2001–2005: Early years In late 2001, Sneaky Sound System was formed in
Sydney as hosts to dance music parties, Sneaky Sundays. Angus McDonald had met MC Double D (Daimon Downey) at a fancy dress party in 2000 and the pair soon became flatmates. Angus was working as a DJ with Damien Hesse and invited D to MC at their regular Sunday parties. Various live musicians would perform irregularly with Sneaky Sound System, the group added cabaret elements including specialist dancers. In 2004, Sneaky Sound System established its own label,
Whack Records. Angus recalled being rejected by recording companies when proposing an album of original material, "We were told by every label we might sell 10,000 copies and it wasn't worth it ... so we decided to do it ourselves". and contributed guitar, keyboards, bass guitar, drums and lead vocals. It appeared on the
ARIA Singles Chart Top 100. In late May, Hesse indicated that a new album was due later that year. Their second single, "Tease Me", had been recorded before Mitchell joined with lead vocals by D and guest vocalist Pepper (Pip Edwards), it appeared on 18 July 2005, but did not chart. This broke the record as the longest charting single by an Australian artist on the ARIA Singles Chart – previously held by
The Living End's "
Second Solution/Prisoner of Society" (1997) at 69 weeks. On 12 August 2006, Sneaky Sound System released their
self-titled debut studio album, which was produced by Angus and Dolso and included the three earlier singles, "Hip Hip Hooray", "Tease Me" and "I Love It". The band were awarded with 'Best Performing Independent EP/Single' and 'Best Independent Artist' at the 2007
Australian Independent Record (AIR) Awards At the
2007 ARIA Awards, the group won two categories, 'Best Dance Release' and 'Breakthrough Artist – Album' from nine nominations. In late October, the album was at No. 37 but with their ARIA wins it reached the peak of No. 5 within three weeks, in mid-November.
Sneaky Sound System remained in the Top 50 for a total of sixty-one weeks, In December 2006, they supported
Robbie Williams on the Australian leg of his
Close Encounters Tour. Mitchell has appeared on albums by Kanye West, "Pictures" came second in the Dance-Electronica category of the 2007 International Songwriting Competition. The fifth single from the album, "
UFO", was released in April, which reached No. 11, is their highest single peak. The September 2009 version of the tour also included international shows in
Auckland,
London,
Madrid and
Barcelona.
2008–2010: 2 At the beginning of 2008, Sneaky Sound System began work on their second studio album,
2, which appeared on 16 August 2008 and became their first number-one album. On 12 July 2008 Sneaky Sound System released the first single from the album, "
Kansas City", which peaked at No. 14. , May 2009. The third single from the album, "
16", was released on 14 February 2009, and reached No. 4 on the ARIA Club Chart. The fourth single, "
It's Not My Problem", was released on 4 September, the Thin White Duke remix of this track spent three weeks in the top 10 of the ARIA Club Chart, and in the UK it reached No. 1 on both the UK Music Week and DMC club charts in June 2009. In the UK, they released "Pictures" as their first single in July 2008. It peaked at No. 76 on the
UK Singles Chart. They toured there including appearing at
Glastonbury,
Oxegen and performing on
BBC Radio 1. Their second UK single, "UFO", reached No. 52. Before the UK release of
2, they issued a compilation album via
iTunes,
Sneak Preview – Mixes and Remixes, on 15 December 2008. In January 2009, Sneaky Sound System were one of the headline acts at the annual
Big Day Out Festival, playing in
Auckland,
Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne,
Adelaide and
Perth. Prior to
2s release in the United Kingdom, early in 2009, they had signed to an independent UK label,
14th Floor Records. Early that year,
2 became their first album issued on the UK market. On 17 February 2009, they announced their Australian national headlining Poptronica Tour. They toured Australia and
New Zealand from 2 April 2009 in Brisbane and finished on 22 May in
Broome. In June 2009, they toured the US for the first time. At the
APRA Music Awards of 2009 they were nominated for Dance Work of the Year for "Kansas City". Angus and Mitchell collaborated with Dutch musician,
Tiësto, on his single "
I Will Be Here", and played with him at the Victoria Park Concert in London on 31 July. "I Will Be Here" reached No. 1 in the US on
Billboards
Dance Radio Airplay Chart in November. In
2010 Sneaky Sound System were nominated for another APRA Dance Work of the Year Award, this time for "16". In December 2010, Downey, as a
mixed media visual artist, had his first solo exhibition of sculpture and paintings in
Potts Point. Zac Bayly of
Pages described Downey's work, "instead of throwing shapes on stage, he's slapping them down on canvas. As an artist, [he] uses mixed media to create vibrant, strange artworks designed to communicate his own weird and wonderful mind-scapes".
2011–2013: From Here to Anywhere In March 2011, Sneaky Sound System toured Europe for gigs in London, Russia, and Naples; they also performed in Dubai. In April, they travelled to Paris and London to film the video for their next single, "
We Love". It reached No. 29 on the ARIA Singles Chart. The album peaked at No. 11 on the ARIA Albums Chart. During 2013 the group indicated on their Facebook page that they were working on a number of collaborations. The first of these was a track with US duo
The Knocks, called "The One". It appears on the EP
Comfortable, released on 18 February 2014. In May 2014, Noir Records released a track "This Feeling", accredited to Larse and Sneaky Sound System. In late 2015 and with little fanfare, Sneaky Sound System put out two club tracks on limited release—"Summertime Madness" and "All I Need". In April 2016, the group released "I Ain't Over You" and accompanying video, which they called "their first proper music video in four years". On 18 April the track debuted at No. 3 on the
AIR charts chart. In August 2017, a two-track EP including "Do Ya Thing" and "I Like Techno" was released on Club Sweat/Sweat It Out Records. The video accompanying "Do Ya Thing" was directed by fellow Bondi Beach local, Carla Uriarte. In September 2017, on TMRW Music (formerly Ministry of Sound), new remixes of "
Pictures" were released by Mall Grab, Dom Dolla, Colour Castle together with a Sneaky Sundays remix. These mixes reached No. 2 on the
ARIA Club Chart. February 2018 saw the release of new remixes of "
I Love It" from Death Ray Shake, Jordan Burns, Superlove and Luke Million. These mixes spent four weeks at No. 3 on the ARIA Club Chart. July 2019 saw the release of a single, "We Belong", also on Cr2 Records. On 18 July, Beatport named Sneaky Sound System their Artist of the Week. April 2020 brought the release of the single "Tell The World", a collaboration with French DJ producer
Norman Doray, and in August 2023, "Fire Keeps Burning", a collaboration with Swedish producer
John Dahlbäck. ==Controversies==