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 : 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