The XX Interview

Interview with The XX at the Cluny

03.10.09

Louise Morris interviews Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim



Louise: How’s the tour been going so far?

Oliver: It’s been really good, it hasn’t been too much yet, but we’ve got another year left so...

L: A full year’s tour!

O: Uhuh yeah- I’ll get back to you in a year and let you know.

L: I saw you had some dates coming up in America- how are you feeling about that?
Romy: We spent ten days in New York this summer, it was really weird being over there, people would actually come to the gig- it was really exciting.

L: How have you found audience reactions differing across different cities on the tour?

O: Yeah, I think in places like Germany they’re really intense, they’re there to listen, whereas I think in London- keep it short keep it sweet, in Germany we play longer sets and people are willing to listen for an hour, which is strange, it’s amazing.

R: I think over there they expect you to play for longer but in London it’s just “get in and get off”.

L: I’ve spoken to other bands about London gigs, who aren’t from London, and they’ve always dreaded it and say it’s the scariest show, obviously for you, coming from London, it must feel quite different?

R: I think it’s an attention span, I don’t know!

L: So having seen people’s reactions to your music what kind of a reaction would you hope to provoke from an audience?

R: We’ve been supporting for so long now that we’ve kind of been used to the idea that people aren’t there to see us and they’ve talked through our sets, but now we’re headlining for the past few shows, especially yesterday, it’s been really silent, which has been really nice.

O: We were here last week with Florence [and the Machine] for two days, it was a really good show, really fun, the audience were great but a lot of people were there just to see Florence so it kind of didn’t really work to listen to us...

L: Her music is very different...

O: Yeah, but there were a lot of people listening, and then headlining now, we’re not used to it I suppose. We’re going to do another support for Friendly Fires, again they’re like quite high energy which is maybe not where we’re at, kind of tempo wise, but it should be really interesting.

L: You’ve created quite a minimal evocative sound; how do you work together to create this? Do the lyrics or the music come first?

R: The lyrics usually come first, we work quite separately, we usually share them via the internet over ichat and work from them and build up a song like that, then we meet together and play guitar and bass and sort of link it together to make a song and then get Aria and Jamie along to make a rehearsal and it becomes a song.

O: It’s quite interesting ‘cos what Romy’s written she sings and what I’ve written I sing, and they’re love songs but Romy is my oldest friend, I’ve known her since I was 3 years old so it’s not a kind of Sonny and Cher relationship, I’m not really good at singing the songs to her and her to me and it’s just a case of coming together and sharing what we have.

L: I was going to ask, your songs all seem very personal –how much do you draw on daily life and experiences of friends and how much is imaginary?

O: I dunno, a lot of the songs we wrote when we were about 16 and then some only 8 months ago so time changes. Seeing as they are mostly love songs, when I was 16 I hadn’t had so much experience in [laughs] love! So a lot of it was writing from observation and what was going on around me, friends’ relationships and how I saw them to be, and recently it’s been much more personal and kind of from what I’ve experienced and they’ve gone darker from that, which is probably a really bad thing, but yeah.

L: You’ve got a lot of dialogue within your songs and I wondered whether you’ve ever been inspired by plays or whether it’s just musical inspiration you’ve drawn on?

R: I’ve never thought of that actually, I can’t say directly, maybe subconsciously! We’re never really addressing each other in the songs because we do work separately and it’s more of a reaction to each other, [when we write] we don’t explain what we mean, I take from what Ollie says what I think it means, so it’s like a conversation that never meets because it’s not actually to each other

L: I’ve read that you guys have quite a range of influences, how do you think that’s helped you form a more original, distinctive sound?

O: I think all four of us appreciate all different kinds of music; we’re the ipod shuffle generation, so, not being so attached to genre, and treating music song by song. I think it’s a case of trying to find a middle ground between all four of our tastes, I don’t want to say compromise, but yeah compromise and fusing a bit of everything we love I suppose

L: If you could play a gig absolutely anywhere, with no limits what would you do and where?

O: I recently saw pictures of Vampire Weekend playing in the foyer of the Natural History museum, with that massive dinosaur, I think it would be amazing to play there; they had fairy lights up and everything. I just imagine there being amazing acoustics...and yeah, I love dinosaurs!...I used to love going there.

