Interview - Pull Tiger Tail

Handily I was off to Brighton for their gig anyway when I managed to get Pull Tiger Tail for an interview. This meant working on a Sunday - a day off - when I was meant to be whiling away time with friends. Music journalism sure eats into your spare time.

Not only that, my brain was highly confused with the mixture of work and play. The Pigeon Detectives knew me as a fan, the kind who's always bloody there, and here I was sat in their dressing room interviewing their support band. I got a few puzzled looks.

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


PULL TIGER TAIL

Marcus Ratcliff
Davo McConville
Jack Hamson

Brighton is a beautifully lively city by the sea, except at the moment it feels everything is being sucked into it by the strong wind. There are birds flocking in the skies like they're auditioning for a beer advert and I want some candyfloss, although turning up with pink gunk in my hair might appear more unprofessional than usual. After chasing my hat along the seafront a number of times, I find the smart Audio Club, where tonight the lovely Pull Tiger Tail – aka Marcus Ratcliff, Davo McConville and Jack Hamson - are supporting the Pigeon Detectives. Through the iron gates and down the whitewashed steps, you could be forgiven for thinking this is some sort of prison until you get into the cosy room and spy the bar.

We sneak into the dressing room, which just appears to be a long sofa in a metallic room reminiscent of a posh tin of Spam, and there’s also a strong sense of pink neon. Sadly most of the room is in darkness and we can’t find a light switch, which is a shame because PTT are meant to be reading their own question cards. Doesn't matter anyway - “We can’t read,” deadpans Davo.

I ask them to introduce themselves into the dictaphone so I can recognise their voices when I play the recording back.

“I’m Jack, I play drums.”

“I’m Davo, I play bass.”

“And I’m Marcus, and I play guitar.” They burst into laughter. They’ve all spoken in exactly the same dull monotone.

“Are you going to be able to recognise us?” asks Someone (could be Davo). Come on, I’m a journalist. I’ll just make most of it up anyway.

Pull Tiger Tail are from Stratford-Upon-Avon and originally met at school when they were about 11. “Some bands get together because they’re good musicians together, and we didn’t, basically,” says Davo. They’re in their early twenties now, and the band first came about in 2005. “We decided these people would be the people we’d have chosen from the back of an advert in The Times,” Davo continues. He might describe himself as the bassist, but anyone who sees the band live would also see him darting between moog, drum pad and vocal duties, all the while striking self-conscious, artistic poses.

Despite forming in summer 2005, the band didn’t do much really for another six months. “We were busy at uni,” explains Davo.

“And taking a name is a very long and arduous process,” says Marcus, the smiley lead vocalist and guitarist.“But we lived together and we rehearsed in our basement anyway,” says Davo. “So everything was kind of set up for whoever wanted to play regardless.”

Their first gig as Pull Tiger Tail was at the Tatty Bogle club in London.

“It’s now defunct – think it’s turned into a trendy wine bar,” says Marcus.

“I think it’s turned into a NatWest,” says Jack from beneath his neckerchief.

“Has it really?” says Marcus with surprise.

“Other way around.”

“Exact opposite.”

“Er yeah… it was good,” says Davo. “It was sold out. It was sold out so our friends couldn’t get in.” Were you headlining it? “No. That was our only sold out gig for months!” Marcus sniggers in the background. “About a year I’d say. Until now,” says Davo. “And it’s still nothing to do with us!” laughs Jack. Oh, bless. “Thanks!”

Jack picks up the first question card. “This is Jack,” the others announce, in case my voice recognition skills aren’t up to much. The windows on our rail replacement bus service were steamed up earlier, and my friends wondered what you’d write on them?

“What I generally used to do was make like a swipe, a kind of random shape, then try and make a picture out of it,” says Jack. “I once had this really great skull that was travelling and had this mane.”

“Like a lion skull,” says Davo.

“Yeah,” says Jack.

“None of us expected that.” That is impressive. I usually manage a smiley face.

“I hate steamy windows,” says Davo, miserably. “’Cause it’s just condensed breath and sweat. It’s gross.” Pull Tiger Tail pause and contemplate in disgust.

