KEY POINTS:
Toby Rand, Australian runner-up in last year's Rockstar Supernova television contest and his band Juke Kartel open for the group the show created, at Vector Arena tomorrow night.
Throughout the competition you were a clear favourite, were you surprised you didn't win?
I don't know if I was surprised or relieved. Supernova was obviously going to be a great experience but towards the end I felt like I was pushing towards my own band - I was missing them a lot, I was missing my songs. In the end, I was happy.
I got told afterwards that I was the favourite, it was the best marketing campaign ever. Without any of it being planned, it's worked out so well for me because people are going to wonder "what happened to the guy who didn't win?".
Obviously the show was edited to look like there was a lot of drama in the house, what was it really like?
It did get tense sometimes because a lot of the people did get really quite narky at each other. I kind of separated myself from it and laughed about it. There was a lot of drama.
Was Dilana as bad as they tried to make out she was?
You know what, Dilana was all "I can't believe they showed that on TV, you know, I'm not a bad person," and I would just go, "well if you didn't do those things in the first place, they wouldn't show them". We all knew we were on a TV show. If Dilana's going to smash a glass on someone's head, of course they're going to show it. She cracked the shits about that but I always said, if you don't do it, they can't show it.
Have you stayed in touch with the other competitors?
I stay in touch with pretty much all the boys, plus Storm, Dilana, Zayira and Jenny. They're all great.
There were a couple of girls that I was wondering what the hell was going on with them. But once all of that was cleared out, the last eight weeks were just awesome fun.
What was the highlight for you?
I think the highlight was coming out of the show, being myself, and not being portrayed any other way. Also the experience of learning from boys like Tommy Lee, Jason and Gilby. Even Dave Navarro. Learning how to hold yourself in the media, hold yourself as a person, and not let people [expletive] you around.
But let's be honest, Dave Navarro is a bit of a twat.
I'm not going to say he was a twat but he wasn't really a fan of mine at all. I've spoken to him since the show and he's always been encouraging. But I think he just likes the girls.
For people unfamiliar with Juke Kartel, what can they expect from the band?
Basically, five really good-looking guys ... [laughs] No, just a lot of energy, we're relatively young - compared to Supernova, anyway. Our music has elements of U2, Foo Fighters and Live, there's a big cross-section of music. We like to make sure the crowd is really part of it. There's going to be no glitz or glamour, no pyros. It's just going to be like a pub rock show.