L: I wanted to ask how you felt about being so lauded by the musical press, Rough Trade named your album “album of the month” and you’ve been named the “next big thing”- how does that affect you? Do you feel pigeon-holed at all?

O: I dunno, since the albums come out we haven’t had too much time to stop

R: Yep!

O: So we haven’t take in all that’s happening, like I’m still overwhelmed that we were on Jools Holland 3 days ago, we met Shakira, let me say that back to myself: we met Shakira! So haven’t taken it all in, I think if we did it might freak us all out a bit more. And hype can be really scary ‘cos it seems that the British press seems to love building bands up just to knock them down and er also I know I can react badly to hype, when I feel like a band’s being forced on me I can not want to like them, if anything just to prove that I can think for myself, it’s terrible, I wish I wasn’t like that but I can be like that. But on the other hand, the stuff that’s happened has been so nice- I’m excited.

L: So on the back of that, what’s been the funniest thing you’ve heard or read about yourselves in the press?

R: There’s a Pitchfork review of us that says that all our songs are about sex, and that’s led to a lot of European interviewers asking about it, so we’ve had a like 50 year old guy telling us how our song reminded him of his first experience...and I think all the interviewers had based their interviews around that review, and it’s not something that’s talked about generally as a whole, so that was quite annoying

L: So how would you rather the word of your band spread- through the press or word of mouth?

O: I always try to find music for myself, I mean the press can be dodgy at times and can build up false expectations, so I always feel really proud of myself when I’ve found a band I really like by myself. I haven’t really thought about it, maybe walking into a record store and hearing it

L: Your band seems to have developed more organically than a lot of bands, in terms of your relationship with the music press and especially with help from Young Turks, how do you feel that’s given you an edge over other bands who’ve been more moulded?

R: We’ve been given a lot time, a lot of time to grow up in and in ourselves, I mean we were 18 when we started working with Young Turks (well I’ve just turned 18), we only had 5 songs and they gave us a rehearsal space, and they just said we’ll give you a place to rehearse and get you some gigs and that was it there was no money or anything, and they left us with those tools- and I think if it had been more serious at the time then we wouldn’t sound anything like we do now so I’m really grateful for the time and the patience they had for us. Also I think at that age I would’ve been terrified to deal with all of this stuff. I’m aware that other bands haven’t had that, they just want to put it out as soon as possible, so it’s been really great.

L: How important was it for you to produce your own album, rather than anyone else do it?

O: We’ve worked with some producers before, we’ve worked with some amazing producers we’ve had some great opportunities, we went into the projects not necessarily wanting to do anything for an album, we just wanted to try out stuff and learn from these people and because we went in there wanting to learn we weren’t asking them to change stuff, we didn’t say “how about we do this?” we just wanted to take on any ideas they had. So, naturally the recordings came out sounding a bit more like them than us. Which was great ‘cos if we hadn’t have worked with them then the album wouldn’t have sounded like it does. But, Jamie who did produce it, who’s in the band and knows how every sound should sound and it was an honest relationship because he has no problem saying to us, “sing that better” or “play that better”, or “how about changing this”. So although he very much did produce himself, he made it more like a group activity/project producing it.

L: I’ve noticed that you’ve done some really interesting cover versions, and if other bands were to cover you in the future, who would you like to do this and why?

O: We’ve always said, well someone suggested it in an interview once...Sugababes, but Keisha’s left now so...

R: I think Girls Aloud- that would be hilarious; I’d really enjoy that. Oh- Beyoncé

O: Ah, I’m a hardcore Beyoncé fan! I went to see her concert in May and if you’re not a Beyoncé fan, I suggest you go, it was such a good concert...there was one part in the performance, when she comes out into the middle of the crowd and starts dancing with a mask on, takes it off, and you realise it’s not her- the lights go out, but she’s flying above you and starts singing, it’s amazing!

L: So can we expect those types of stunts in your gigs in the future?!

O: I think that’s why I love it, ‘cos I realise that I’m never going to be able to do that in my career, which I’m cool with but it’s amazing to see.

L: And finally, do you have any advice for students who are getting bands together?

R: Don’t rush, take your time to make sure you’re ready and just keep writing, play lots of gigs...we’ve played lots of gigs and I’m still scared!

