Interview - The Mules

One of the longest interviews I've ever done (in my inexperience I filled up the dictaphone and had to delete a few files which were taking up room), this took place over fifty-odd minutes in Southampton Joiners. Took ages to type up... The band seeemed to be enjoying the whole experience though and they were very eloquent, which was nice.

Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in Mar/Apr 07
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd


THE MULES

Ed Seed - vocals, drums
Duncan Brown - guitar
James Lesslie - bass
Tim Burke - piano, synth
Nico Beedle - fiddle
*at the time of writing, Tom is covering for Nico

These pop star types can be such divas. Curly-haired Mules vocalist Ed is refusing to do the interview downstairs in the venue because of the stuffy stench – although once you’re down here that’s understandable. It’s quaint and underground with band autographs on the wall (I spot a Larrikin Love scrawl as I duck down the stairs), low ceilings and a smell which suggests a band came in here five years ago and have been walled up under the plaster, never to be seen again. Instead we take up seats in the bar.

The Mules are five polite lads from Oxford. There’s Ed, one of the few drummer/frontman hybrids in the music world, tall and slender guitarist Duncan, languid bassist James, shy smiling violinist Tom and confident keyboardist Tim, who looks remarkably like my old driving instructor, although that is no bad thing. They are pretty well-spoken, and on listening to them introducing themselves one by one I’m tempted to interrupt with "And your first starter for ten…"

There’s no rush as the band have a quick snack. “I-don’t-want-a-sausage-roll-James,” comments Tim as their bassist disappears into a plastic bag in search of quality supermarket pastries.

“Are there any more? I’m starving.”

“You didn’t want one a moment ago.”

“But now I do, now I’ve seen them,” James says. “I’ve seen the promised land, and it’s sausage roll-shaped.”

“Shall we just explain that this is Tom’s first ever gig with us?” says Ed.

“Tom has never yet actually played with The Mules in public,” says Tim. Poor smiling Tom. Does he know what he’s in for? He’s covering for regular Mule Nico, who could very well be walled up downstairs. But enough of that, and onto the question cards.

Tom pulls out a card titled ‘Early Years’ and the band fall about. The worst possible question for the person who’s never played with them live before.

“These are Tom’s early years,” notes James in his laidback voice. “We all – apart from Tom – met in Oxford where we were studying and Tim, Ed and Duncan were all in the same college and I met Ed through a mutual friend. Tim and Ed had sort of talked about the idea of forming a band.”

“Initially the focus point was listening to music, particularly the music Ed had recorded in demo form, but also a lot of music that we both shared a relatively recently flourishing interest in - namely music of the late 60s country rock revolution and the return to roots from the excesses of psychedelia and Beatlesmania, so we were listening to The Band, we were listening to the Flying Burrito Brothers…” says Tim.

“I didn’t know anything about you for about five months after I met you because we didn’t really have conversations, we just listened to records,” interrupts James. They began to play their instruments together in the college practice room, gained some members, lost some members, and then began to swap instruments around depending on what sound they needed.

“I guess it came down to a five piece in about Ed’s last year so about maybe a year or so after we’d been playing together it got up to about eight people, and then people had to leave university. So the line up of bass, keys, drums, guitar and fiddle got solidified and we started playing other venues in Oxford and then we went to London and just took whatever gigs we could,” says James.

Do you remember your first gig as The Mules? “Yeah,” says Duncan. “We played in this college bar in Oxford which was shaped like a Ryvita. We were along the long side and there were two large pillars at the opposite ends of the room and people were sort of crammed in so there was a kind of widescreen view of The Mules, all nine of us or whatever it was standing in a line. I certainly couldn’t play any of the songs at the time.”

“We only decided on the name that day. It was a bit of a mess but it was quite fun!” says Ed, who is quietly smoking roll-ups next to me.

“I think there was enough energy and some musical competence to carry us through. It was just a matter of practicing a lot really,” says James, raising his voice over the crashes as the drums are set up in the next room.

“It was all our friends and they all clapped very politely, because they had to,” says Duncan, demonstrating a clap very well. “The set was half covers and the other half a few songs we don’t play anymore, and some have changed and now form part of the set in an almost unrecognisable form. Like ‘Save Your Face’ was one we played on our very first gig in a completely, utterly different form.”

They sadly don’t go back to Oxford that much. “It’s got a really good atmosphere in which to make music, it’s got quite an eclectic local music scene. People trying new things are encouraged, even if they haven’t quite got it. There are good venues, and obviously it’s a really beautiful town,” says James.

“The Cellar is my favourite place in Oxford. The Cellar smells of Lush, the soap shop,” says Ed.

“If you imagine you went into a Lush shop,” booms Tim, “and poured barrels of beer all over the floor and let it go sticky, and then walk in the next day and walk around, it’s kind of the same.” I tell them they should have raided a shop on the way down and put pungent soaps in their dressing room. They all laugh.