“When it’s like the three of us in the back of a van it’s fine.”

The interview is briefly interrupted by a knackered looking Matt Bowman of the Pigeon Detectives creeping in and whispering “Sorry! Sorry!” before lying down on the far end of the sofa. You get the impression if he wasn’t in public he would have crawled in on hands and knees, or possibly just laid on the floor snoring. “Congratulations!” says Jack. The Pigeon Detectives ‘Romantic Type’ single has just gone into the chart at 19.

“Oh cheers, thank you,” says Matt weakly. “It’s so good,” say PTT. Matt goes back to dying quietly in the corner.

Pull Tiger Tail’s first single was the bouncy ‘Animator’. The band was responsible for designing the sleeves – one thousand of them. Individually. What were they like?

“The designs I did in particular?” wonders Marcus. “They were brilliant. Well it wasn’t until we got the thousand copies of the single home that we realised how many a thousand was. All of our bedrooms were plastered in them and they just took over our entire house ‘cause we were basically doing things that took a long time to dry. So we had to lay them all out flat over everything we had. The things we did to them were sticker them, sometimes we wrote on them, spray-painted them, ticked on them, I don’t know. A lot of things.”

“Sorry to anyone who got the first few,” says Davo. “They were just – sticker, sticker. Done. Then we were like: we’re on 900. Wash that one up in the sink.” Spill tea on it, I suggest. “Did I do some ones with tea marks on them?” Davo wonders. “I wanted to.”

It’s a busy year up ahead, with the current live shows to be followed up with next single ‘Let’s Lightning’, a fun slice of indie pop with a cracking opening. What does ‘Let’s Lightning’ mean exactly? “What, the name or the song?” asks Marcus. “That gives an indication that the name is nothing to do with the song. The name means… I don’t know really. It’s about taking control of things.”

“It’s like let’s create,” says Davo. “And lightning’s suitably sort of violent and something. Well it is about kind of breaking yourself out of habits and trying to do something.”

“So it goes with the song quite well actually, now I come to think about it,” says Marcus.

Have they done a promo video for it yet? “We have actually. It primarily consists of us, many versions of us, dancing around an evolving cactus,” explains Marcus. It was the director’s idea – “and his was the most insane idea, so we went with it!” They didn’t want to go with anything too obviously linked with certain lyrics, calling literal interpretations 'quite ham-fisted.'

“If the director’s got an idea and you’ve got your song… as long as he does what he does well, then it will come out well,” says Jack. “We wanted the director to have a strong idea of what he wanted to do to bring something else to the song. I mean, to me that’s the point to videos. They are promotional but they can also be quite artistic. So it’s important to have someone with a strong idea of where they want to go, to complement the song rather than just promote it.”

“You can hear the song on radio, you can hear the song on CD. The video should bring something new to it,” Davo continues. “So yeah, we feel quite strongly about music videos.”

Are you in charge of a lot of the artwork around you?

“Yes, we have control over everything and our label is really good with that and they’ll pretty much let us do what we want,” says Jack. “Apparently ‘Pablo Honey’ by Radiohead, they turned up one day and were told ‘This is your artwork’.”

“For a band like us who want to be able to look after and kind of cultivate everything there is to do with us, that would be a complete nightmare to turn up and have someone already decided something for you,” says Marcus. “Jack always has a hand in the artwork.”

“I think that what we’re doing at the moment is we’re building up to the album release so with the singles we’re kind of hinting at this bigger thing but you’re not going to know what it is until you see the album and then it’ll be ‘oh, that’s what that was’ which we’re quite excited about,” says Jack.

And after ‘Let’s Lightning’, there’s a whole bunch of other stuff planned for this year. “Playing the festivals, touring the world, you know, the usual.” The whole world, eh?

“The - whole – world,” says Davo slowly. “Our album comes out, at the end of summer I think.” They don’t have a name for it yet: “We always like to leave things until the last minute then have a massive rush of brainstorming,” says Marcus. He speaks with a rising intonation, which combined with his rough blonde hair and big grin gives the appearance of a cheerful surfer. “That’s how it all works. Perfect.”