Woodpigeon Interview

Woodpigeon Interview

Field Day Festival, London, 01.08.09

Louise Morris interviews Mark Hamilton


Woodpigeon are an ensemble of friends and musicians based in Calgary, Canada, mixing traditional folk sounds with haunting harmonies, narrative lyrics and very long song titles! The group’s format changes frequently so you are bound to hear new renditions of old favourite songs making each show unique. I met the ever (unjustifiably) self-deprecating Mark Hamilton at Field Day Festival in London’s Victoria park. Cross legged on the grass, Mark talked about fleeing from German police, only wanting to perform with mediocre bands and sightseeing the ugliest building in Britain...

LM: What was your favourite festival experience?

MH: A festival in Canada. Well, who played?...Deerhoof played. Do you know Sandra Perry, from Toronto? Well he played which was kinda special ‘cos we’ve made records together, we saw Lightning Bolts who were also amazing, Sonic Youth, just all these bands I’ve wanted to see for a long time. Um, yeah and everybody was just really kind, there were no queues for anything. Kim Gordon ran up to me at a party ‘cos she thought she knew me and then when I said hi she just walked away. So that was my Kim Gordon experience!

LM: Who would you most like to share a stage with if you had a choice-alive or dead?

MH: Alive or dead!? Gosh...I dunno every time I play with bands I really like I get so depressed because I think they’re so much better! So I’d like to share the stage with really mediocre, average bands. [laughs] To make me look better!

LM: I heard you played with Andrew Bird a while ago...

MH: There’s a perfect example! Of making yourself feel bad. We did a show once with Grizzly Bear, in a church and as they started I was just like I don’t want to do this anymore! I mean they’re incredible; it’s amazing to see what is happening out there.

LM: So how do you feel about working as a sort of collaborative of various musicians as opposed to a set group? How do you enjoy working in that way in a freer manner?

MH: Umm, it’s certainly got challenges to it, but it makes the songs really interesting for me, ‘cos some of them I have to play like a hundred times in front of a hundred different people, each song, probably by this point, has at least fifteen, twenty different ways to play it, so that’s really exciting for me. And I’m always trying to find new friends.

LM: So, how do each of you contribute to the different harmonies, when you come up with the song do others influence the making of it or bring something new to it?

MH: Yeah. Yeah there’s lots of suggestion and there’s lots of...I don’t know how to write musical notation out, so there’s lots of humming and humming seems to be like, what’s that game when you sit in a circle and everybody whispers round to each other?

LM: Chinese whispers?

MH: Chinese whispers! It seems like that. Every time you whisper a harmony to someone they then do it their own way, so that’s always really cool for me too.

LM: You seem to have a lot of really beautiful but long song titles, and I was wondering- is Love in the Time of Hopscotch inspired by Love in the Time of Cholera?

MH: [laughing] Yeah I’ve never had cholera. I thought it was like...well ‘cos I grew up in a nice Canadian city and at our school had these hopscotch fields, on the pavement, so just thinking about that really, and I think I’d just finished the book so I was just thinking about how brutal it would be to have, huh Love in the Time of Cholera! My upbringing was much commoner.

LM: A lot of your songs seem to have a storytelling element to them- were you ever consciously inspired by particular authors?

MH: Well, I wanted to write books and things. And do you know Cassio Tone the musician? Well he’s this large fellow from Portland, who plays keyboards, and he sings these really great narrative songs and I met him in Scotland before I played music. We both had similar backgrounds, we both went to film school and learned to make films but it never really worked out, and went to Edinburgh. So um he realised he could tell stories better through songs, and then I gave it a shot, partly influenced by him. I dunno. For me this method of storytelling i think works a lot better.

LM: It’s more interesting or...?

MH: I think if you were to write a book, there’s always that risk of just going on and on, but if you write a song you’ve got to fit it into a framework of some kind. And I think you can say a lot with five words.

LM: I’ve also noticed that travel seems to be an integral part of many of your songs- do you feel that it’s an essential experience to have had to become a better songwriter?

MH: Maybe to be a better person too, I think. But I’m always struggling to figure out where I should live, where’s the best place...and I thought I’d found that place when I was living in Scotland...but then it didn’t quite work out in the way that I hoped it would, so. I’m still trying to figure out the best place for me. It takes a lot of time in my head.

