INTERVIEW: The Boxer Rebellion

For those people out there who can’t use the internet very well, how would you describe your sound?

N: Atmospheric and kind of epic and stuff
P: Who can’t use the internet very well?
N: Our 70 and older market. But yeah, I’d say our sound is cinematic.

How would you describe your approach to music?

N: We just never try to copy ourselves. We always try to do something a little different.
P: We’re not political. We’ve never been political but people get confused due to the name that we just dipped out of a book. We don’t have any kind of political approach to anything really. Nathan writes the lyrics but we don’t write from a political standpoint.
N: No, they’re not political at all. They can have themes towards stuff like that but not overtly.

For the past four years, would you say that being so entirely independent has become an intrinsic part of the band’s identity or would you say your approach to music would change if you were signed to a major label or a renowned independent label?

P: No, it wouldn’t change now. Before it was very much a learning curve like it is for most bands. I think we’ve become better in all sorts of ways through being forced into being more independent. Musically we’ve written for ourselves but with a personal eye of it being accessible to people rather than somebody telling us that it has to be accessible or it has to be this or that. It’s a pretty lengthily process we’ve gone through, but in terms of the quality of our time together, both personally and musically, I think any band, without having to make it a four year cycle, would love to go through the experience we have and become independent. So many bands rely on other people to make it work because that’s the label psyche: you’re signed to someone and everyone does all of your jobs for you. We had that approach to an extent before but we definitely don’t have it now.
N: Don’t take anything for granted, because it is quite easy to. The people you meet at gigs or through bands, you shouldn’t blow them off, you appreciate the fact that they’re taking the time for you. It helps when you rely on those relationships because you’re doing it independently. It’s worked out for us really quite well; it’s weird, it feels like we’re in unchartered waters. For a band of our size to be independent and be doing so well it’s weird. Obviously you’ve got Radiohead and things like that but they are who they are already. They’ve got their whole past to help them out.
P: You’ll see it more and more I think. The industry won’t help but force bands into doing things a lot more independently.
N: Labels are dropping a lot of people, record stores are closing, studios are closing, so it’s all coming to a head.
P: …and labels are taking cuts of everything, whereas ten years ago they just took money from record sales. Now there’s these 360 deals where they take tour money, merch money, whatever because they have to do it to survive. You can’t really blame them, because there’s always going to be acts out there that want to be on a label but I think you’ll see more and more bands turning their back on it and searching out different ways to do it. We’re doing that, but in this respect again we’re on a bit of a learning curve. We’re not feeling our way through the dark, but we’re definitely trying out new things.
N: I think being on a label used to be more of a vindication that you’d made it or done really well but I don’t think it is anymore; half of me thinks that if you’re signed to a major label then you’re extremely mainstream, that is often completely false but that what majors want. They want something that brings in a lot of money very quickly. They don’t really invest in new music, they may take bands that have been around for a while that have an established record of doing very well; they don’t want to take chances. It’s like trying to get a loan at a bank. You’re trying to get money out of them and they’ll go for what is financially more secure for them. It’s a business; it’s all it is.




Would you say a spirit of independence is now engrained in the band?

N: First and foremost we want to work with some good people that aren’t going to require us to turn into a boy band. We’ve been at it for a very long time. We were signed for little over a year so we’ve spent most of our careers as independent.
P: we’re a lot more careful about who we’re going to be prepared to work with in all areas. We’re touring with the same people we toured with before, and that will be ongoing as much as possible. I’m not interested with working with anybody at any companies that I don’t know. We want to be able to hang out with the people that we’re going to work with, not just for them to be a name on your phone.
N: So many people just blow smoke up your asses; we’re just not interested in working with those people.

Prior to the release of ‘Union’, did it seem inevitable that it was always going to be released?

N: We made it and we were going to release it one way or the other, even if iTunes hadn’t have come along. A few weeks before we were thinking of just putting it out and having it as a download for free or something from our website. We didn’t know how it was going to happen just knew it would. iTunes have been amazing for us; they provided a different approach of how to do things and that’s all we were trying to find.




Before the success of ‘Union’, the band had their fair share of drama and whatnot. You could have been described as ‘nearlymen’. How would you react to that label?

P: Absolutely. I think we might be the most unlucky band I can think of, and we know some pretty unlucky bands. There were so many times when actually if things had worked out, individually, obviously with Nathan’s illness, and if we’d have worked with a few more of the right people then it would have been different. We were always about two steps away from achieving really great things. Before it was more carefree, but know we’re not in a position where we can throw it away and be here having this conversation in six years time, we don’t have that choice. I would absolutely buy into us being labelled as ‘nearlymen’ and I’m not bothered by that either. The summer that we got dropped was a tough summer, just seeing some of our peers do it. I mean, really do it. That was really hard for about six months. Not in a jealous way because I’m always far more excited to see my friends on telly and the radio than us. It was just that we should have been cracking it as well, so we probably fit perfectly into the ‘nearlymen’ mould.

Have you found that mainstream attention directed towards the band has dramatically changed since the release of ‘Union’?

N: It’s just helped us reach a wider audience. Even in the states, we’re only playing a few gigs but it looks like they’ll sell out.
P: I don’t think so from a basic industry perspective. We haven’t quite fell off the radar enough for people to completely forget about us, but on the other hand we’ve never been part of any scene so we’re not jumping off the back of anyone’s bike here. We have been pretty much doing our own thing. We haven’t been inundated with loads of record labels over here, but I wasn’t expecting to either, to be honest.

Having achieved such critical acclaim and digital success, how have the band’s ambitions been altered?

N: It hasn’t altered loads. We still want to be a well known successful band who can make albums year upon year. Once we’d finished our first album, it came out then we got dropped that week. Since then it’s always been about making another album for me and now we just want to make a third one and keep touring and actually make a living out of it.
P: We’re a lot more aware of our age, which isn’t spectacularly old, but when you’re 21 or 22, you think a lot less about actually establishing yourself. That has altered since the first time around; now we want to be able to support other people as well as ourselves. That obviously changes your financial outlook on things. It doesn’t mean we’re running about grabbing cash in the air all of the time, but it makes us a lot more secure in our decision making as well. We’re still as ambitious musically as we were before and I don’t believe that the first album didn’t propel us to what it should have because it wasn’t good enough; I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now.

Maybe if you’d all worn vests, played clean guitars and sung songs about eating chicken in a disco it would have all been different?

P: We’d never thought of that actually
N: We do like chicken.

INTERVIEW: TAH MAC

You’ve been described as ‘Lupe meets Eminem’. How accurate would you say this comparison is and how would you describe your sound?

It’s an honour to be compared to those two gentlemen. My sound is a global sound. You know, it’s not tailored to one specific audience, you know, my music can touch anyone from 8 years old to 80. It’s a new global project that’s tailored for everyone; it’s tailored to be bigger than hip hop.

You have quite a diverse range of influences. How would you say this is reflected in your music?

Well I was growing up with everything from Jimi Hendrix to Aretha Franklin to Kiss you know so I absorbed all of those different genres. Plus I’ve been travelling everywhere before this record from New York, to Paris, to London and LA so with all of that and all of the different genres I’ve just embraced so many styles to create a big melting pot of sounds”

How would you say that being a music producer effects the way you write music?

Wouldn’t say it’s effected the way I write music as such, but I would say that you just know how deliver and record all of the sounds you want. It doesn’t really effect your delivery or how a song should be you just know more about instrumentation and how to get the perfect drum sound or horn sound or guitar or bass or whatever.