“That’s like our main plans for the year,” says Davo. “Our main plan I think is trying to trick everyone who books things for us into giving us more days off.” How are you getting on with that so far? “Really badly,” says Davo. He doesn’t sound overjoyed about it. “Our other plans are along the same lines of trying to trick someone into putting us back in a studio.”

“We trick people into coming to the gigs, we trick people with our songs when they’re here…” says Marcus. Damn you tricksters, I say.

“We’ve already recorded our album,” says Davo. “I’m not saying we’ve got new songs ready to record a new one, but I think we’d like to be back in the studio pretty soon. We won’t be, but we’d like to be.” It’s going to be a major change - from playing in their basement to relocating the process. Pull Tiger Tail have a few ideas where to go.

“I’m thinking like a mansion in the country,” says Davo, whose steady and serious tone of voice doesn’t quite hide his wicked sense of humour.

“Yeah, somewhere really good.” Barbados? “Yeah, anywhere like that,” says Marcus.

“Montserrat.”

“We want to be inspired by the sea for our next album.” That’s all right, you’ve got some just out there. “We’ll stay here then.”

“Yeah but the sea has to go hand in hand with the sun,” says Davo. “And the sand. Two things that Brighton is missing.” It really is. Did you have a walk around out there earlier? “No, we only just arrived… we’ll have a look later.”

“When it’s dark,” says Davo. “It’s always better when it’s dark.” I warn them it’s windy.

“Are there any good fish and chip shops you can recommend?” asks Davo. Sadly I’ve no idea as I’m from near Portsmouth; which isn’t too distant, just a bit far to drive for a cod supper. There’s a Harry Ramsden’s on the corner and they’re meant to be good.

“It’s a chain. We could get that anywhere. I want to find a real Brighton fish and chip shop,” says Davo.

Are you playing any festivals this year? “Hope so,” says Davo.“It’s another last minute thing,” explains Marcus.

“There’s a couple that hopefully we’ll be playing,” says Davo, with his voice almost drowned out by the sound of the drums being set up, “and there’s a couple that we’re trying to get our people to get us, like Benicassim in Spain and Rock Am Ring in Germany.”

“Saw the line up for that the other day and thought we’ve got to be on that,” says Jack. Who’s playing there? “Linkin Park, Smashing Pumpkins… all the greats.” Oh brilliant. That’s your crowd.

“The Linkin Park crowd is, yeah,” says Davo. “Our sound guy is in the van currently subjecting us to a nu-metal marathon. It’s horrible. Horribly great.” I’m so sorry. Did you have that in the tour bus all the way down? “Yes,” they say quickly. “Limp Bizkit…”

“It’s enough to make me sit in the front and get away from the stereo,” says Marcus, flashing a brilliant grin.

“We’re doing a festival in Austria called Snowbombing,” says Jack. The rest of the band perk up and call it ‘amazing’.

“They pay for ski passes,” says Davo. “But our one gig’s right at the end. I’ve never been skiing before and the other guys aren’t big skiers, and I’m sure we’ll break everything.” I don’t know how easy it is playing guitar with your arm in a sling.

“Not sure. Probably not so easily done.”

Pull Tiger Tail are doing a lot of live shows at the moment – currently with the Pigeon Detectives, then next they’re supporting Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. “Yep,” they all say.

“It was actually great the other night. We met Sam Duckworth for the first time,” says Jack. “We all happened to be in the same place at the same time…’SAM!’ ’Cause he specifically asked us to do it. And we gave him a big hug, which was quite exciting.”

“He was terrified,” admits Marcus. “He’s quite little and we’re not that little,” adds Jack.

“And we were all wasted, I think,” says Davo, “we gave him a hug and just left. It was like ‘HI!’” He does a good impression of their attack.

“I definitely didn’t talk to him after that!” says Jack with a big grin. “I assumed that the other guys did. I think they all assumed that we did. So maybe we got off to a wrong start. Hopefully we’re doing this tour split 7” with him and he’s remixing one of our songs and we’re doing one of his. We’re looking forward to it.”

“We’re looking forward to the support slots with the Killers and Kings of Leon which are surely round the corner,” says Davo.

