Australian quartet Confidence Man deliver campy, addictive dance anthems that draw from Deee-Lite and Tom Tom Club as well as early-2000s alt-disco acts such as Scissor Sisters, Fischerspooner, and CSS. The group burst onto the Melbourne scene in 2016 and followed with their breakthrough debut album Confident Music for Confident People in 2018. Drawing from ’90s dance music, they unveiled their sophomore release Tilt in 2022 and the club-focused 3AM (La La La) in 2024.
Originally rooted in Melbourne yet now based in Brisbane, the quartet formed from members of indie and psych-rock outfits the Belligerents, Moses Gunn Collective, and Jungle Giants. Siblings Janet Planet and Sugar Bones front the vocals, while Reggie Goodchild on synths and Clarence McGuffie on percussion stay hidden behind veils that shield their identities. Confidence Man launched in 2016 with the single “Boyfriend (Repeat),” styled after Brigitte Bardot’s “Contact.” After inking a deal with Heavenly Recordings in 2017, they put out “Bubblegum” and “Better Sit Down Boy,” both later featured on their 2018 full-length Confident Music for Confident People (Heavenly/PIAS). Echoing Talking Heads, Fatboy Slim, Groove Armada, and LCD Soundsystem, the record also contained “Don’t You Know I’m in a Band.” They capped the decade with the holiday track “Santa’s Comin’ Down the Chimney” and “Does It Make You Feel Good?”
Entering the 2020s, the band dropped the standalone single “First Class Bitch,” later expanded via a remix EP that included a Groove Armada version. Their second-album cycle opened in 2021 with the atmospheric “Holiday,” succeeded by the house-leaning “Feels Like a Different Thing” and “Woman.” All three appeared on 2022’s Tilt, a set of euphoric dancefloor cuts that reached number seven on the ARIA chart and generated the remix collection Re-Tilt, featuring Tame Impala, CHAI, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. Shifting further toward club sounds, Confidence Man released “On & On (Again)” with Daniel Avery on Polydor in 2022. Additional collaborations arrived with DJ Seinfeld on “Now U Do” in 2023 and DJ Boring on “Forever 2 (Crush Mix)” in 2024. Late that year they issued their third studio album 3AM (La La La), an excursion into London’s underground club scene.
