky. We've played with some really amazing people so far. We got invited to play with Courtney [Barnett] and her girlfriend at another gig,” Darren says.
Before Jep And Dep, Darren was lead vocalist and guitarist in Australian electronica and alternative rock trio Gerling. With a different sound to Jep And Dep, Darren says his music taste and style has changed completely.
“Gerling was started in the '90s, a lot of the people into [Jep And Dep] music now probably weren't even alive then,” Darren says. “I was really into dance music then and loud guitar and toured the world a few times. I did that for 14 years.”
'THEY'VEBEENCALLED' will be released 9 August. Jep And Dep play Gaelic Club Sydney 11 August and Halcyon Daze Records (2.30pm) 12 August. They support Hugo Race & Michelangelo Russo at Leadbelly 9 September.
written by Grace Purvis