“…And we’re obviously doing the Pigeon Detectives which is fun. They’re nice guys. And We Are Scientists, we did a couple with those last week which was also great,” says Jack. “And then we’ve got the MySpace tour, which is with lots of other really great bands (Ali Love, Hadouken!, I Say Marvin). “So we’re really excited about doing that.”

They sit there for a few minutes trying to work out the best gig they've played. “We’ll all formulate our opinions,” says Marcus. “You go first Davo,” he adds, seeing the bassist whispering into the drummer’s ear.

“No, this is your question,” says Davo, helpfully. “I’m just asking Jack what he thinks.”

“Er…” says Marcus. Tonight might be your best gig. “That’s the way to look forward to every gig,” he says. “I don’t know, that’s a kind of cheesy thing to say isn’t it. Hopefully every gig will be the best gig. Actually probably our best gig was our first gig because it was so long in arrival, and the feeling of jubilation like being back in a band and a band that I knew I wanted to be in. The first gig I was so sure we were making the kind of music that I wanted to, that I was really, really lifted.”

“My favourite was our single launch back in September,” says Jack. “There had been quite a lot of buzz around us at the time, it was sold out -” The Pigeon Detectives crash through the door and say ‘Hiya’ to all before briefly trying to squeeze on the sofa. Jack continues: “It was at the Proud Galleries in Camden and it was the first time we played ‘Animator’ and we could hear people singing back, it was mental.”

“Sorry, we weren’t trying to be rude,” says Marcus suddenly, explaining to Pigeon guitarist Ryan Wilson why they’ve turned their backs on him. Poor Ryan is trying to have a rest and a nice cup of tea but has unexpectedly found himself sat in the middle of a PTT interview. He blames the lack of light for his not noticing.

“We’re in your dressing room!” we apologise. "Sorry!"

Back to the question: “KOKO with !!!,” says Davo. “I think it was the gig that got us signed. We were the opening band of five or six? And we just acted like we were headlining.”

“That’s the first time we wore the angel wings as well,” remembers Jack.“The only time,” mutters Davo.

“The first time we did it in public,” says Jack. Normally do it in private? They laugh.

“We did a photoshoot,” explains Davo. “It was like a rebirth, I suppose.”

“It’s fun,” says Marcus, almost being drowned out by the very loud David Gray CD someone’s put on. Don’t expect to see their fans sporting angel wings – they’d tickle your nose/have your eye out in a packed venue. Instead, turn up to a gig and see the crowd wearing cardboard tiger masks, lovingly handed out by the PTT street teams.

Tell me a fact about the person on your left. We’re running out of time, so this is a quickfire round. It’s Jack’s turn, and he should be telling me something about Davo. “Erm,” he says and goes very quiet. For a quite a while.

Marcus tells me his own iPod was stolen several months back but he’s currently listening to Bjork ‘Medúlla’ and Tapes ‘n Tapes.

“Our influences are everything,” says Davo. “Devo. David Bowie. The Beatles. Led Zeppelin. Limp Bizkit. Pixies. Kula Shaker.”

“We never made a conscious decision on what were going to be our influences,” Marcus shouts over the deafening music being blasted next door where the roadies are doing their thing. Back to Jack. He’s still sitting there looking slightly worried. Have you only just met each other or something?

“Oh, er,” he says. “I’m not good at these ones. I’ll think about it, and I’ll find you later and tell you off the record.” He doesn’t, the git. “That’s one of the funny ones, I’m not good at the funny ones.” I promise to do more boring ones next time.

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I meet up with my friends in the pub across the road and we go in search of more alcohol before the gig. Passing a fish and chip shop on the corner, we see Pull Tiger Tail sat on white plastic chairs in the corner waiting patiently for their tea, illuminated by the insanely bright lighting. One of them has a pickled egg, my friend informs me.

“Some people are suggesting that Pull Tiger Tail are going to be one of 2007's biggest breakthrough bands. Pull Tiger Tail think that would be nice” says their record label.

I think so too.

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‘Let’s Lightning’ will be available on CD, 7”, download and limited 10” from March 26th.
Pull Tiger Tail
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