Confidence Man for lunch today – recorded at the 2022 Glastonbury Festival on June 24 and broadcast live by BBC Radio 1.
In case you aren’t familiar, and I suspect you aren’t because none of their albums have been issued here in the U.S., so unless you’re tight with an import source and they are into Electropop, Confidence Man may have flown completely under your radar.
Well, let me get you caught up:
Confidence Man (sometimes abbreviated as Con Man) formed in 2016 in Brisbane, Queensland. The group consists of vocalists Janet Planet and Sugar Bones, alongside instrumentalists Clarence McGuffie and Reggie Goodchild who typically perform anonymously on stage. They released their debut album, Confident Music for Confident People, in 2018. Their second album, Tilt, was released in 2022, followed by their third album, 3AM (La La La), in 2024.
The band was formed in 2016. The members had met on the Brisbane music scene, and had been in other bands including: The Belligerents, Moses Gunn Collective and The Jungle Giants, and use pseudonyms in Confidence Man; McGuffie and Goodchild reportedly took their stage names from tombstones. They started writing dance songs together, initially as a “kind of joke”, but eventually realised the material was worth pursuing.
Planet and Bones provide vocals and dancing while Goodchild and McGuffie, who appear as masked figures, play keyboards and drums. The band signed to UK label Heavenly Records and released their debut UK single, “Bubblegum”, in March 2017.
Confidence Man released their debut album, Confident Music for Confident People, on 13 April 2018. They toured Europe extensively in the middle of the same year, with festival slots and a sell-out at London’s Scala before returning to Australia for dates in September.
In November 2023, after releasing several bootlegs and mashups through their SoundCloud page, the band released “Firebreak”, and in February 2024, the band released a single in collaboration with DJ Boring, “Forever 2 (Crush Mix)”. In May, Confidence Man released ConMan Club Classics Vol. 1, a compilation EP featuring the non-album singles and their remixes, including a new remix of “Boyfriend (Repeat)” by Cowboy Rhythmbox.
On 5 June 2024, the band announced their third album, 3AM (La La La), with the release of the single, “I Can’t Lose You”, along with a video of Planet and Bones singing the track in a helicopter naked over the London skyline.The album is inspired by the band’s move to London, and by British rave culture of the 1990s.
In August 2024, Fabric Presents Confidence Man, a DJ mix by the band, was released. In April 2025, a remix album titled 5AM (La La La) was released.
In December 2025, the EP Active Scenes Vol. One will be released.
Okay – and thanks to Wikipedia, you’re all caught up. Now press Play and give them a listen.