How does it feel to have already been so well received by British club goers?

It’s been really great, really amazing. Its always the best that it’s the smaller territories where I’m so well received. Certain smaller territories in UK like Derby or Leeds etc where they aren’t really spoilt for choice they can just appreciate you from top to bottom. So yeah, I’ve loved being so big in those U.K. clubs.




Your list of collaborations and such is pretty impressive. How did this come about and what would you say it donates to the Tah Mac sound?

It gives my sound a lot more diversity. It came about from being a producer and from working with gentlemen like Tony De Niro, DJ Lethal and Troy Wimbley. I was working on a record featuring Aretha Franklin and I thought I needed a smash follow up to take it somewhere else. About a year and a half ago I had a song for Mutya Bueno. It was offered to Mary J Blige and legends like that but then Mutya Bueno came in and gave it a crack and she just nailed it. So yeah, it’s just been amazing to get such talented friends in a room, put them together and see what happens.

If ‘Tahland’ was a real place, what would it be like?

It would be a place of love, life and reality and a whole lot of sunshine. It could be anywhere on earth as long as there’s love and sunshine.

What does the future hold for Tah Mac?

I be touring the UK and Europe. I got a new record coming out. I’ll be working with Tilah Tequila and Tony De Niro. Just touring, touring, touring. Touching different people’s lives in different ways. I’ve got a University tour coming up, that should be a whole lot of fun.

Interview By Andy Trendell

INTERVIEW: Animal Collective

For those who unfortunately don’t know you, could you introduce yourself?

I’m Avery Tare, in the band Animal Collective. I sing, play some drums, guitar and electronics

Looking forward to tonight’s sonic obliteration of Nottingham?

Should be awesome [laughs] it’s been fun playing this tour, the shows have been really cool.

Yeah? Where else have you been?

Last night we were in Bristol, that was a fun show. And before that we kinda more mainland Europe, like we did some shows in France, Amsterdam, Brussels, a bunch in Germany, Italy and umm, Scandinavia.

Cool, and you’re getting well received?

Yeah yeah the shows have all been super fun and the crowds have all been active

Naturally, we’ll have to go over the new album Merriweather Post Pavilion. Is there a specific concept you’ve got running through it, specifically influenced or inspired by anything?

Hmm. I guess we talked a lot about kind of- shallow, lagoon kind of waters you know. Or any kind of like tropical ocean kind of like a lot of colours under the water and that kind of thing, that was talked about a lot. But different patterns of weather too we talked about the songs representing like light rainy days or sandstorms or stuff like that so that was all talked about.

It may seem quite trivial this but the song lengths as well - shorter and more consistent. Was this deliberate, pre-meditated move or did it just happen?

Yeah usually song lengths of us kind of happen its not anything that’s really planned out. Noah and I just kind of write the songs that feel comfortable to us and then they kind of go that way there. I think there were some songs we wanted to keep alive, jammier feeling to them. “Guys Eyes” and “Brother Sport” like had this sort of jammy feeling left so we wanted to make sure those parts were still in tact. But I guess yeah we did kind of made the decision that nothing would go on too long because I think we liked all the songs too and we’re not really into long records.


Oh, you’re not?

Not particularly like definitely not over an hour. I think we were all surprised that the record ended up as long as it did cause I think going in we were like ‘okay it’ll be like a forty five minute record maybe’. So yeah it felt really good it didn’t feel too long for us.


Could you describe the music making process - creative input, leader etc.

No I mean we try and get it so that everyone’s personality and input is really important you know. Noah and I obviously start with writing skeletal melodies you know and then some kind of sound or instrument that usually stays in tact you know and then we all get together for like-- for this record we started with a period of two weeks and we got together and put together nine of the songs in two weeks, just kind of like the live foundations what everybody plays and we go on tour with them for a while. And then we wrote a few more throughout the writing process I guess.




Fellow guitar player Deakin was absent from your newest record, did this have a big effect on your process or the album in general?

Yeah I mean Josh has a really intensive personality, a good personality and it’s definitely shined on a lot of our records ‘Feels’, ‘Strawberry Jam’ you know cause he’s very present on these records especially as a guitar player. So yeah him not being here really pushed us to find a new way I think really. I mean Noah and Brian and I have recorded a record before, ‘Dance Manatee’ just us three but you know. It just pushed us to find a new way-mostly to do stuff without guitar since Josh is pretty much a really strong guitar player.

Is he coming back to work with you guys?

Yeah we’ve been working in this film in New York and he’s been working on that with us.

Yeah-- how’s the film coming on?

Good good we just finished tracking most of the music for it right before we went on tour. Its taken a really long time just kind of because it’s a new experience for us you know. And really trying to get the visuals and music to overlap and become one homogenous thing it’s been quite a challenge but it’s going really good.



I read that you were saying it was one of the most Experimental things you’ve done?

That we’ve done in a while. I don’t think any of us are like ‘it’s so experimental!’ you know. It’s just to our taste and a certain style of stuff that we like you know. There’s some ambient moments and just some--on our parts like sound moments, sonic and then there’s other moments that’re a lot more ‘songy’.

So you’re gonna be releasing the soundtrack?

No I don’t think so. I mean I’m sure it’ll get out there [laughs] but I think we want them really to be seen as this one thing together.

You consistently make challenging and experimental music to teams of critical acclaim. All the critics love you. Does this surprise you?

Yeah I mean it’s always a surprise with each record we’ve kind of grown. But I think for us it just seems pretty natural. I think if it had happened really fast and we’d have got blown up or something it would have been a little uncomfortable I think. The pace has allowed us to just really learn that we can just keep messing around with things and experimenting with stuff and keep people with us.

Must be good to be able to be yourself, not have to change yourself…

Yeah yeah, totally.

What’s exciting you music and otherwise…?

Music I like a lot of dub music King Tubby, Lee Perry. I like a lot of you know just kind of older classic stuff like older Psychedelic music still. Got into a lot of South American stuff got into a lot of like cumbia music and just kind of like guitar bands from round there.

Have any plans for the summer? Playing any festivals?

We’re talking it we’ll be doing some. Definitely doing Glastonbury but not sure about other festivals right now.

The obligatory silly questions, as requested by fans. Do you wear socks in bed?

No [laughs]

Would you rather die hated or die forgotten?

Hmm. Probably.. Well. Forgotten by everyone? Oof. That’s a good question [laughs]. Maybe hated.

Finally, in about five words could you describe your sound?

I would say Electronic, Rock, Psychedelic, Soulful, Human.

Interview By Lewis Townsend

SAD NEWS KIDS - HOMECOMING CANCELLED

“It is with great regret that organisers of the Homecoming festival have announced that this year’s event has been cancelled. This is due to new demands from the council requesting 50% of the profits and a £60,000 bond on the land. All ticket holders will be entitled to a full refund, and arrangements are currently being made to organise new venues and dates for some of the artists that were scheduled to perform at Homecoming 09. New details will be revealed on www.homecomingfestival.com as soon as possible.”

sad faces :(

FESTIVAL FOCUS: Homecoming Festival (win tickets!)

Festival Focus: Homecoming Festival
WIN TICKETS!


Festival Focus: Homecoming Festival
WIN TICKETS!

