The release of Jackson Jackson’s debut album The Fire Is On The Bird  spun a few heads earlier this year, when genre hopping duo, Harry Angus (of Cat Empire fame) and Jan Skubiszewski (Phrase producer) launched their brand of hip hop heavy, blues infused, electronic “psychobilly” at live shows across Melbourne - leaving fans in a frenzy and fellow musicians enviously gazing on like a bunch of stunned mullets.

According to producer/composer Jan (pronounced yahn), the Jackson Jackson project came together by accident.

“I was working with a lot of rappers in Melbourne at the time and Harry approached me and said he wanted to make a hip hop song and try something a little bit different.”

“Harry has this really unique approach to music - he’s a very quirky guy and such an incredibly colourful lyricist. His songs can seem hilarious but at the same time there’s this deep underlying meaning to them. So after making that first track – which was ‘Intelligent, Evolved and Insane’ – it all just started to flow,” says Jan. 

Jan and Harry had no idea that a full length album and nominations for three Australian Urban Music Awards lay just around the corner. “It was a really loose concept initially. We basically just used to hang out and talk about what we liked in music and the ideal aesthetics of what we wanted to create. We were just working on it in out spare time, but then we really began to believe in what we were doing. We never thought anyone else would believe in it though.” They were wrong. 

For what was essentially an experimental journey for the boys, the success of the album was not only surprising, but also proved that there’s a discerning audience out there that has been patiently waiting for something different to emerge from the pop music world. 

Up until this year, Harry has been largely known as the trumpeting, second-frontman of the hugely successful Melbourne based band, The Cat Empire, who are set to release their 4th studio album this month. But, while Harry is often wrapped up in Cat duties, Jan has commitments of his own, with his feet deeply planted in the Melbourne hip hop scene and a new album for Phrase on its way this year. 

Aside form being a production guru - Jan won an APRA award for the music he composed for Australian movie Two Hands – he also plays guitar, bass and is teaching himself piano. “I actually started out in a rock band originally. It wasn’t exactly a melting pot of musical minds,” says Jan. So he moved on to a bit of solo composition work before teaming up with some hip hop artists in a production capacity. Jan first crossed paths with Harry up at a nut farm in Byron Bay 2002, when he was assisting with the production of The Cat Empire’s first album. 

Interestingly, The Cat Empire team - minus DJ Jumps and frontman, Felix Riebl - have jumped aboard the Jackson Jackson live show juggernaut, which is also supported by the impressive back-up vocal harmonies of the none other than the Jackson Jackson 5.

As for the next step? Well, the future looks bright for the duo, with a new album on the horizon and plenty of new genre bending ideas on the table things can only get bigger and potentially weirder.

Watch Jackson Jackson's film clip for "Eliza"