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.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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.
‘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.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Nouvelle Vague Interview
Even though I speak French I have never had the chance to interview a French band, this changed at this year’s evolution Festival. Nouvelle Vague were in the UK for a couple of days, and on the 21st of May they were playing on the main stage in Newcastle. After their mint set I went off to interview them.
As we were in England it seemed like a natural thing to start the whole thing of on the topic of weather. Apparently the day before playing Newcastle they were very much impressed by the amazing weather conditions that Manchester had to offer for a festival over there. Having lived through the ‘floods’ (imagine this said with a French tonality to it) in Glastonbury and a storm in Brighton, and many other unbearable wet conditions, this was an amazing rain free weekend. Ok not all rain free, later, after the interview, it did start raining a whole lot more than all the skimpy dressed people could deal with.
But weather is not the only thing that we talked about, after all this was an interview about music. Nouvelle Vague listeners are probably intrigued by how the band decides which girls to take on tour, after all the CDs feature many different vocalists. For the Newcastle date there was only one girl, Mélanie, present. She makes sure that the other girls cannot make it to the … Well she sang on the first album, at the fist ever Nouvelle Vague concert, and can sing all the songs anyways, so the question is not even raised anymore if she should come along or not. Maybe I should have done a bit more research, because during the interview I found out, that the French singer Camille used to be part of Nouvelle Vague.
The success story of Nouvelle Vague is rather particular. I wanted to know how they managed to get themselves accepted internationally as a cover band, as a French band. French bands after all are not generally know that much outside the language borders (please ignore Air, Daft Punk, David Guetta and others), and well cover/tribute bands do not sell that well either do they? Quite truthfully they admitted that they themselves cannot really explain where this success comes from, but they are happy about it. They are accepted due to the creativity that goes into the songs. Their success in France is not the same as it is abroad. This is due to the fact that they have not played that many gigs in France, people have the music but do not think of them as a live band.
Their covers are different; they are special, covers of songs that people might not know that well. Of course one is bound to know “Love Will Tear Us Apart” or “Just Can’t Get Enough”, but not necessarily the other songs that are on the albums. Mélanie pointed out that you listen to a Nouvelle Vague Album like you listen to the album of any other artist, as there is something new to be discovered. For example in “Guns of Brixton”, light is shed on the lyrics as it is sung differently. The original by the Clash is very contextual. Or in the song “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, the suffering is not felt the same way. It is a calm, melancholic song, but there is not the painful history that comes with it. Nouvelle Vague’s music is a tribute to the original. It is a means of letting the younger generation access the music made by the people that are 2 or 3 generations away from original artists.
The Nouvelle Vague albums are a mixture of favorite songs, and songs that seem interesting to be covered by Nouvelle Vague. The new album (Out 29th of June in the UK) features a cover of Magazine, who they adore, and they hope that this will get people to discover Magazine. The new album features some of the original artists in the cover versions of their songs.
We also talked about music in general. France did not have something like the Beatles, the French music scene evolved in a different manner (musical Darwinism I’d call this). Today bands such as Nouvelle Vague, Justice and Phoenix etc. are getting a lot of attention outside of France. We can never have enough music in our life! New Wave music was a niche market music style. It was not for everyone, it is the beginning of indie music (not the mainstream indie). It was an alternative to the existing society. Later on in the day I watched the Maccabees perform, they were of Nouvelle Vague’s liking, after all they have a New Wave sound to them. I’d better not tell you how they perceived the View…
Thanks a lot to Marc, Olivier, Mélanie and Gerald of Nouvelle Vague for this interview that was 27 minutes long, and was marked by overlapping conversations.
If you can see Nouvelle Vague live, then I advise you to do exactly that. If you will be in France on the 23rd of June then check them out in Paris.
Interview by Solveig Werner
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Official Secrets Act
Rob Sellars and Dan Whyley caught up with Official Secrets Act before they supported The Rakes at the Cluny in April!
Click here to listen to or download the interview.
Click here to listen to or download the interview.
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
School of Seven Bells Interview
School of Seven Bells, consisting of the sublime Deheza twins and their lynchpin guitarist Benjamin Curtis, are set to hit Britain by a magical tempest storm with their debut album Alpinisms. Their lucid-dream evoking sounds, created by the hauntingly beautiful voices of the twins, have had them touring with bands such as Prefuse 73 and currently Bat for Lashes, who’s almost sold-out tour is initiating them into the perfect British fan base.
Catching up with them before their 4th gig of the tour in Leeds, they seem pleased with how it’s gone so far. All they knew of Bat for Lashes (who they say is still “pretty underground in the US”) is “that song with the bicycles” – ‘What’s a Girl to do’ - which Alej insisted “blew her mind it was so good”. This little knowledge considered, it was a great fit for School of VII Bells to go before Bat for Lashes, and I was extremely deflated when after only half an hour they blew us away with their final song and modestly departed the stage.
