Interview - The Rumble Strips

February 2007, around lunchtime on Pancake Day...

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


THE RUMBLE STRIPS - FEB 07

Charlie Waller – Lead vocals, guitar
Tom Gorbutt – Sax, vocals, bass
Henry Clark – Trumpet, vocals, piano
Matthew Wheeler - Drums

Hello to three-quarters of the Rumble Strips, purveyors of chirpy cheery brass-led indie fun. I’m sat at the end of the table next to bearded saxophonist and bassist Tom. Next to him is quiet drummer Matt, who today is wearing a stylish shirt patterned with small blue and green cars. The other side of him is Henry, who plays trumpet and piano. Poor vocalist Charlie is off sick today, although a friend listening to Radio 1 later in the day tells me Sara Cox announced the band are currently in California. California Street, Kensington maybe; either that or Charlie has chosen somewhere supremely glamorous to pull a sickie.

The Rumble Strips are quite different from the guitar-led strummy indie which is around a lot at the moment. "Well we've all got different influences to be honest," says Tom. "Charlie's not here -"

"So let's talk about him," says Matt.

"Charlie's influenced by a lot of the old… Adam and the Ants, a lot of old vocal harmony groups like Billy Ward and the Dominos, some old 50s rock and roll bands and stuff. But we're all influenced by a lot of things," says Tom. Others include Lou Reed, the Kinks and Talking Heads. "But I'm not really sure any of those influences come out in our music, you wouldn't necessarily grab hold of those straight away.”

Now instruments. You seem to have brought back brass. “If you play brass, you tend to get asked to play in people’s bands ‘cause people always want to stick a bit of brass on to make them sound better,” says Henry. “I think we always wanted to just play guitar and piano didn’t we but it’s like a bit easier. And we’re cooler! But you just keep getting asked and that’s how you get to play gigs with bands who are gigging so that’s what we did when we were kind of growing up. So that’s how we got to the stage where we’re quite good at writing stuff brasswise together.”

“We kind of try to make the brass instruments more part of the band,” says Tom. “A lot of bands will write an album and put a bit of a brass section into it to make it sound more full.” But they don’t always have it when it’s live do they? “Yeah, exactly.”

“Brass, we’ll try to have it in the same way that we’ll sing; really upfront, kind of brass vocals. You can’t tack it on,” say Matt and Henry in turns.

“’Cause we’ve played in a lot of bands where we’re an add-on,” says Henry. “Some people will say ‘oh just play some brass over this’. It’s kind of more interesting to base everything else around the brass. That’s just a different way of doing it.” Matt murmurs assent. It’s good because it sounds more lively, doesn’t it?

“Definitely, yeah. I think it’s like pushing yourself into the forefront.” There’s you and Abi from the Zutons isn’t there? I say, making the usually fatal error of confusing a saxophone with a brass instrument (it’s wind, you fool). Luckily they're too polite to clout me round the head with a trombone for being thick. “I’ve got a bigger sax though,” says Tom. Oh, the flirt.

So tell me some facts about everyone then. "Matt's dad was in a band called The Rumble,” Tom tells me. “And he's called Paul Wheeler."

"A bit like Paul Weller, but with added drums," says Matt. Sadly the two never got confused. "Apart from when he was in a band called The Jim. Yeah he was a drummer, in a long line of drummers going back centuries. One generation."

"His dad's really old." A very long generation.

"Henry, before he left his old job, was an undertaker," says Matt. "And he used to pick up bodies off the railway and stuff." Oh, that's lovely.

"Do I have to do Tom?" asks Henry. Well either him or me, but you don't know anything about me.

"You work for Native," says Tom, correctly. He knows too much…

"When Tom was about three or four years old his dad convinced him [Tom starts giggling] that he was a chicken by putting an egg in his pants." And he fell for it? "Every time. Still does." Do they still do it to you? "Occasionally…"

As for the early years of the Rumble Strips, “We started off youngsters in Devon,” says Tom, whose accent has become as thick as clotted cream all of a sudden. From Tavistock, or Tavi: “Since we’ve left it sounds really posh. It’s got a farmers’ market, Italian deli... It was a good place to do stuff there actually.”

“We still have the same friends we had then,” says Henry. Now London's home. “When we go back, it’s like going back for a holiday,” says Henry.

“I don’t go home to Devon anymore,” says Matt. “I always get quite bored actually.”

They were part of a music workshop which used to meet every Saturday. “We kind of started our own scene really,” says Henry. “The youth club thing we used to go to, there was like about 14 or 15 of us, so when that kind of came to an end we all split off ‘cause we were like ‘oh let’s make our own bands’ so we had a ready made bunch of bands and we just put on our own nights, ‘cause no-one else would put on nights in the West Country. You’d be lucky to get a gig a month down there. No-one really comes down there.”

“We played an all-ages show the other day. There were all these people who were 16 and can’t get into the over 18s gigs and it just reminds you how excited you got about music at that age,” says Tom.

“Yeah, when you’re playing to an older audience they’re a bit more kind of chin strokey,” says Henry. “The kids we were playing to the other day – just mad for it. Brilliant. So cool."