“A real injection of energy into Scottish culture” Michael Russell, Scotland’s Culture Minister

This 2 day entertainment extravaganza boasts 12 scorching arenas in the midst of the beautiful Scottish Coastline, with each day running for 14 hours. The festival has already confirmed a prestigious line up of many big name, credible artists across numerous genre’s including; Tom & Gary (Snow Patrol), Babyshambles DJ set featuring Adam Ficek, Chris Geddes (Belle and Sebastian), Teenage FanClub DJ set ft Norman Blake, Utah Saints DJ set, Masters at Work, Taio Cruz, Lisa Lashes, Ms Dynamite, Harvey and Reverend and the Makers ...to name just a few!

“Homecoming Festival is proud and excited at the magnitude of the talent we have brought together for our inaugural event in Irvine Bay”

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Homecoming festival will take place at the stunning setting of Irvine Beach Park, Ayrshire, Scotland, over the May Bank Holiday weekend (Saturday 2 May and Sunday 3 May)

To be in with a chance to win tickets to Homecoming Festival simply e-mail Music.platform@su.ntu.ac.uk with ‘HOMECOMING’ as the subject line and don’t forget to include your name and mobile number.

ESSER: INTERVIEW & GIG REVIEW ESSER black kids + kasier chiefs @ Nottingham Arena 22/02/0

At the moment You've got this massive arena tour starting with Kaiser Chiefs, how did that come about?
I think a couple of them came and saw us play at leeds festival, or heard some of our tunes and said they liked us. Last year we did a show with them at the forum and they asked us to come on tour! So its good to know they actually like us.

Will you be adapting your stage performance for the likes of your last date at wembley arena?
Ive never really been to arena venues before, so we didnt realise how vast they actually were. I dont know what we are going to do, but try and communicate to that many people. Its the simplest things in songs that might work the best I suppose Stadium bands like Queen, we'l have Hands in the air and claps!

Your single 'lets work it out' is out tomorrow! (23rd FEB) Can we expect the debut album very soon ?
I think its out in late April some time soon, along with it we'l be releasing another single. Im already working on new material, so when the album is out there'l be a new EP almost ready.

You spent two years drumming for Ladyfuzz - were you playing your own material back then? When did you decide to start writing for yourself?
Not really, I was playing in other bands at the time also and writing, I think its all part of developing and everything ive done up until now has been experience. Im really lucky in that respect, as alot of new bands come into the industry with no experience and Ive already had the opportunity to tour and record.

Is it true that you used to play in a covers band who did Butlins?
Yes, years ago! You defiantely realise what you dont want to do or end up being, but yeah it was good fun. You did get the experience of touring though - apart from you had to play two 45 minute sets of bad songs.



Your bands seems to have a big mix of styles, who or what would you say is your greatest inspiration?
Yeah, Ive gone through stages of liking different styles and listen to as much music as possible. But because this is my first album, all the music ive listened to from what my parents used to listen to and what ive discovered in electronic music have in some way ended up on the album. Either directly sampling them onto the record or just different records being a big influence on our sound.

What are essers plans for 2009?
I think we are pretty much touring for the whole of the year. The headline tour starts in april. Im going to be working with afew other people and doing some writing. Ive just sent some beats to Cee-lo (Gnarls Barkley) which should be interesting and just trying to write on tour as well.

I really like your song 'headlock'. what would someone have to do for you to put them in a headlock ?
(laughs) I dont know. Whoever has made me ill, surely deserves some kind of punishment.

---

ESSER
black kids + kasier chiefs
@ Nottingham Arena
22/02/09

Arena tours are always momentous occasions and tonight sees a bafflingly eclectic line up of bands on tour together, but with the Kaiser Chiefs at the top of the bill one can only predict something riotous.
For London new comer Esser, who has had a rollercoaster-like ride in 2008 to earning a slot with internationally successful bands, an arena tour would seem quite daunting. But clearly Esser has not left any opportunity for holding back, as he decides to tackle any arena nerves by arriving on stage complete with pearly-king jacket and attire, brandishing his own name on the back. An image that is far from the quietly confident posture that he would otherwise confide in. His own brand of ‘wonky-pop’, a genre that could well reach sincerity in 2009, appears to bemuse most but does not lack lustre or any substance like so many other young pop hopefuls.
His sounds are at the very least eclectic, a universal mix of classic pop tones with his own electronic edge. It is not hard to something that you will unashamedly like, even if it might annoy you for days after, to arduously remove the shards and hooks of melody embedded deep in your head. The ska-tinged ‘I love you’ and new single ‘We can work it out’ shine effortlessly with enough bleeps and glazed hooks to please the otherwise indifferent audience. Esser are not exactly masters of the stage and they should not be, at least not yet. They still have a long way to go in crafting a convincing stage performance, but that should be far from their concerns when they are still yet to release their debut album.



Black Kids play through a solid set of songs that are more familiar to tonight’s audience, for a band of well, kids they fill the arena stage with a grand presence. Singles ‘hurricane Jayne’ and ‘I’m not going to teach your boyfriend’ still allure and have not lost any of the charm felt for them since their release.



The thousands of hungry fans finally feast on their northern pinups Kaiser Chiefs, who take to the stage as clear veterans of ridiculously big stage performances. Ricky Wilson, ever the ringmaster, directs traffic and conjures the arena to near eruption as he takes fans through selection of Kasier Chief’s anthemic repertoire. Despite the total commercial failure of their last album, tracks ‘Oh my god’ and ‘Modern way’ still shine relentlessly.


By Tom Walmsley

Reading/Leeds Festival Launch Party

Platform recently attended the conference and launch party for Reading and Leeds to get the low down on the UK’s favourite festival. When quizzed about the line up, festival organiser Melvin Benn told us: “I think the interesting thing about the line up this year is incredibly accessible. I think last year with a band like Rage Against The Machine and Metallica, they were huge, huge bands but much less accessible than Arctic Monkeys, Kings Of Leon and Radiohead. That’s essentially it. I think it may well be the best ever actually. I think it's a truly awesome line up in all honesty.”

“Good evening everybody and welcome to the cockpit for the launch of the Leeds and Reading Festival: The world's ultimate rock n' roll weekend.”



“A big thankyou to the BBC Introducing stage, which returns to the festival after a very triumphant first year. The precursor to the BBC introducing stage was the BBC unsigned stage, which we started here in Leeds, and brilliantly it became the host to many many up and coming bands and many more shall be appearing this year. BBC Introducing has become so important to young bands. At Reading and Leeds the BBC do it differently to anywhere else. Wherever they take the BBC Introducing stage, the BBC choose the bands themselves; but not only that they continue to work with partners to create the ultimate line up. They continue to work with Raw Talent, they continue to work with Sandman and they continue to work with Future Sounds; we're delighted to have them back and delighted to see them continuing the partnerships we established in Leeds to develop local talent.”

“There will be a Guitar Hero promotional stage this year after it's success at Reading last year. I'm sure that none of you here would do such a thing, but believe me if you haven't been, that the performances are amazing; they're as good as the main stage! It's absolutely fantastic.”

“This year we're pushing for as many people as possible to use public transport and trains. Many of you might not remember, but last year the gridlock in Leeds was just incredible. I have been told by the Council that I have mave to make a new travel plan and I have indeed done that so I hope that the impact on Leeds will be significantly less than last year.”



“Now to the line up, that's all that anyone really cares about. People will sit for hours in traffic to see the best line up in the world and the best line up in the world will be here in Leeds this year, I can guarantee you. Currently in the studio working on their third album The Arctic Monkeys shall be making their first public appearance in the UK since December 2007 and provide another monumental performance as they did in 2005 when they played to what seemed like an entire festival in a tented stage intended for just 500 people. Probably only about 1000 people saw them but there are 70,000 people in Leeds who claimed to have saw them that year. The expectation around them was just incredible. They came back just a year later and played second headliner to Muse, but this year they shall be headliners in their own right.”