“We would have felt right at home,” smiles James. They consider asking their tour manager to stop off at Tesco: “although we’ve already been there and it was quite a small one, I don’t think it will have any expensive soaps,” they muse.

“It was hard enough trying to find a toothbrush,” complains Tim.

What pieces of Mules merchandise should be made? “Now that’s a good question,” says Duncan. “A nosebag…” They start laughing again. “Some horseshoes. I don’t know. The thing about merchandise, you don’t want people to be embarrassed to be walking around with your logo on so you want to have something sort of useful and subtle.” Like nosebags.

“We do have some merchandise. My sister makes t shirts,” says Ed.

“Ed has an idea of doing tea towels,” says James. They start naming other items – ribbons, mugs, push pops with mule heads, lipgloss, sticks of rock.

“What about t shirts that don’t say Mules on them but like ‘Hinny’ for instance?” suggests Tim.

“Bit abstract…”

“’She-Ass’? What about ‘Whatever Happened To The R In Ass’?” I think that would sell.

“What about instead of having action figures we can have little tin soldiers of ourselves?” suggests Duncan. “Recreate a figurine gig.”

“Recreate major battles in military history,” says Ed. Educational yet fun.

”Have you got ‘The Mules: Trafalgar’ yet?” says Tim, who’s already planned the advertising campaign. One a week with a magazine?

“Yeah, let’s do partworks,” says Ed, “where the first one’s really cheap and they get you, then after the third issue they hike up the price and all the same adverts start appearing and it just becomes an empty carbuncle in your house you never finish. And you have lots of ringbinders and… emptiness.”

“What about general Mules medicinal products, like paracetamol. Paracetamule!”

“I’d also like a five-person mule costume,” says James. “Like one of those stage horses.”

“Where the three people in the middle have to be lying like this,” says Ed, demonstrating as best as he can while sitting on a chair with a table in his way. Like a Chinese dragon? “Like a stretch mule!”

“And they could do hen parties on it,” says James. "Find four friends. Splash out."

“We could sell mules. We could sell livestock!”

“There’s nothing wrong with selling mules. And actually I think mules are underrated. How much does a mule cost? We should find this out,” says Ed. “It could carry our kit. I was thinking about bringing back domestic help into the suburbs.”

“It wouldn’t be much use in your flat though, it couldn’t get up the stairs,” says James. He must be confusing them with Daleks, bless him.

“No, we could use it in the garden.”

Their new single is ‘We’re Good People’, out on March 26th with b-side ‘Problems With Exits’ - “a song we’ve done live a lot but didn’t make it onto the record so we did a new recording of it,” says Ed. It’s out on 7” and download and there’s also a 12” coming out with two remixes on it, one by CSS and one by Lights. And are you good people?

“That’s not for us to say,” says Duncan diplomatically.

“The person in the song certainly isn’t,” says James.

“The person in the song’s done something dreadful,” says Ed.

“But we’re not that bad,” James continues.

”I think we’re good,” says Tom, who’s a bit overlooked at the far end of the table.

“We try. It depends who you ask,” says James. Who should I ask? “My mum.”

“My mum thinks we’re all pretty sound,” says Ed.

I ask them about the first and last live bands they’ve watched. Orbital was the first band Tim went to see, in Guildford, when he was 16. “It was just so good, something so amazing – and I hope we’re able to achieve this at some stage – of just going to see one band and then the warm up act being just stunning. And not just that but especially if you’re quite young and the band you like are actually quite old.”

“I think the first one I went to was a sort of Beatles tribute band,” says Tom, almost apologetically. “That was a laugh. It was sort of a family affair, it was quite reserved. I think I was about seven so I didn’t really get grooving. The last one I went to was Jeremy Warmsley.”

“The first band I saw was Space, supported by Catatonia,” says James. With his curly hair and laid back voice, he reminds me slightly of Jonathan Creek. Every band needs a lookalike. “Catatonia were much better than Space but I don’t remember that much really, I was like 15 or 16. I just remember drinking beer and jumping around. The last band I saw were Arcade Fire, and I have no idea if they were any good or not. Brixton Academy: dreadful sound.”

“The first gig I went to was Bob Dylan at Wembley Arena,” Duncan says. “I didn’t realise what was happening until quite late then I suddenly realised that Bob Dylan was still alive and you could actually go and see him. I got a ticket and I went, but I was miles away.”

“I saw him at Wembley Arena and it was like this little hunched man about a mile and a half away who may or may not be Bob Dylan,” says James. “So bad.”

Duncan’s last gig was folk singer Martin Carthy. “He’s nice. He’s like a postman. He just delivers.” The others roar with laughter.

“Presumably not a Royal Mail postman,” says Tim. He delivers it, but three days late, I say.

