Listening to Aeroplane’s debut record transports you back to the glory days of disco. With groovy, slowed-down beats, zinging synths and the epic gospel chorus of the title track We Can’t Fly, the album gets pretty close to founder Vito De Luca’s mission of recreating much-loved disco sounds from the era of flared trousers and big hair. While Aeroplane hasn’t always been De Luca’s solo mission (Stephen Fasano, now known as The Magician, was De Luca’s former partner; the two split just before We Can’t Fly was released in 2010) he’s now touring Asia in support of his latest compilation CD In Flight Entertainment. Andrea Yu bends his ear before his first-ever Hong Kong gig at Kee Club…

You’ve been called the leader of the nu-disco genre. Would you agree with that?
Not really. When I started making music with Aeroplane there was already nu-disco there. What Aeroplane did was a different thing. It was inspired by disco. But nu-disco has this electronic twist to it and what I was trying to make back then was real disco. I really wanted to make disco like if it was 1981. I don’t know if you understand… real disco was played with a real drummer, real musicians all in the same room playing the song. You could listen to a disco song for 12 minutes that does the same thing in a loop and never get bored of it because it’s so human and alive.

Aeroplane used to be a duo. Can you tell us what happened?
We did the album [We Can’t Fly] while we were still the two of us. But that’s actually the album that started the process of splitting up because the other guy from Aeroplane was more the DJ side of it. I was a musician on the other hand and was less into the DJ things. When we made the album, it was really a musician record. It was really about playing instruments. And that’s when the process started happening that we were like ‘okay, so maybe this record is more my record than yours now. So maybe we should do something about it’. And that’s when we had a discussion and decided to stop working together.

After you went solo, were there still people telling you what to do?
I’m not really an open-minded musician. As in, I usually know exactly what I want and anything that goes out of that – I’d never take it. I always have this flash of a song or this flash of a remix. And I know precisely which sounds and where I need them once that’s in my head.That’s more or less what happens.

Would you say you’re easy to work with in the studio… or quite picky?
I’m not easy to work with – I’m easy to work for. I don’t know if you understand the difference. If I have someone in the studio who is there to help me for some vocals for something... I can tell them exactly what they need to do. And if they do it right, it can be done in 15 minutes. But easy to work with? No. I’m definitely not known for being easy to work with. Making music is a really artistic process... I get really stubborn and I don’t stop until I’ve gotten as close [as I can] to what I want.

Do you ever have the problem of seeing a vision of a finished song in your head but you can never get to it?
Oh yeah, all the time [laughs].

You’re keeping up a busy touring schedule. Can you notice the difference between crowds in different cities?
Yeah, definitely. For example, if you play Manchester in the UK… the clubs – they close early at 2 or 3am. So you know they’ve been drinking since 9pm. When you get to a club at midnight you know that everybody is drunk because they’ve been drinking all night. So you know it’s going to be a bit of an easier crowd. And you know the music they’re gonna want – something a bit more pumping. I’m not going to play too much disco. I would play more house music. When I play Scandinavia, they have a different music culture. They’re real music lovers. They get there earlier, they get there to see the artists. You know this is what they came to see and that you can go way deeper into the music you’re playing. In Australia, it’s the sun. It’s party time. So you play like… happy stuff!

Have you been to Hong Kong?
No, actually I haven’t. It’s a part of the world I’m looking forward to explore. I haven’t been to China or Japan yet.

Since you’re not familiar with the crowds here, what will your plan of action be?
Well yeah [laughs], that’s the tricky part of it. One of the first times you play in front of a crowd of a certain city, you have to adapt. You have to take a bit more songs with you to make sure you can cover everything. And I have no idea if Aeroplane is known at all. I have no idea if people know my songs. I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet. It’s really dictated by the crowd.

Interview: Andrea Yu

Kee Club, Friday 13. $300