After half a billion streams for their last remix, are Melbourne’s Cookin On 3 Burners heading for another hit?

Image: Jake and Ivan from Cookin On 3 Burners with an award from ORiGiN signifying multi-platinum success worldwide

Almost ten years ago, when Cookin On 3 Burners released the song ‘This Girl’ on their 2009 album Soul Messin’ they were a trio of soul enthusiasts who released a couple of albums and played gigs mostly around hometown Melbourne.

Based on US Hammond organ trios as The Meters and Booker T & The MGs, they stretched their sound with collaborations with Tex Perkins, Daniel Merriweather, Kylie Auldist and Jason Heerah

In early 2016, French teen DJ Kungs happened to them.

He’d discovered it and given it a dance remix under the name Kungs Vs Cookin On 3 Burners.

It generated a half a billion streams via Spotify, 290 million views for its video on You Tube and #1 or Top 10 status in 18 countries including the UK (where it stayed at #2 for five weeks unable to budge Drake) and most of Europe.

It was also used on ads by US smartphone company Cricket Wireless and by Peugeot cars through Europe, where the band toured as a result.

“It was just so surreal,” recalls the band’s Hammond organ player and co-writer Jake Mason to TMN. “It was something we never envisaged would happen.

“We’re all great fans of the soul sound, and the only collaborations we’d done were with singers.

“But it was something really exciting, to see the way Kungs had taken that soul sound and injected that whole EDM feel to it while retaining the spirit of the original.

“It opened up so many doors for us, in terms of collaborations and working with new people overseas.”

Now history looks repeating itself, with their track ‘Real Life Baby’ getting a similar EDM treatment by Berlin duo The Scene Writers.

Released through Sony Germany imprint Four, the track is starting to get a similar reaction in a number of European countries to the earlier remix.

The song was written by Mason with expat singer-songwriter Emmi Green and published by ORiGiN Music.

The German act had apparently had the song played to them by their manager and fell for it.

The Scene Writers are singer Christian Huerter and drummer Sebastian Nouvortne.

Their approach of combining electro instruments with soaring guitars and classic piano has given the Cookin On 3 Burners track a sense of surrealism and atmosphere.

“We had some input,” says Mason. “We were never in the studio with them, but there were quite a few Skype sessions and ideas being exchanged over the internet.”

The Scene Writers, who also create their stage design and artwork, directed the accompanying video.

Part of the European media’s interest in the remix is the accompanying video, directed by The Scene Writers who also create their stage design and artwork.

It reflects Berlin’s street art scene: Huerter is an artist himself, and the video shows some of his work, as well as what inspired him from New York, LA and London.

Meantime Cookin On 3 Burners are remaining in Melbourne, working on their next record, due mid-2018.