“He leaves you a little cardboard motif saying ‘Sorry you were out’ although he was in front of you in the audience,” says Tim.

“He’s very doctrinaire. He’s very purist,” says Ed.

“No that’s what I was asking, was he less like that live?” says Tim, dragging it back.

“I have no complaints.”

Tour. It’s their first night on their first tour in Southampton tonight.

“Tom, you’re as qualified as any of us to talk about this.”

“I forgot my toothbrush,” says Tim. “We’ve got a DVD screen player in our van. People must love us the world over because to me, that’s success.”

“We’re doing 12 gigs and travelling the length and breadth of the country,” says Tom, after Tim has apologised for hijacking his question. “We’re really looking forward to it.”

“We really have no idea how many people are going to come and see us.”

“I’m looking forward to enjoying sausage and egg McMuffins in a variety of towns,” says Ed.

“I’m not,” says Tim in disgust.“I had one this morning.” Have you started some kind of checklist with how good they are in each town? “I might do that actually. That’s quite a good idea.”

“McDiary!”

“Can I suggest that would be a less fruitful diary to keep in terms of comparing different towns, it being worldwide regulated,” says Tim.

“You know the defining thing which makes a town good or bad is the quality of its McDonald’s, obviously,” says Ed.

“For the record he’s wrong,” says Tim. “I will be eating crumpets in my travel toaster. I haven’t actually got any crumpets or a travel toaster. But wouldn’t a travel toaster be a good piece of Mules merchandise!”

“Clockwork travel toaster,” says Ed. “I like clockwork. It’s satisfying.”

“With a big picture of a mule. Or it could actually have a big plastic mule on one side…” says Tim.

“And it’s also a teapot,” says Ed. And a cigarette lighter, I suggest. Tim’s still going: “And then the tail bounces up, and out comes the toast.”

“And the thing that makes it most impressive is that it’s also got this LCD digital clock,” says Ed.

“I’m looking forward to the tour finishing now,” says James wearily.
They are of course touring debut album ‘Save Your Face’. It was recorded in late 2005 at James’ parents’ house and was originally a limited-edition release on their own label, Organ Grinder Records. Now it’s been re-released and made available ‘in big stores’ by Kartel. 15 tracks in 38 minutes. Do The Mules have any messages for people who are considering buying ‘Save Your Face’ but haven’t done so yet?

“Get your chequebook out,” says Ed.“I don’t think you can use a chequebook in a lot of stores,” says James. Duncan blames Chip and Pin, and Tim suggests “Get your Delta card out.”

“I think it’s a really refreshing musical experience,” says James. “Your home is under threat of repossession if you do not go to your nearest record store…”

“You will like at least 58% of this,” tries Ed. “You might not like this, but it’s good for you. And you’ll get what you’re given.”

“Consider it like broccoli,” says Tim. Most of the band shake their heads and admit they quite like broccoli. Tim tells them to shut up: “Steamed veg mafia!”

“That was what we were called before the Mules,” says Duncan.

“That’s an awesome name!”

“You want to copyright that one,” James advises Duncan.

“I said it!” says Tim.

“Laptop Leviathon. Tampax Maelstrom. That one’s on tape.”

Plans for this year? “We’ll finish the tour, and then I suppose we’ll play some festivals in the summer,” says Duncan. Any ideas which? They call for their tour manager. They aren’t confirmed for any, but it’s early days and newer bands tend to get booked nearer the time.

“Oh yes, we’re playing KOKO,” Duncan remembers.

“With the Young Knives which will be fun, and the Rumble Strips, so I guess that’s our next big gig in June,” says James. “We’re probably going to try and tour again after the summer. We’ll try and tour Europe as well or somewhere else.”

“What we want to do is make a record. Another one. And a better one,” says Duncan earnestly. “And a kind of more consistent, and more exciting and energetic record in every way, so we’re going to do that we hope in 2007.” I wish them luck. They thank me.

Being a Mule isn’t necessarily a full-time position. A few of the band have possibly the most impressive jobs I’ve ever known indie musicians to have. Tim works in classical music, primarily opera – “I’m doing some work for the Royal Opera House but I’ve also been recently conducting my own production of Eugene Onegin at the Richmond Theatre with the Riverside Opera. I’m also a composer, mainly for Duncan at the moment. There’s always a sneaky way of getting some stuff I’ve learned from The Mules in and vice versa.”

Duncan is making a film “about a man whose life is torn apart by fate.” Sounds deep. “It’s called ‘The Tragedy of Albert’,” adds Ed. Duncan also improvises poetry. writes songs, and sets William Blake to folk melodies. Busy James runs Organ Grinder Records, which the band is signed to, and he also has another band called Fireworks Night which involves other Mules occasionally. Young Tom hasn’t even been to university yet, but he’s off next year to study music. Ed spends a lot of time writing, whether for The Mules or elsewhere, but he is considered the most full-time member of the band.