“Supporting them on the Friday are a band that in truth I never really thought I'd see at Reading/Leeds again. It was back in 2004 when I attempted the impossible of trying to fit the production rig of two of the most production intense bands that you could possibly attempt to find and still hope that they would be finished by 11 o'clock at night. For those of you who were there you'll remember that the final band to play finished just before 1 o'clock after The Prodigy, who shall be supporting the Arctic Monkeys on the Friday finished around 10.30. I hasten to add that Guns N Roses definitely aren't playing. Prodigy shows are just the ultimate in absolute mayhem. I've seen The Prodigy so many times and they never fail to deliver; it's just an incredible show. If anyone can warm the crowd up for The Arctic Monkeys then believe me The Prodigy will.”



“Also on that day we have Newcastle's finest Maximo Park who have gone from mere contenders to one of the UK's most established acts. Then Manchester's finest, which to be fair is one hell of a contest, but in the eye's of the Old Trafford faithful, Manchester's finest in definitely Ian Brown (the crowd swoon and say whooo in approval); the face and voice of a generation, Ian will be a very special guest on the main stage that night. Also, The Courteeners, Enter Shikari and the incredible Eages Of Death Metal will also play the stage that day.”

“On the NME/Radio 1 stage that day, co-headliners will be the award winning Glasvegas and with the blues voice to die for, Beth Ditto and Gossip. Also on the NME/Radio 1 stage across the course of the weekend will be Jamie T, a Californian four-piece with one of the most loyal fanbases in the business, AFI, the Chiswick trio who have rocketed to the top of everybody's playlist this year White Lies, the Stephenage four-piece who somehow managed to bring a little bit of Rio De Janeiro to Brixton Academy for the NME Awards show this year – the ever emerging Friendly Fires, The Maccabees, Gallows, Gaslight Anthem, and the amazing Florence And The Machine. I saw Florence at the NME Awards when she sung an amazing version of Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds which was an incredible performance. It really blew me away and I have to say it was miles better than the original. I really am as you can guess by my age, an Elvis fan. There are many, many more acts to announce, I can't tell you how many more but across this, The Lock Up Stage and all other stages across the upcoming weeks and months.”



“Back to the main stage, on the Saturday. A band with an awesome live reputation, Brand New who have made a niche for themselves with their hard edged pop sound, Vampire Weekend will also play, their debut album was really a highlight of last year. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are also back (nods of approval from the crowd) and really just incredible live, I can't wait to see them on stage. Preceeding the Saturday night headliners are the band who unquestionably, if you look at the websites, the forums, they could easily be the fan's favourite, they win that award every single year, is Bloc Party ('again?' members of the audience ask). With an incredible reputation for never sitting on their laurels they will engross and entertain the massive crowd that will be gathered for them and for Saturday night's headliners, Radiohead (the audience all join in a chorus of 'ooooooh'). Long, long before the Leeds festival was born, Radiohead played Reading festival in 1994 and year after year we've wandered if they'd wanna come back and neither party had never really overpushed it, and we knew they'd want to play at some point and this year they said they wanted to play and quite frankly it is just a treat beyond belief. There a band that's got credibility at it's core with popularity to go with it and really it would just be amazing to see Radiohead play.”





“Finally onto the Sunday, again this is just a taster of the day on the Mainstage. I will start with one of the UK's biggest and most worldwide acts Funeral For A Friend. Then Deftones; Chino Marino's extreme voice is part of what sets Deftones apart and they will really be a highlight of the weekend. Following them, we have a band who rose to emminance as an Emo band, the incredibly popular Chicago four-piece that are Fallout Boy. In addition, a band with 13 years of performances, 5 studio albums and a host of festival appearances during that time, Placebo have earned their place in rock n' roll history. Energised by a new drummer, a new record deal and a new albu, this is a band that really will exceed the massive reputation that travels with them. The penultimate act on the Sunday are certainly no strangers to the Leeds Festival. Their last performance at Leeds was two years ago on the Festival Republic stage when for the best part of 60 seconds, a new act performing to a very modest crowd in a 500 capacity tent, convinced the crowd that Hooks For Hands were a new band but it didn't take long before the entire crowd at Leeds festival had heard and were leaping over the barriers to see The Kaiser Chiefs. They won't need to leap over the barriers this year. The Chiefs are as good as a fourth headliner here at Leeds, As for the headliners, that stole the show in 2007 around about 8pm at night they just showed up and played, that's what they do, there's no fanfare about them. They stepped a little way up as the Friday night headliner at Glastonbury last year, and then went on to fill arena after arena. Now they take another step to what will undoubtedly lead to world domination. I'm delighted to announce that Kings Of Leon will be closing on the Sunday night at Leeds festival.”




“So then, get your tickets quickly as they will sell out quickly this year, and I will of course see you in August at Branham Park. Thankyou”





We then caught up with organiser Melvin Benn for a quick few more words.

Usually with Leeds/Reading, Festival Republic seem to adopt the formula of having a hard rock act headline on the Friday. Is there a reason you've abandoned that this year or has there never been a formula?

No there's never been a formula, it's just the way it's worked out. There'll be the same amount of rock acts they'll just be spread across more days.

It's the best line up I've seen since 2005, would you agree with that?

I think it may well be the best ever actually. I think it's a truly awesome line up in all honesty.

Better than 1994?

LOL! Crikey, 1994 was good, but I think the interesting thing about the line up this year is incredibly accessible. I think last year with a band like Rage Against The Machine and Metallica, they were huge, huge bands but much less accessible than Arctic Monkeys, Kings Of Leon and Radiohead. That’s essentially it.



On a personal level, how would you describe the legacy of Leeds/Reading and Festival Republic?

We haven’t got a legacy yet because one leaves a legacy when one dies. We’re still alive and kicking and it will be a long time before we need to be judged on a legacy. We’ve got a great history you know, Leeds and Reading festival, Festival Republic we produce great festivals with great bands, that’s what we do.

Andrew Trendell

Interview : Glasvegas

How's The Tour Going So Far?

It's good, its been fun. It seems a lot longer than we've actually been here for, we've only done nine gigs but it feels like we've been here for months.

What's The Atmosphere like?

It's quite relaxed, everybody just wants to have a good time. Everybody has sussed each other out.

You've played Nottingham several times before, from The Social, To Rescue To Rock City, so youve climbed the ladder so to speak, and you've got quite a strong following in the city. What do you make of Nottingham?

Nottingham has always been great to us. There's a couple of citys around that are like that, and Nottingham has always been amazing. One of the first gigs we played there at The Social, before going to America and recording the album, it was all just amazing. I remember staying out for ages and going to Rescue Rooms, we had a lot of people come down and just had a really good night. It's just one of those settings that's always amazing. I remember last time we played here at Nottingham Trent University, I pulled my back whilst playing and had to click it back into place, then I knocked the keyboard over, it was a bit messy.

Did you turn it all into some kind of choreographed move or was it all a bit Spinal Tap?

No, I just locked in this position bending forward so I had to throw myself about to get out of it.

Your music has a touch of the anthemic to it. If you combine this with the support of Alan McGee and the NME, do you see stadiums and arenas in your future?

I see ourselves doing whatever's natural, and if that's what comes next then that's what comes next. I think with the next album we may possibly move in to bigger venues but we won't be doing any more touring of Britain this year. I don't really like big venues, I quite like these sweaty venues.