LM: I guess being on tour gives you that opportunity, to see more and to think.

MH: Yeah, yeah. You get to see a city in seconds. We played Ipswich the other day which I’d read had the ugliest building in the UK, the bus station, so I asked this fellow at the show to drive me out there to see it and I took pictures with the ugliest building in Britain.

LM: I think there are some contenders around London for that title...

MH: Do you have a favourite ugly building?

LM: Uh, I guess...they knocked it down though. There was this one right in the middle of a roundabout near Waterloo, it was pretty distinctive, but they bulldozed it.
MH: This British architect came to my city, William Alsop, do you know his work?
LM: I think I’ve heard it before.
MH: Well part of what he wants to do is restructure cities and make them more usable for people and he’s done an English city, I can’t remember which one, he showed us all these diagrams and then someone asked him what he would do to Calgary and he said “bulldoze it all down and start over!”

LM: What?! I also wanted to ask what you thought about this sudden emergence of Canadian talent that we’ve noticed over here. In the last few years in England it seems many of the really great new bands are Canadian. What do you think sparked this rush?

MH: Umm, I don’t know, well I think with a Canadian city you’ve got that element of being really isolated and so you’ve got kind of a bubble that you work within. The closest cities to you are typically a six hour drive and you don’t undertake that really often. As to why a lot of good stuff is coming out of Canada at the moment, I can’t really answer that, maybe it’s just...I remember reading an interview once I think it was with Björk and she said that the reason Iceland is so interesting is because there’s nothing to do but stay inside and make music or art. To an extent I think that may be true for Canada. And you know, we’re kind of making up our own culture, because we don’t really have an overriding culture, it’s not an old country, our culture is a shadow of Britain as we’ve been a colony for so long.

LM: Communities of bands seem to differ hugely depending on the place, how do you think the musical scene in Canada differs from that in say, London or Scotland?

MH: I’d say in Canada as opposed to Scotland everyone seems to be really nice and patient with each other for the most part. I don’t really know what London is like to be honest, when I come over I go to a lot of shows and there’s always a lot of crossed arms. I think there’s so much to see and to take in, people are just waiting to be really, really impressed. London is always maybe one of the shows you dread! [laughs] “oh this better be good!”

LM: I think that’s why it’s nicer for us up in Newcastle, because bands that will play big venues in London seem to play smaller ones up North.

MH: Well Newcastle’s still one of my favourite shows

LM: The one at the End bar?

MH: No it was one before that. It’s a name that starts with a “C”...

LM: The Cumberland Arms?

MH: That’s right, I loved that. That’s where we met Beth [Jeans Houghton]. We’re playing the Cluny next. Is that nice?

LM: Yeah it’s really nice, it’s supposed to be one of the best pubs up North. I wanted to ask you about your next album, what was it like working with Ryan Morey, considering he made such a big impact worldwide with a Canadian band, Arcade Fire?

MH: Well, um we sent it to him and asked if he wanted to work on it and right away he said yes I really do, and he’s just so easy and simple to work with, I mean it sounds amazing. He really did a good job with it and he always sends little nice notes and things. He’s a wonderful guy, I mean I don’t totally understand the mastering process but I just I went to see the last record being mastered and I didn’t understand it but I just wanted to be able to trust somebody with it.

LM: And how has your sound developed from the last few records?

MH: Well the next one we’ve tried to make like really, really big, really grand. We put together an orchestra of our friends who play classical instruments and we made a choir of thirty bands that play in Calgary, so it’s pretty big. The thing that I like the most about it is that I can still play the songs on my own, they hold together both ways. That’s my big plan!

LM: So you want to play more solo shows?

MH: Yeah. I guess it’s like really epic and really small at the same time, its good and Mark suddenly catches sight of another band-there’s First Aid Kit, they were awesome!

LM: I heard that your next record is really influenced by your German heritage and travels around Germany, I travelled around there myself this summer and was wondering if you had any recommendations of things to see in Berlin?!

