Luke Million takes us through the mountain of synths in his epic Stranger Things cover

Will this be the last time we talk about Stranger Things? It remains to be seen. We've just fallen very hard for the show and there's been a heap of fun ancillary #content to go with it. And the video Luke Million uploaded to his Facebook yesterday afternoon might just be our favourite bit yet. Surrounded by a sea of synths, Luke Million busts out a perfect rendition of the show's eerily perfect theme song. Being arguably one of Australia's, if not the world's biggest synth nerds, it'd be remiss of us not to find out just what it is he's running for a cover that would have done Barb proud.

Hey mate, how are you - what's been going on in Luke Million world?

Things are great. Been full throttle in the studio writing new music, collaborating with some awesome artists, prepping a new live show and generally touching synthesizers.

Just saw you've been announced for Southbound this year, looking forward to a trip back to the west?

Every time I have ventured West it has been amazing vibes and usually involves very little sleep. Absolutely stoked to be playing at Southbound! The line-up is rad this year and I feel humbled to be playing with the likes of Hot Chip, Safia and Peking Duk just to name a few.

Will you be bringing some new tunes over?

Certainly will be. Can't wait to share all the things that I have been working on the studio.

Loving your Stranger Things cover, we've been frothing over it for weeks and the intro theme is a cracker. You're packing some serious synths in it, can you tell us a bit about it?

I was an instant fan of Stranger Things as it was packed full of 80s nostalgia. I am a huge fan of 80s movies and music as you can probably tell. The theme music is bang-on with soundtracks of the era and full of vintage synth sounds. I wasn't sure if it was possible to recreate it all live with only 2 hands, but after a bit of reorganising in my studio I had created a synth pod to jam on. I set up an Arpeggiator on the Roland Juno 6 which was clocked to a Roland TR-808 drum machine. I had programmed 3 patters that I could manually switch between during the performance. The main synth sound was taken care of by a beefy 3 oscillator patch on the Minimoog. The Roland Jupiter 6 provided synth stabs and the Oberheim OB8 switched between a resonating synth swell and a brass sound. I also created a spacey effect on the Roland SH2. I kinda was like a mad scientist jumping between synths and changing sounds while I constantly modulated the filter manually on the Juno 6.

Who was your favourite character on the show?

I will have to go with Dustin. You are either going to hate or love him. I go with the latter.

And your favourite 80s sci-fi/thriller movie soundtracks, we imagine a synth nerd like yourself would get around the likes of John Carpenter etc.

We could be here for days going through this haha, so I will keep it short. John Carpenter is right up there with soundtracks like Escape from New York. All time favourite is Blade Runner scored by Vangelis. Have to drop a few Arnold Schwarzenegger movies in there too. Big fan of the soundtracks of The Terminator by Brad Fidel and Running Man by Harold Faltemeyer

Besides Southbound, what does the rest of 2016 have instore for Luke Million?

After locking myself away in the studio for the past few months, I'm itching to jump back on stage. I'm heading to China and USA for shows in the next few months and once my new music is out in the world I will be announcing an Australian tour. In between all that I'm gonna keep making music and probably buy some more synths and start working on my full length album.

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