Previous careers were a little different however. “I’ve been a dishwasher, I’ve served people cream teas in a National Trust property, I’ve stapled rabbit traps around trees, I have worked in offices. None of them are very much fun,” says Ed.

“Although stapling rabbit traps to trees…” begins Tim.

“I worked at a golf course once,” says James. “I got to drive the thing on the driving range that picks up the balls in a metal cage. One of the poles was loose and was tied on with a jumper, so if you turned too sharply you created a gap through which any particularly accurate drivers could brain you with a golf ball – but fortunately that never happened.”

Duncan ‘No Stars’ worked at McDonald’s and says it wasn’t very nice.

“Weren’t you told to mop the ceiling?” says James. “How can you eat anywhere where they have to mop the ceiling?"

“I’d rather they mopped it than didn’t,” says Ed.

Tom’s only just come out of school so he has little to add to this particular discussion.

“I worked in an office for a bit. That was just stapling, filing, nothing exciting.”

“I had a paper round in Kingston which I didn’t really like very much,” says Tim. “But then after a while they got another paper boy. They were trying to make me redundant at the age of 14!"

Do you have any phobias?

“Yes, we all do,” says Tim. You look so happy about it. “Well it’s just good to get it out in the open. I have a phobia of people putting fabric in their mouths!”

“Do you?” says Ed.

“He bloody hates it!”

“No, don’t do it!” Tim squeals. “It started with the phobia of having fabric in my mouth… when you come out of the bath and you’re drying your face and you get suddenly get some towelling in your front teeth – oh, I hate that. I suppose it’s not a phobia, it’s a compulsion, but once you’ve realised you’d got it you’re then much more acutely aware of it all the time. It’s ok, it should be fine, so long as the whole audience don’t start dancing using fabric in their mouth moves.”

“Standard - snakes, massive spiders. It’s not a phobia, if I know one’s there it won’t bother me, but if I have to pick one up… And it’s not really a phobia, but I have a problem with hot drinks.” Tom starts laughing. “I know it’s really weird. I made the terrible error of having a tea the other day.”

“You don’t have to say yes,” points out James.

“Well I sort of felt obliged to because I hadn’t really met you properly and it’s like a gesture so I accepted.”

“It genuinely scares me, the idea of possibly going somewhere like Australia or somewhere where there are big spiders. I really feel lucky that I was born in England. There is no actual need to have massive spiders. And I get a bit shaky with heights, wouldn’t say I have full blown vertigo, but mild. Getting worse on planes as well. Anyway…” begins James.

“I don’t like things which are alive and kind of grow and propagate but seem to have only a tiny amount of intelligence. Slugs, for instance. Or certain kinds of fungus. And being in the bath with the light off,” says Duncan.

Ed is laughing. “You bunch of freaks!”

“And there’s another one, which is people touching me,” Duncan continues. “I don’t really like it!” You guys are going to have so much fun on your tour bus.

“I don’t really have any phobias,” says Ed.

“Yeah you do.”

“I don’t. I have lots of dislikes.”

“But intense dislikes.”

“That’s not a phobia. That’s just not liking something.”

“What about bankruptcy?”

“I think in some circumstances it should be embraced, because it can actually run up so many debts, but then you just write them off. And yeah, you can’t have a mortgage. It’s like wipe-clean debt solution. Debtox.”

“Reduce all your outstanding debts into one everlasting financial damnation,” says Tim.

Poor Tom picks up the last question card which is about the ‘Get Your Musket’ EP. However, as he’s played with the band on not-too-many occasions, he’s a bit stumped. The others ask him what he thinks it might be about. He guesses a four-track EP.

“Six-track EP,” they correct him. “Keep guessing.”“I’m noticing similarities with ‘Save Your Face’.” ‘Grab your musket’ is indeed a line from ‘Save Your Face’, and it was the first thing they recorded, in July 2004. It contains early versions of ‘Polly O’, ‘Ham Shank’, ‘Misprint’ and ‘Stamp Collecting’. Don’t expect to easily get your hands on a copy now.

“I think there are fewer than 500 in the world,” says Ed.“We literally just made themselves,” says James. “We made a few batches and then it was like we’re going to record an album, let’s not make this available again. We have had people in Japan email the label like ‘I desire it’.”

“Nice cover. I think it was the first appearance of the monkey,” says Ed. Well, actually it’s not a monkey. “It’s a marsupial. We found it in a book. The same one we got all the chords for all of our songs. It was just there.”

Time to let the band grab some food before the gig tonight. After the show, I walk up to the merchandise stand to say hi. Tim looks disappointed when I tell him I don't have any cash on me, but he does present me with a stack of free postcards. They really are Good People.

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The Mules 'We're Good People' is released on March 26th. The 'Save Your Face' album came out on March 12th.

The Mules
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