MH: Ah well there’s this cool old amusement park called Spree park, right by Treptowerpark, I actually have another band called Spree park, it’s kind of stupid dance-rock. And Spree park is this amusement park that closed down in 1989 and its sat derelict, there was a couple of times that I’ve been able to jump the fence and climb in and you just wander around all these old roller coasters falling down, this ferris wheel that’s slanted and all these old rotting rides, funhouses and things. I remember the next time I went, I took a friend who’s a photographer and within five minutes it was swarming with security, so we had to hide under like this rotting umbrella in minus 10 weather and it was raining and gross, and we were sat there for 3 hours and they would actually walk by our heads, that’s how close they got. Um so after 3 hours we were like let’s just forget it, so we jumped up and ran, and jumped the fence again!

LM: Did they chase you?

MH: They did a little bit! It’s worth seeing if you can make your way in.

LM: Well thank you for your time, its been really interesting to talk to you, i guess you’d better get ready!

The Black Lips Interview

The Black Lips (phone) Interview

15.05.09

Louise Morris & Jared Swilley (bass & vocals)


Louise: Hey, how’s the UK tour been going? You played Brighton last night, right?

Jared: Yeah Brighton was cool it was a really good show, I like it down there.

L:So why are you missing out Newcastle??

J: Ah, well it kinda seems random how it happens, whatever works out really, we’ve played there before though.

L: Where?

J: I don’t remember! We did a tour this Feb around the UK too, Manchester and stuff, but we didn’t play Newcastle then either...Oh I remember we played in this like main square, it had a really big sculpture, kinda futuristic, it was a really good show actually. I remember it being freezing outside and there were all these girls in miniskirts- crazy!

L: Er, that’s kinda traditional up here! So, if I said English girls what three words first come to mind?

J: [immediately] Smart, funny and attractive.

L: Why thankyou..! Your live shows are quite notorious and have had you banned from some venues in Georgia, what kind of a reaction do you like to provoke from an audience and how do you do it?

J: I like to keep a good vibe, actually last night was perfect, it was really small and everyone was going crazy, jumping around, dancing, but it wasn’t violent, just happy. The best thing is to get the balance of good chaos, with no one getting punched or crying. I love it, i get to go crazy every night, it’s the best vibe! Sometimes though, at gigs there are these bouncers who abuse the gigs, you get these hooligans, we hate that, we try and make it as difficult for these guys as possible.

L: The Black Lips have attracted quite alot of controversy from the press [onstage nudity, pissing, vomiting and inter-band making out], do you feel a good band should be controversial?

J: No, i don’t think so, we don’t try to be controversial at all, we just have fun. I guess some people misunderstand us and react in the wrong way. The kids who like our music wouldn’t say we’re controversial, it’s a grown up mentality that creates that I think, I mean I’m over 18, I’m not a kid but...basically, there’s two types of people in the world, horses and unicorns. The horses are like the adults, cops and stuff, people who don’t understand and the unicorns are everyone else.

L: I’ve been to see you and Ian was playing guitar with his teeth, my friend saw you and he was using something else...So if you had to play guitar with any other body part, what would it be and what would make the best sound?

J: [laughs] Well I’ve never used anything apart from my hands. Maybe feet, like you know those people who’ve lost limbs, they’re amazing, the way they learn what to use instead. Yeah with feet- then I could play two guitars at the same time!

L: A lot of good quirky bands seem to come out of Georgia- what is it about the place that encourages this?

J: Well, it’s cheap to live there, the weather’s always nice and people have basements. It’s just a musical place, people have the space to play, like we really started out playing house parties. There’s a few houses around that are the venues for the town, it’s really cool, good fun. I grew up with music, my Dad’s a preacher and I always loved music so I was used to all this church music, gospel and stuff like that, then I got into Otis Reading who’s from round here, a lot of good music’s come from Georgia.

L: So, would you consider doing a house gig tour in the UK?

J: It really happens more in America, it’s hard in Europe lots of the kids live in apartments, but we have done a few house parties over here. We did this one in Leeds for all these under age kids who couldn’t get into the Faversham, it was great. Oh and we also did another house show...well it was more of a mansion show out in the Bass country, these kid’s parents had a huge house! We always try to slip in house parties, secret shows etc. It’s just economically hard to do a whole house gig tour over in the UK.

L: What made you decide to set up your own record label, Die Slaughterhouse Records?