Bands that tow a similar line to Glasvegas (e.g. Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad) would struggle to match your success. What it is about the essence of Glasvegas that relates to so many people?

Just that we write good songs. The songs that James writes are quite honest and people can relate to them. There are different types of music; there's music people listen to for fun, there's music you go out and dance to and there's music that people want to believe in and relate to and actually get something from. James would probably say something different but thats my opinion. There's a lot of good bands from Glasgow, it's just one of those things. There are just a lot of good times involved.

How does it feel to hear English and international audiences adopting a Scottish accent en masse?

Well they try, Liverpudlians are the funniest actually. We were in Japan and they were all singing back this amazing and hilarious version of Daddy's Gone, “He Gone, he goone, ohhh-ohhh-ohhhh”, and me and Caroling just p*ssed ourselves. Accent is a beautiful thing. James wrote that song in his bedreem when he couldn't afford food, and now there are thousands of Japanese people singing it at us. You just don't expect these things to happen. I never take it for granted, but I wouldn't say its surreal, probably because we've done that many gigs this year.



Headlining the NME tour, as well as being their champions throughout the year, you've found yourselves victims of hyperbole and the hype machine. How have you as a band reacted to hype?

We've just done what we've always done without really listening to what people say, because when you do that it can make you a little crazy. You've got to ignore the good and the bad, because you can't let other people's opinions influence you. We've got to where we are by using our own heads. Saying that, we always appreciate that people like what we're doing, getting nominated for awards and that just lets you know what people think and makes you want to keep going.

I imagine that a new album must be in the pipeline, what kind of progress are you making with that?

We've agreed to do it so that's a lot of progress I suppose. James has written 3 songs, and they're all singles, easily. The plan is we're going to go and do demos in October then go and record it in January and hopefully it will get realeased in April or May next year.

How would say the band have grown in the lead up to the next album?

The sound is a bit bigger if you can imagine that. The songs to me, sound a little bit more American. I don't mean that in a bad way or a cheesy way, it's just something that I heard. We'll maybe experiment with some more beats and stuff like that. There is a definate progression.

What's influenced Glasvegas in the past, and what's influencing them at the moment?

In the past, the biggest influence on each of us has been each other. All the music or films or art or whatever that we all like kind of us influences each other. It's tough to stay influenced and stay upbeat on tour but everyday we surprise each other with some of the things we do and we say, be it in a good way or a bad way. Just now everyone on this tour has a cold, so all of the bands and sounch guys and what not all have the sh*ts. The NME Tour sh*s, it's nasty. So that's there, but yeah, we just always inspire each other. Musically it's always mainly Phil Spector, Oasis and Elvis Presley, and then you got reading Harry Potter and watching Star Wars.

Interview by Andy Trendell
Photos by Lucy Bridger (www.flickr.com/lucybridger)

Deathcab For Cutie - Interview

How do you feel about the general election result?

I couldn’t be happier. It was absolutely, hands down one of the happiest days of my life. I never thought I’d see something like that in my lifetime, even as I was watching the returns come back, even when they announced, “Obama is president!” I was suspicious, I was like “Oh come on, really? The good guy never really wins”. But I’m pretty happy about it, I’m more than pretty happy about it; I’m cautiously happy about it. I’m so thrilled I don’t want to jinx it. Everything seems great. We worked hard to do what we could for the election so we were all keeping our fingers crossed. We worked pretty hard back in 2004 for that election too, but we’ve finally seen some good now!

How do you as a band, and as an individual feel inspired or affected by the result?

Speaking as an individual, the past 8 years have been pretty dreary. We’ve been in a huge decline, we’re in a huge recession right now, we’re in kind of a war or something going on in the world, no one really knows what to call it anymore. Just a lot of bad decisions have been made in the last 8 years and I really feel like in the world’s standing that America has really fallen. Just touring over the last 8 years we’ve seen journalists and citizens sceptical of the fact that we’re from America. It seems so easy for everyone to demonize George Bush. There’s some kind of global political thing gone wrong that everyone finds it so easy to point their finger at America and George Bush. We’ve brought it on ourselves so I feel inspired that someone like Barack Obama can hopefully turn that around. There’s still a lot of work to be done and it’s not going to happen quickly but I think he’s got that kind of charisma and strength to unify a nation that’s splitting apart in a lot of ways. And as a band we’re inspired because we worked a lot to utilize the youth vote and get them to vote. We took part in ‘The Ultimate College Bowl’, which sounds like it might be a little cheesy but turned out to be a really great competition. It was based around the election and voter registration and it basically encouraged every college in America to get as much of their student body to register to vote and whichever college had the highest percentage of registered voters would win a free show from us. Even if ten people were inspired then that would have been a success but it turns out there were about 150,000. This year I really feel that the youth vote was instrumental in electing a president, and I feel that’s historical in itself, so I’m pretty happy about that.



So it’s a case of Deathcab vs apathy?

Yeah sure, as much as we can. It’s a hard thing to not be apathetic and be young. Apathy is a hard thing to fight, it’s true. I find it in myself when you feel so frustrated and powerless when you start thinking about the halls of government and the places that you’ve never been allowed or shown any respect in. You just tend to give up and assume that they’ll never listen to you, so it’s nice to push against that, as much as it is to fight apathy in voters as well as apathy in ourselves. I guess it’s not even apathy its more like pessimism than anything. I can be pretty gloomy when it comes down to a lot of things y’know. Embracing the post-apocalypse and everything. Bring on the zomies man! Let’s just tear it all down! It’s so nice to have some hope again. I feel that way too about Barack Obama. Almost every day after I’ve woken up and thought “you know this really wouldn’t be such a bad place to bring a child into, maybe I could be a dad someday!” There’s a much happier feeling about the future.

So no more complacency?

Well, I hope not. I’m going to work hard to not feel complacent. It’s going to be an interesting four years to say the least.

Lucy: I interviewed Chris and Jason earlier on this year in Birmingham and we were talking about the directions DVD. Do you ever think you’ll do anything like that again or do you think Plans was more of an album that was more suited to that?

I would love to do something like that again. We talked about the value of doing something like that again on this album. The thing that was so great about that was that it was so different at the time and that it was so different for us. I felt like if we did it again then people would think “Oh, there just doing the same thing again”. It’s funny how criticism works that way. At the time there were people saying “this is awesome” or “this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen”. All those people who thought it was great the first time would think it was crappy the second time because we wouldn’t have any fresh ideas and all we’d be doing is repeating ourselves. It’s the spirit of the project that I love; that you can get video and visual artists and pair them together with us and see that result. I like where different kinds of artistic mediums intersect and what happens when they do; so to facilitate that is really exciting for me. We have some really good ideas; we’ve got one in the works right now but I don’t want to tell you about it just yet, but we’re pretty excited to see how the spirit of it will be preserved when we work on something. We’re not sure if its going to happen on this album or not or whatever but we’ll see. It takes time and its something you can’t turn around that quickly.



Do you think it’s important for a band to crossover into a different artistic medium?