When introducing School of VII Bells to an audience in the UK, you would expect there to be a good understanding of their shoe-gaze ambient pop, what with the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine’s perennial popularity. They agreed that these comparisons are often made about them, and with it usually comes a “… and I’m a hugee Cocteau Twins fan”, so the reference point is nearly always an encouraging hit. Ben talks of different sensibility in the U.S in more “base level” approaches to music, in contrast to the “appreciation of complexity” here; reactions which are different but equally good in both musical climates.
Both the twins and Benjamin were in previously successful groups before forming for this one, most notably the great cult band The Secret Machines of which guitarist Ben was a part of with his brother. The sound they have brought to SOVIIB is, however, remarkably different and has thus developed a fan base very much apart from their earlier projects. Ben admits that some SM fans “don’t understand the direction”, and most of their current bands don’t even know what their old stuff sounded like. When being determined to stay in the music industry, as they are, they realised that they had to challenge themselves. “Hearing the same music too long- you can fall into habits… when you want to be doing something for a really long time you have to develop your brain a bit more”.
They state that the dream-like atmosphere they invoke on record and in their live set is not a conscious effort; it is just a sum result of the three of them working together with a background in listening to psychedelic music. Hearing them on record, it is difficult to imagine just the three of them creating such an impressive sound. They say that playing live is “totally its own experience” but approached “with the same intention” hence it is just as good- or in my opinion- better.
Both Bat for Lashes and SOVIIB are headed by talented female artists; a fact which is unavoidably incongruous in an industry ever dominated by men. The twins smirk when we bring this up and explain it is something they are often reminded of. Alej passionately elaborates her views of the topic;
“I’m really surprised at how backwards things still are… Like when you’re at a venue and the engineer automatically bypasses the girl and asks the dude what’s going on. It starts there, but it can be anything from reading music press and girls’ voices are always “angelic”, or you’re “ethereal” or you’re a “banshee”. It feels like even if you’re singing with authority and in a very direct tone you’re still placed in the safe category”
As part of the music press, I can empathise with those who cannot help but describe their voices as ethereal, but there is also no doubt they are rifled with authority and blessed with a creativity that surpasses the uninventive mainstream sounds which are screamed down our airwaves. And with 69 more shows ahead of them, it seems that more people are actually tending to agree with this.
Catching up with them before their 4th gig of the tour in Leeds, they seem pleased with how it’s gone so far. All they knew of Bat for Lashes (who they say is still “pretty underground in the US”) is “that song with the bicycles” – ‘What’s a Girl to do’ - which Alej insisted “blew her mind it was so good”. This little knowledge considered, it was a great fit for School of VII Bells to go before Bat for Lashes, and I was extremely deflated when after only half an hour they blew us away with their final song and modestly departed the stage.
When introducing School of VII Bells to an audience in the UK, you would expect there to be a good understanding of their shoe-gaze ambient pop, what with the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine’s perennial popularity. They agreed that these comparisons are often made about them, and with it usually comes a “… and I’m a hugee Cocteau Twins fan”, so the reference point is nearly always an encouraging hit. Ben talks of different sensibility in the U.S in more “base level” approaches to music, in contrast to the “appreciation of complexity” here; reactions which are different but equally good in both musical climates.
Both the twins and Benjamin were in previously successful groups before forming for this one, most notably the great cult band The Secret Machines of which guitarist Ben was a part of with his brother. The sound they have brought to SOVIIB is, however, remarkably different and has thus developed a fan base very much apart from their earlier projects. Ben admits that some SM fans “don’t understand the direction”, and most of their current bands don’t even know what their old stuff sounded like. When being determined to stay in the music industry, as they are, they realised that they had to challenge themselves. “Hearing the same music too long- you can fall into habits… when you want to be doing something for a really long time you have to develop your brain a bit more”.
They state that the dream-like atmosphere they invoke on record and in their live set is not a conscious effort; it is just a sum result of the three of them working together with a background in listening to psychedelic music. Hearing them on record, it is difficult to imagine just the three of them creating such an impressive sound. They say that playing live is “totally its own experience” but approached “with the same intention” hence it is just as good- or in my opinion- better.
Both Bat for Lashes and SOVIIB are headed by talented female artists; a fact which is unavoidably incongruous in an industry ever dominated by men. The twins smirk when we bring this up and explain it is something they are often reminded of. Alej passionately elaborates her views of the topic;
“I’m really surprised at how backwards things still are… Like when you’re at a venue and the engineer automatically bypasses the girl and asks the dude what’s going on. It starts there, but it can be anything from reading music press and girls’ voices are always “angelic”, or you’re “ethereal” or you’re a “banshee”. It feels like even if you’re singing with authority and in a very direct tone you’re still placed in the safe category”
As part of the music press, I can empathise with those who cannot help but describe their voices as ethereal, but there is also no doubt they are rifled with authority and blessed with a creativity that surpasses the uninventive mainstream sounds which are screamed down our airwaves. And with 69 more shows ahead of them, it seems that more people are actually tending to agree with this.
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