J: Well, when we first left school, we got our own house and started to record some stuff but we didn’t really know any record labels or how to get records out, so we pressed them ourselves under the name Die Slaughterhouse Records, Die Slaughterhouse was what we called our house. Other of the people we lived with were in bands and so we put them out too, then went on tour and met more bands, so we started putting out records from European and even Mexican bands too- we really started the label out of necessity!

L: Can you recommend any music from Mexico?

J: Mexico has a great scene going on, lots of stuff’s happening there- I really like Los Explosivos and Slob City, Mexico City’s awesome, I wanna go there more if I can!

L: What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever read about you or the band?

J: People make stuff up all the time, the worst time, well in retrospect it’s quite funny, but it wasn’t at the time. It was in our local newspaper, Black Lips were featured in the music section and my Dad [the preacher] was featured in the religion section, and they said that during one of our shows I’d given Cole, our singer, oral sex! It was totally unture and so embarrassing as all my family and my Dad’s congregation read it...so embarrassing. But my Dad’s pretty liberal and supportive.

L: So as you’ve had experience both making records and putting them out, what do you think are the three ingredients needed to make a great record?

J: Good songs, and just being really into what you’re doing, not half-assing around, and getting on with your bandmates. I’ve seen bands that don’t really gel and it never works. We’re like a brotherhood.

L: Yeah i guess you guys have known each other for ages

J: Pretty much our whole lives

L: And if you could play a gig absolutely anywhere, where would it be?

J: We wanna play in outer space! We really admire Richard Branson, he’s trying to set up space travel and hopefully it will get cheap in the future. We’d love to be the first band to play in outer space- you know the White Stripes almost played on a Virgin airplane? It didn’t happen for some reason though.

L: What would you do about the lack of gravity?

J: Well I guess we’d strap ourselves down, but the pressure- it would be tough on the strings and drums.

L: Where do you see The Black Lips in five years?

J: Hopefully we’ll get to travel to more countries I haven’t seen, I’ll have a house by then- hopefully that will be sorted by the end of the summer and just putting out more good records!

L: And finally, everyone round here’s pretty stressed out with exams at the moment – any life lessons to give them?

J: Well, huh, that whole scene didn’t really work for me, so I’d just say drop out and do something else! But you know each to their own it depends on the person. Aside from dropping out, I guess I’d say the more you freak out the worse it will be.

L: OK, thanks for that it was great talking with you and I hope the gig goes well tonight- come to Newcastle next time!!

J: Ha, OK we’ll see, have a great evening.

Kill It Kid Interview

Kill It Kid Interview 7/10/09
Scott McLoughlin

Scott McLoughlin catches up with Kill it Kid singer songwriter Chris Turpin post-performance at Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire.

Scott McLoughlin (SM): I’ve really struggled to define your genre, and I bet everybody asks you this as well (Chris laughs). What would you say it is?

Chris Turpin (CT): It’s a music born out of the folk tradition; it takes influence from American folk music, and the great American songs. Some say its Americana. It’s Kind of Delta Blues as well. Generally I call it blues.

SM: Hence the French Chart Reference

CT: Indeed yeah, well that’s what Itunes call us.

(Chris Turpin announced on stage, to some of the bands own surprise, that Kill It Kid are currently number 3 in the French itunes blues chart, despite never having been to France)

SM: Has it surprised you the amount of success you’ve had considering how fast you’ve got to where you are now?

CT: Yeah, it really has. I think as we got signed so early from becoming a band, that we thought that was normal. Then we thought that everything else would go at that sort of pace; whereas now actually it’s started to slow down, and we’ve become a bit more impatient.

SM: Having just released the album [Three days ago], are there any songs of particular importance to you?

CT: Yeah the last song on the Album ‘Taste the Rain’ is the last song that we wrote – that I wrote – before we recorded the album. It’s a very different set up to anything else on the Album. The drum kit was kicked to pieces; we stripped it all down. We played up symbols, and taped on tambourines and played the whole thing with hammers and mallets. It was quite emotional I guess as well. It’s the last song we wrote and the last song on the album, and we recorded it in two takes.

SM: I perhaps should have prepared more questions, this might turn into the shortest interview you’ve ever had (CT laughs). Yeah, so how do you go about writing your material? Do you listen to stuff before or…?