I don’t really that its our perogerative to do so, I just think its important to show where they intersect. For instance, I don’t care too much if we’re wildly love amongst film makers, but I do love it when music inspires imagery in people’s eyes. You know, you can close your eyes when you’re sitting in a train or driving in a car or wherever and most people have their own visual thing that happens, whether it’s a movie or a slideshow or something. We’re a generation of music listeners who raised on music videos, whether its MTV or whatever, that’s become part of our experience of music. What I wanted to shake up from ‘Directions’ was that there is more than one definitive visual record of a song, rather than a band just making one video and that’s it. You know, when you think of Karma Police and its Thom Yorke in the back of a car and the fire’s coming and that suddenly becomes everyone’s visual in their mind. I like the idea of taking directions and having different conceptions. I’d love to do something where you have 12 videos for each somg but that’s not economically viable. I do think it’s important nowadays as there’s a certain stranglehold on things where it’s difficult to get your music played on MTV when they don’t even play music videos anymore or on the radio or whatever and having the ability to share your music online is an open playground for new bands and for bands that have been around for ten years like us. You can do whatever you want.

Do you find often that art informs the music or that music informs the art?

I don’t know, I think that depends. I think that’s a really good question. We refer to the way we work as a band as ‘periods of input and periods of output’. You’re out there on tour, travelling around and having adventures and stuff and then you’ve got going to see films, going to see other bands and all of these different ways that you live life is the input stuff, and however you react to that and rearrange it in your mind to make whatever it is you make is the output period. But I don’t know what informs what. I think our music comes from so many different places. There are songs that come from really intimate private moments that you could never ever really share with anyone other than through a song and then there are songs that come through shared collective experiences which everyone has some connection to. Some people could argue whether or not what we make is even considered art, but its an expression of some kind so I don’t know.



Having such a strong following in Britain, would you say that there’s anything intrinsically British about Deathcab?

I wouldn’t say we do have that strong a following in Britain but if you’re saying it then OK! I don’t know if there’s anything intrinsically British. The name of our band clearly is, a lot of our shared influences are. We all grew up as Beatles kids first and foremost, then Britpop kids. I still think that musically there’s always been a lot of exciting things happening with bands in England and we’ve always drawn inspiration from that in some ways. But I don’t know. I mean you say we have a strong following but we’ve always felt like the underdog in England and everywhere outside of the US. For better or for worse we’ve never had the NME come up to us and say “we want to do a big photo shoot with you!”. There are all those bands that kind of have that splash explosion, they have that fashionable kind of quality. Maybe they never last but it remains to be seen whether we will or not. Maybe if it’s a quicker spike up then it’s a quicker fall down. We’ve always found our fans over here to be more on the cult side of things rather than mainstream. Well, at times, obviously, you know there will be a bunch of kids who heard about us through some TV show or whatever, but I’ve never felt like we were the ‘it’ band. Even when we come over and see our friends in bands, a band like Fleet Foxes who are selling a tonne of records and everybody’s talking about Fleet Foxes, but there was never a moment when everyone was talking about Death Cab For Cutie. Never like with Interpol or The Strokes or any of these bands that are contemporaries of ours whom we have a lot of respect for. They always get offered these bog headlining shows at festivals and we always get this little side stage, which we happily accept. I’m not sad about it, I’m very comfortable with where we’re at. I think that people that find us and connect to our music will stick with us for longer than a magazine cover’s length. I don’t think that there’s anything quintessentially English or American about us, I think that the way we are is just as musicians who ingest a lot of different tastes and just express them. If you want to get stereotypical then I think there are definitely more aspects of us that are similar with bands from England than with bands that have stereotypically come out of Seattle. We’re not a grunge band; we sounded more like Oasis than we ever sounded like Nirvana.

We’ve been able to maintain a sense of integrity with what we do and the way we do things, and we get to go on tour with bands that we like. We don’t have to go to lame places and hang around with lame people. We just show up, keep our heads down and play shows and that’s fine. I’d rather play in front of 500 than have to go and play a bunch of political music games. You know people saying “you need to go to this place and hang out with these people and go and have this photoshoot with this person because its super-important. We’d rather just avoid all of that and play for whoever is really interested in our music.

So you’ve never seen yourselves as becoming a stadium band?

No, not at all. The thing is we would always have been happy with becoming an accidental stadium band, but it’s never been a priority to go out and grab that. Being Coldplay doesn’t sound exciting to us. What seems exciting about it is that none of those guys are ever going to have to work another day in their lives and that’s pretty awesome but that’s about it. I mean, there’s so much more pressure out there everyday that a lot of people get to avoid. I’m sure a lot of people say this but I’m completely envious of the career that Radiohead has been able to carve out for themselves. They really seem to be able to do whatever exactly it is that they want to do and people will still follow them, they’ll always have that dedicated hardcore following. And they’re so good at it that it drives me crazy. They’ve made awesome become boring. Everyday there’s a news item about Radiohead doing something new and exciting and you’re just like “Oh! It’s just awesome! God! When are they going to not be awesome?”. Everyday is like a race, you ask yourself “alright what can we do that Radiohead isn’t about to finish?” We need a spy in house over there, it’s just ridiculous. But hats off to them, its not really a race it’s just so inspiring. They’ve got the infrastructure and ability as a band to be able to do that sort of stuff and do it well. It can be argued that they haven’t always had success at it but they keep trying and pushing in really interesting ways. Living as a band in this world which is half technology and half experience, you look to Radiohead as a band who have completely mastered that. Any band would kill for that financial freedom as well as the creative freedom and those two things are often at odds which other.



Having been such a tightly knit group for such a long time, how would you say that the way you interact or work with each other has changed or evolved?

Our communication now is much more subtle than its ever been. I can look at Jason when we’re playing and if I flash him a certain look then he knows exactly what I’m saying. We can have conversations with each other in the blink of an eye; with those sort of tacit looks of whatever we can pick up on stage. That’s certainly rare; that’s something that you get with family members and people that you’ve been in relationships with for a long time. I’m really thankful that we have that strong kind of communication. The other thing is just about giving each other space. There was a time when you knew that if someone was having a bad day then you learn to back off and give each other space. We went through those big bad ego years in the beginning when there were some struggles about the band and all that kind of stuff. Over time we were able to balance all of that out, and thankfully we were able to get through it when nobody was really watching. I feel bad for bands nowadays but that’s just the way that it is. I wonder how bands cope when they start out without even a debut album and then suddenly the entire world is paying attention to them right away. There seems so much more of a magnifying glass on them to figure everything out in front of everyone. A lot of bands go through that sort of shift over time, but I’m just glad that we were able to solidify our working relationship during a time when not a lot of people were really paying attention to us. Then when they finally did we were just like “yeah, we’re good, we’re solid, we’re comfortable, thanks”.

So no Spinal Tap arguments about the size of bread or anything?

Well, you could argue that our drummer issues over the years have been very Spinal Tap. Thankfully, that’s been fine since Jason joined before Transantlanticism, unless he spontaneously combusts.

Interview by Andrew Trendell
Photographs by Lucy Bridger
www.flickr.com/lucybridger

Interview : King Blues

Where did you get your name from?

There are some large rizzla's called King Blues, haha striking preferences

You are a self made group that gained your initial success from self promotion, how does it feel to finally be recognised?

It's cool, I mean for us it has built up very organically, we haven't kind of suddenly become famous; we have done everything in baby steps. We have done it the old school way of just going out and playing all the time and getting people to see us like that! Even when there were only two of us and we were just going round playing squats we wanted to be the biggest band in the world, and we wanted to change the world. I think we show if you genuinely believe you will get there. Every band needs to be two things, you need to be a good band live and a good band on a record, one without the other will definitely hold you back.

What do you think of the current punk scene; do you believe punk culture is still alive?

