Aneiki: Pretty Pleased.

Aneiki play the Waterloo Hotel on Friday, the Troccadero, Surfers Paradise on Saturday and the Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay on Sunday.

Last decade, one of the worlds biggest musical acts came from right here in our back yard. While Savage Garden may have called it a day, guitarist Daniel Jones quickly found vocalist Jennifer Waite and producer and musical main guy Grant Wallis to form pop duo Aneiki, and then promptly sign them up for his own label.

Aneiki’s first single Pleased To Meet You rocketed up the charts, spending 40 weeks in the ARIA top 50, and the band have just released their debut album Words In Place Of Objects. Having played some bigger events, including last year’s Rumba show, and supporting Darren Hayes on a national tour, Aneiki are now out in the clubs on their own.

“Technically it’s a nightmare,” Grant explains. “Getting ready to go out on the road… Just the amount of gear I need to run the show. I got a new computer system the other week, and we’re just programming it up. It’s lots of fun…”

Do you drive everything live from the PC during shows?

“So far it has been me. I’ve had Mission Control next to me. I can’t wait until we’ve got the budget that we can actually hire someone to run it, and take the responsibility off me. We’ve got this thing I call the fridge, which is a rack of gear than comes up to about waist height. It pumps out 16 tracks of backing and click tracks. When you record an album with like 50 guitar parts in one song, you can’t really do it on stage by getting 50 guitar players up. It’s too messy.”

And everyone would be playing louder and faster than everyone else…

“You know it. They’re all going to have a hair off for who’s got the longest hair. It’s going to be really ugly.”

Is it really important to you to be able to replicate live what you’re doing in the studio?

“Yes it is. There’s so many things that are in the mixes that you cant really tell are there, obscure things. I’ve got the chance now to chuck it all forward. There are parts of the show that will be acoustic, and other parts where we’re going to throw up some of my remix stuff. It’s not just pressing play and hoping for the best.”