CT: Erm, usually it’s a couple of lines, and that will resonate. And you write them down, and you work them out in a book and you keep writing and writing, and see what happens. And then normally I’ll write words first and then put them to music. Whereas I used to just write music and then put words to it. It’s quite different. For example ‘taste the rain’; that was a complete set of lyrics before it even touched the music. Always try to put a little piece of yourself into the song, so its, you know, real and interesting and honest.

SM: So do you write independently then translate to a five-piece set up?

CT: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Like the song ‘Bye Bye Bird’ we do was written like a ‘Hollis Brown’; like a Bob Dylan folk song. I played it to the band and it turned into this sort of huge 2:4 kinda big drum rhythm. But yeah, I don’t tell any of the guys how to write their parts. Occasionally I’ll have a suggestion I had in my head when writing them. It’s literally, write a song, take it to the band, and it can go anywhere.

SM: Are there any artist that have been outstandingly inspirational to you? A source of inspiration? Or that you’ll listen to every time you are going to write something? Like a muse or something?

CT: Yeah, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan times they are a changing. The obvious one, erm. The very early blues players like Robert Johnson always play on my mind. Reverend Gary Davis, his very early recordings as well always on my mind. Tom Waits, sometimes. Mainly the first set though.

SM: What has been your favourite live experience so far? I know you haven’t been a band for a long time, and it’s early days yet.

CT: (Haha) yeah well, there’s been a fair few. We did one next door to the London dungeons very early on, like twice the size of this (Cabaret Voltaire), which was amazing. Like a huge cavernous area with these huge railway arches, that went for like the size of a football field. That was a great gig. More recent; waking up in Zurich that was an odd one.

SM: Yeah, I can imagine.

CT: Yeah, that was a very odd one. Actually to be honest, the best one was at the beginning of this tour. We played in ‘Moles’, which is in Bath. Which is our hometown. And it sold out, and erm yeah, it was an amazing show. ‘Send me an Angel down’ which was our first single; everyone in the audience was singing along, and we’d never had that before.

Yes Giantess! Interview by Christopher Hay

Yes Giantess!
‘We’re serious about having fun!’

‘Yes Giantess is about to get uncomfortably close to your girlfriend!’ Quite an audacious claim for a small band from Boston, USA. But after just a few listens to their achingly cool synth-pop music, the band’s charm is undeniable. Boys, lock up your girlfriends, because anyone lucky enough to see this band live will go weak at the knees and be swept away by their energy, sense of fun and enormous pop choruses. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. Fresh from releasing ‘Tuff n Stuff’, the infectious feel-good soundtrack to many a euphoric summer sunset, Yes Giantess are in Newcastle. They’re playing the opening slot of the NME Radar Tour, and are determined to have a great time doing it. ‘It’s like getting hit in the face with a Red Bull!’ drummer Joey succinctly says of the band’s live act. Frontman Jan elaborates: ‘It’s a point of pride for us to be extremely energetic and just really happy to be on stage. We’ve moved past the point where we can watch a band play with frowns on their faces. And that’s pretty much where the idea for our live show started.’

‘The whole thing started with Jan just writing the songs for fun, and then my roommate and I just started producing them for fun. And we don’t wanna lose that. Even though we’re taking it more seriously now, we don’t wanna lose that energy of not taking ourselves too seriously,’ Karl, the band’s laptop magician, explains. ‘We’re very serious about fun!’ Guzzling sugary sweets while slumped in their chairs with their hoods up, at first the strains of a week on tour seem to have taken their toll. But tiredness quickly gave way to childish excitement. The four-piece’s enthusiasm for what they do is contagious. Jan’s eyes light up when he’s given the chance to talk about their music: ‘We wanna be in the crowd, really! If we could play on the floor, we would!’ he admits, and he you can tell he really means it.