Yeah without s shadow of a doubt, I mean we grew up in the punk scene long after it was supposedly dead! I mean every city we go to we are just so amazed at how big it still is. I mean we were lucky growing up under the radar of punk as it is so underground, that it went we had time to develop rather than being snapped up straight away by a team of people, we had time to grow and poke our heads out when we were finally ready! Yeah the punk spirit is definitely still alive and kicking, I think British punk has finally found its own voice after mimicking the American scene for so long. Yeah it never went away it may have gone underground for a while but it definitely never went away.

What message do you hope to convey through your music? What are your primary concerns with society?

It's not like one message or anything that can be summed up in a kind of sound bite. We are tapping into the mentality of truths that have lasted since the start of time, eternal truths like love, peace, hope and soul. In a sense it's about unity.

Do you not think that your message of peace and anti-racism is very different from old punk's message of anarchy and against all authority?

Oh no I think the two go very much hand in hand, I mean anarchy is all about equality! I mean breaking down any barriers and against hierarchy in every sense, against all forms of oppression, and believing that we are all equal and that no-one is worth any more than anyone else. At the moment we are in a country, which I believe is being run more like a business. I mean profit comes first over people! For us it is not one issue, I mean yeah we are anti-racist and yeah we are anti-fascist but we are real people and express every single feeling and emotion that we have through our music. We are not a one trick pony there is a lot of give to us!

Do you feel like music has lost much of its message from the days when hip hop and punk were a form of resistance?

I mean mainstream yeah but underground there are still great artists like in hip-hop Immortal Technique yeah that whole UK hip-hop thing has fortunately been very conscious from day one and that is fantastic. I mean at the moment the whole music industry is f****d and no one is buying any records everyone is just downloading songs. I mean so there is kind of no money to be made in it. I mean now no one wants to take any risks on a band that has anything controversial to say as it may not sell.

Do you think that the music industry resembles the film industry where Hollywood dominates and European Cinema has no chance to compete?

Yeah kind of but then again at the same time a band like us that has no right to be in the mainstream whatever we have no place being on radio one, but we are purely because we hustled. That makes us feeling like we are utterly blessed to be in the position that we are in, but if we had first started out to be in the charts we would never have formed this kind of band! We never thought if we added in a hip- hop beat then these kids will like it and if we add in a ska beat these kids will like it, we are those kids you see. We just played what we wanted to hear! So from doing that and being a political band I think it has set us apart from other bands, it has worked to our favour.

Do you believe people today are too un-political?

No, not at all I believe that is a common misconception that young people don't care about politics. Well we have the largest anti-war policies of all time, I think it shows that people do care; it's just its not being represented by the mainstream media. People do care what's going on and I think our band somehow proves that!

Your music is not just straight punk it crosses between hip hop, reggae, ska, rock. In some ways you remind me of Sublime. Are they an influence on you and what are your main influences?

Yes without a shadow of a doubt, I mean musically Sublime are a massive influence. But at the same thing as there are so many of us and we are all into very different things musically, but I mean spiritually the influence of bands such as Rage Against the Machine, The Clash, Asian Dub Foundation, Immortal Technique these kinds of groups really speak to us. People who have just innovated and tried to be themselves rather than trying to be a part of something.

What are your plans for the future?

Well we finished this tour today. We have been on the road for three weeks, and this was our second headline tour and the obviously today opening for Rancid it has been amazing. We have a few shows dotted around London coming up and then we have a short 3 day tour. Then after that just gonna start writing again, we don't want it to be like 2 years again before we release another record!

Interview by Lizze Goodman

Interview : Shammi Pithia

With influences from a range of musical genres while growing up and studying a degree in Music Technology and Innovation, Shammi Pithia is a composer and producer bringing a fresh sound to the British Asian music scene. His E.P ‘Cinema for the Ears’ is composed of five tracks, each individually creating different moods and emotions left to the listeners imagination. Nitin Sawhney most definitely comes to mind with key elements of Indian classical music beautifully blended with contemporary instruments and vocals giving great depth to each track. To find out more and listen to the originality of Shammi Pithia’s creations check out www.myspace.com/shammipithia OR www.shammipithia.com

What influenced you into producing your own music?

I suppose I’ve always been surrounded by music. I grew up with a lot of Bollywood music as well as popular western music. In school I had the chance to have a play on some instruments and it kind of took off from there. When I reached college I heard the brilliant music of people like Nitin Sawhney, this really inspired me to further my musical skills and take it seriously. A bit later on down the line I got really interested in classical Indian music, listening to greats like Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia. From then I really started to focus on my compositional style and started to properly produce the music I do now.

What inspires you when producing?

Anything! Sometimes you find yourself just making a piece of music. I could be jamming on the keyboard and something would naturally develop. But there are also many moments where I actually think about what I want to compose about. There could be a recent event, or a hypothetical incident. I’m really interested in music and emotion, so sometimes I just chose an emotion that looks interesting to me at that time and try and make a piece of music based on it! Inspiration comes from everywhere, my own thoughts, what I’ve seen/heard, the people I’m working with, and the music I’ve listened to.

How would you describe the tracks on your E.P and what can we expect from the upcoming album?

Each track on the E.P tries to explore something different. Tracks like Poem Without Words, Compassion and Interruption of Peace explore emotions. For example, in Poem without Words I’ve tried to evoke the atmosphere of tenderness. Without leaning to either end, I’ve tried to show shades of sadness and romanticism. I tried to compose the track so that the listeners own emotions interact with the mood created to give them their own interpretation of the song. Other songs such as the Dream are based on Hindu philosophy. This song looks at the world, and then looks at the spiritual world. This takes places within the context of a dream.
This E.P was just a taster; it serves as an introduction to me and my music. The album is much bigger and has a lot more depth. It explores specific emotions like the E.P. and also explores events and life moments. There are some amazing new musicians featuring on the album as well as contributions from the great musicians on my E.P. I’m really proud of the album so far, if anybody likes the E.P. Then I’m sure you will like the album! I hope to have it all wrapped up early next year!

The best thing about university in your opinion?

The education of course! I really enjoyed my courses, they really helped me to think creatively and widen my musical knowledge. But the social life and its benefits can’t be underestimated!

Any tips for aspiring artists?

Keep doing it! The music industry has changed from what it was 10 years ago. Before it was all about ‘getting signed’ or getting a record deal, it’s not about that now. New media allows us to be much more self efficient, you can now record all your music yourself at a low cost. You can make the music available for people to hear all over the world and you can promote yourself for free (to a certain extent). I think people need to do things for themselves, don’t rely on others to do things for you. If you want it, take it.

Interview by Sunni Sharma

Interview : Red Light Company

Having seen the recent tour posters for the Red Light Company I was a little apprehensive at the prospect of meeting them, seeing as they look rather scary. But when finally I got the chance to sit down with the lead singer Richard Frenneaux you soon realise that he’s not scary, in fact he’s a rather nice guy!

So Rich your new single (Scheme Eugene) is coming out soon (Nov 3RD), how do you feel the whole process has gone?

It’s interesting because we put two singles out and they were kinda fairly limited…so kinda this is our first proper, proper single that we have put out…so there is a lot of pressure on us [and] we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves.

You have had loads of radio play recently and NME have done loads of stuff on you, did you like working with them [NME]?

Yeah, we did a Jack Daniels session with them which was pretty good fun and actually we met the video director for our Scheme Eugene video on that set so it worked out for us really well.

Well the video looks quality and different, is it important to you guys to be different?

Definitely…in the UK there have been a lot of guitar bands um there was an influx of it for a long time and that was all good but I think it became stale…so I got really sick of it actually. Like everything new things come up and then they are replicated and new things become old hat so we’re just trying to do something new. It’s really important to be proactive.

You're completely different from what I was expecting having seen your tour poster because you look pretty scary. What’s the idea behind that?

It’s my pet thing I like to stare at people. I think it’s born out of trying to get peoples attention. We have done quite a lot of supports so you need something to make you stand out. It does make me come across as a sort of child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but that’s the fun of being in a band you can be whoever you want to be.

Red Light Company’s sound may be an acquired taste and like all change is difficult at first to acclimatise to but if you get the chance, as they are currently touring the country, they are a really impressive live band definitely worth checking out.
www.myspace.com/redlightcompany

Interview By Lee Hall

Interview : Mystery Jets

First of all, welcome back to the North.

Isn’t this technically the midlands?

Yeah but we’re north of many places. Welcome back to the East Midlands. How does it feel to be back? Full of East Midlands soul?

It feels great. Nottingham is always really good fun. We’ve done some of my favourite gigs here actually, at Stealth and the Social back in the day. Nottingham has always been an important date on our tour. I like Liars Club and Rescue. I like Rock City because its so wide and wherever you are you can see.

You’re known as being a band of myriad ever-fluctuating influences. What’s influencing you right now?

At the moment we’re all starting to think about our second album so we’re all dipping our wicks in different areas of music. I think disco is definitely something we’ve all been thinking about, especially after working with Erol (Alkan, electronic super-producer who produced the band’s second album). I don’t think we are going to go down that disco road but I think it’s always quite fun and interesting to borrow production values from an area of music which is quite alien to you. Disco is one of those things that people always joke about and people always associate it with hen nights and YMCA, but there’s also loads of amazing Italo-Disco and some good underground disco some from the eighties which has never really been celebrated very much.

So, having previously lived and worked with Erol Alkan, would you say that you’ve learned anything from him which you’ll carry forward on to the next record?

Yeah, I think so. When we first thought about working with Erol our thoughts were about that we’ve never really been a dance band, we’ve never thought our songs could do that, they were just pop songs with a beat that would compliment the song whereas when we started working with Erol we started thinking a lot more consciously about what would work on a dance floor. I came out of the other side realising that beneath that layer of a dance orientated song there needs to be a melody and something memorable. You can dance to anything if you try as long as its got that solid foundation. So I think establishing that on our next record is going to be at the top of our agenda. Just those songs which at their core are the best songs we’ve ever written, whether or not they fall into a dance category.




There’s a great deal of growth between your first album and your most recent release. How would you say the band is growing towards the next album?

When we started off we were very stuck in our minds on being this pastiche-y prog rock band on the lead up to our first album, then on our first album we found we had all these messages and influences and by the second album we realised that there were probably too many. We realised that sometimes its much better to say one thing really well rather than ten things not so well. You can say them in a sentence which is five words long but it may not really say as much as a sentence which is one word. And we realised that its often harder to work with less words to say the same message. We do wanna puish the boundaries of what can be called a pop song, we do what put ourselves outside of our comfort zones as well. To me the most exciting bands around at the moment are those like MGMT, Foals and Vampire Weekend. It’s definitely pop music but it isn’t pop music which is at the top of that charts, it’s resculpting the idea of pop music. They can still sell loads of records and sell out massive venues but they don’t have to sound like a Kylie record; it can sound like whatever the f*ck they want. Foals and Vampire Weekend are very influenced by African music and I think it’s amazing that they can use that foreign influence. I think its fun to bring back these forgotten influences into pop music. Vampire Weekend for example, I wouldn’t say that what they’re doing is completely new but they have the nerve and the talent to bring that influence back into pop music and lots of people are doing that, like Beirut can whack Eastern folk music into the mix and make an amazing record.

Do you think you’ll ever become satisfied in trying to find that perfect edgy pop song?

I think we’re satisfied in between writing the song, when you think it’s the best thing you’ve ever written, and then you put the record out and you find that you’ll probably never listen to the song again. And then after touring it for a year you’ll find that you’ll probably f*cking hate it. The rating of that song in your mind goes from quite high to really low in the course of a year. I don’t think that means that the song is shit, just imagine if you were an author and you had to read a passage of your back to audiences around the world over and over again, you’d get f*cking sick of it. So I don’t that that speaks for the song I think that speaks for you getting tired of stuff which I think anybody would. Radiohead only started playing ‘Creep’ again after ten years of not playing it. Good questions by the way, good questions. We’ve had a lot of the same old shitty ones recently.




How would you say that always having been such a tight knit unit effects you as a band and the way you write etc?

When we started we wrote as a unit a lot more, like William would come a long with a guitar part and we’d embellish it, whereas now we write a lot more on our own. I don’t think that’s a bad thing I think its good that we’ve all grown into songwriters which we didn’t really known how to do before. We’ve grown separately as songwriters because we’ve become more mature as people and more confident as people. Individually we’ve come a lot closer to what we want to say, when I write a song I want t say something – I wouldn’t feel fulfilled if I was just throwing some keyboard parts over the top of a guitar line. I don’t think I’d be doing justice to what the other guys are doing either because I don’t think that would be me at my best. To be at our best is for us all to sit down and actually do some songwriting, because we’re all songwriters, that’s what makes our albums fun to play, rather than just playing awful songs with a backing band.

So it’s symbiotic?

Yeah, good word.

It’s one of my favourite words. So do you know what each other is thinking when you’re in the studio?

No, we’re actually quite secretive about how we write. Well, me and my dad are quite honest and up front with each other and we write a lot of lyrics together, or he’ll write a complete song and I’ll help him with his lyrics. Generally speaking we are quite secretive but I think that’s quite cool because you don’t want to know what each other is thinking because then there are no surprises when you do get into the studio. I think that creative, not jealousy but, creative competition and curiosity is what drives this band. When I know that whatever he’s working on is quite interesting but I may not hear it for a couple of weeks, I’m always waiting for the moment when he invites me to listen to it and vice versa. It does get very competitive because me, William and Kai have all been friends since we were young so it’s always quite competitive but still cool.



We were talking to Jeremy Warmsley the other week and he was quite quick to dismiss himself as part of any kind of London songwriting scene. How would you describe the scene?

Jeremy is someone who we’ve been friends with for a very long time and I’m surprised he’d say that because we played on one of his songs about three months ago. I don’t think I’d call it a ‘scene’ as such. We used to do parties and invite a bunch of our friends down, and that’s probably the closest we’ve been to being part of a scene. I quite enjoy not feeling part of a scene because when you think back to Britpop you always think of the main Britpop bands, you never think of great bands like Sleeper and Shed 7. In twenty years time people aren’t going to realise that they were this huge bands that sold thousands of records, just because they’re buried and overshadowed by the bigger bands on the scene. Being part of a scene but not as successful as the other bands on the scene is quite detrimental so we’ve always tried to distance ourselves from other bands. My favourite bands are always outsider bands, Late of The Pier for example. They don’t sound like anything else, people will say “Oh this is like, the second wave of new rave”, but new rave is just a fashion term, not of those bands actually sounded alike. Late of The Pier are the modern day Roxy Music, they’re like musical chameleons. Bless them, they’ll probably never have a single in the top 40 but who gives a shit? The Ramones never had a record in the top 100, it doesn’t matter, they’ll still be remembered. So, scenes aren’t really that important, only to those bands who need to ride on other bands’ coattails but we’ve never done that.




Interview and photos by Andy Trendell