Yes Giantess’s joyful music is constantly being compared to the likes of MGMT and Passion Pit, the forerunners of the new synth-pop movement. ‘Passion Pit are good friends of ours and they’ve been nothing but really wonderful to us – we’re nothing but thankful to them,’ Jan explains. But perhaps tiring of these easy comparisons, in an inspired thirty seconds the band bounces off each other to concoct a brilliantly surreal description of their music that the Mighty Boosh would be proud of:

Jan: [Our sound is like] early Prince meets C+C Music Factory on a beach at sunset. They run at each other in slow motion…
Karl: It’s on a beach on Mariah Carey’s private island…
Jan: …They jump into the air, time seems to stop. They high five, their hands connect, and the ripple of the clap echoes throughout the island.
Karl: And at that moment, fireworks explode…
Chase: …and a pop-child is born!
Karl: And then Journey flies by in a spaceship!

Beat that. And when asked what animal Yes Giantess would be, ‘a rainbow coloured unincorn!’ ‘a fucking wolf!’ and ‘Falkor, the good luck dragon from The Neverending Story!’ were the responses. Still not sure about these guys? Listen to how they chose their name: ‘Basically we were sitting round a kitchen table watching a video – it’s not really porn, more a ‘special interest’ video – and it was of a small man trying to leave his house. But he couldn’t leave his house because a giantess wouldn’t let him. He was going ‘Please can I go?’ and she was like, ‘NO!’ And it was just became one of those endearing jokes that stayed with us, and when we started out as a band, we were like, ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s the name!’’ Obviously.

So porn aside, what’s the source of Yes Giantess’s seemingly bottomless pool of inspiration? They recently released an 80s-heavy mixtape on their myspace page featuring tracks from the likes of Journey, Aha and Michael Jackson. ‘Its strange because I don’t necessarily wake up and turn Journey on, but that mixtape is all about appreciation and about respect. We’re pretty much huge fans of everyone on the tape,’ Jan explains. What did they make of Michael Jackson’s death? A communal shout of ‘Denial!’ echoes through the hallway of Northumbria Students Union. ‘It’s amazing, people die every few minutes and then this one person dies and the entire world just stops. It showed how much power he had.’ ‘Joey, didn’t your mum send you a really cute email saying, ‘You guys have got to carry on his legacy!’’ Karl helpfully pipes up. Yes, Joey admits, she did…

The band have toured with dance acts like MSTRKRFT and Calvin Harris, a clear indicator of the direction their music is taking. ‘Yeah we do align ourselves with that genre,’ Jan admits, ‘but our material is definitely ‘band’ material. It’s dancey, but it’s not strictly ‘club electro’, its definitely still got a ‘band’ sound.’ After an E.P. release on November 4th, we’ll be able to judge for ourselves when the eagerly anticipated debut album is released in early 2010. It might surprise fans of their early work, Jan argues. ‘As we go into nicer studios, as we work with different producers, the sound’s changing. I’m sure the album is gonna sound a lot different from our original single releases.’ He draws on MGMT as an example of a like-minded band progressing their sound: ‘When they first started, they were a laptop/iPod type band, but when they signed their record deal, the first thing they decided to do with the money was to get an orchestra. It was baffling to me at the time but I see now that it makes total sense, thinking about what they are now – they’re kind of a psyche-rock band, a big arena sound, so different from their original electro.’

Talking of arenas, can Yes Giantess ever imaging themselves playing stadium gigs? After instant excitement at the idea, Joey gives a typically measured reply. ‘It’d be cool to do, but a lot of the fun of making music in front of people is being attached to those people. When you get into arena gigs it’s so impersonal, so far away.’ Karl agrees, ‘We’re making this very mainstream pop music and a lot of other artists associated with doing that are superstar types – Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga – massive, untouchable people, and we don’t want to be like that. We wanna be personably accessible.’

Whether Yes Giantess will outgrow such commendable ideals will become clear soon enough. More incredible live performances such as the one they gave here in Newcastle will ensure that crowds of a couple of hundred will become crowds of thousands. Despite playing at 7pm to a surprisingly sparse crowd, from the first beat of ‘Words’ until the last beat of ‘Tuff n Stuff’, the band played as if their life depended on it. The set was frantic, exuberant, contagious. The band smiled, jumped and danced. Right on cue, the crowd did exactly the same. Surely the only people in the venue left disappointed were the next band on stage. It’s safe to say that Yes Giantess defines the term ‘hard act to follow’. But soon, they won’t be needing to follow anyone.

Boxer Rebellion Interview

Nsr Boxer Rebellion Interview by Nsr on Mixcloud