The Rumble Strips have been playing together for three or four years they think, trying to remember when they moved to London.

“Doesn’t seem that long, does it?” says Henry.

“We were all working so it’s probably been two years really seriously,” says Tom.

“Bumbling along at a kind of half-arsed pace for a while,” says Henry. “A year and a half, that’s when it really took off. A good year of full-on struggle.”

The Rumble Strips played SXSW in Austin, Texas last year and were there again just recently. However this interview was carried out well before that, so let’s just pretend they haven’t gone yet. Last year they had to fund their own trip, but there’s a cool scheme where the bands with little support get put up by a local family, who then receive tickets to the festival. Last year their hostess was a 19 year-old girl, who was unable to get into the gigs so she sold her ticket to buy them all food.

“We got to meet some proper Americans, which was really really nice and it was great. But this time it’s going to be kind of better because we can afford to eat and stuff. It’s going to be really nice,” says Henry.

SXSW is one of those things where absolutely everyone goes, apart from little old Native, stuck in front of a very British keyboard while pretty much everyone who’s ever listened to any music is improving their suntan in the Deep South. Apparently Austin is meant to be quite different from the rest of Texas, “quite a hippy place really,” Tom’s heard.

Is it mostly industry people that go to SXSW? “Well that’s what we thought,” says Tom, “We thought ‘oh, it’s going to be full of suits just standing around’ and there is a bit of that but on the whole there’s a lot of good gigs going on.”

“There’s a lot of people out there just to see gigs,” says Henry.

“And obviously there’s a load of bands there as well, all the bands want to go and check out the other bands,” says Matt.

“There’s mystery bands like last year they had the Flaming Lips and the Beastie Boys were there, I think the Strokes played as well. They play little gigs and you find out,” says Tom.

“It’s quite funny how the whole British establishment moves over there for the week. People from newspapers come to see your gig in Austin when we’re all based in London and they could just come down to any gig we do. It’s like ‘We’ll see you in Texas.’ It’s quite funny,” says Henry.

“It all shuts down over here doesn’t it for that week,” says Matt. What about your fans over here, are they a bit disappointed to miss such a big event?

“Yeah… it’s one of those things now, it’s become really quite famous,” says Tom.

“I think a lot of people do make the trip out there though; genuine music fans,” says Henry. “’Cause once you’ve got your wristband, you can potentially go and see any band that’s playing there. In reality, the bigger more popular ones there are just ridiculous queues and you can’t get in. But there’s just so many bands playing all the time just down this main street. I mean, there are a few venues scattered around but there’s this one street in the middle which is closed off and there’s just bands.”

There’s a few SXSW-style festivals where the band played last year – Camden Crawl, Great Escape, Dot To Dot.

“In Nottingham we were playing,” says Henry, “in the Social and it was rammed, it was brilliant. But whoever was on afterwards (“it was the Long Blondes, wasn’t it?” says Tom) there was a massive queue and clearly it was to capacity, there was no way that anyone else was going to get in. They were still queuing right down the stairs. Then there was a little gap, and then it was queuing right down the street. No-one had told these people they weren’t going to get in and might as well go somewhere else.”

So you have to get there several bands early? I ask, seeing my Great Escape trip this year being spent jammed in the corner of a hot room for three days.

“In the smaller ones, if you went to the toilet, you wouldn’t be able to get back in,” Tom confirms my fears.

“If the band’s much too big for the venue, you’re really going to have to get in there early,” says Henry. Oh, arse. “They’re good fun though”.

They’ve also heard rumours they’re pencilled in for Glastonbury, which they’d love to do because they’ve been to so many and it’s quite close to home.

The Rumble Strips debut album is planned for June, supported by a few festival dates. Got a name for the album yet? "'Girls and Weather'," says Matt. "Oh, should we not say that yet? We can? Yeah, 'Girls and Weather'."

"Which is a song that was going on the album. But it's not now," says Tom. It was the b-side to 'Hate Me You Do', out last June, if anyone's got it. "The album was too long in size. We recorded 15 songs and we were ideally trying to get it down to ten. But it ended up being 12. It's still only about 38 minutes, not overly long." They’ve just spent a while rehearsing for the next year or so of gigging, and say the album hasn’t been over-embellished so it’s pretty much how they sound live.

“Lots of energy,” says Matt. “Keeping it lively.”

As for music, what have they had on their iPods recently? Or non-specific music players. "Tape players?" says Tom hopefully and they all laugh, which echoes around the bare interview room. "I've just started watching old videos again actually."

"Good Shoes album, the Maccabees, Cold War Kids…" says Henry.

"I've got a lot of Queen on mine," intones Matt in his deeper voice. "I'm getting right back into Queen."

"Euros Child - who used to be in Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - had an album last year called 'Chops' and he's got a new one coming out called 'Bore Da' that I've just listened to a couple of tracks from and thought it sounded really good. Big fans of them."

“Don’t tend to buy a lot of music. I went through a period when I was at university of buying lots of records and just kind of… stopped,” says Tom.

“I bought some singles actually the other day,” says Henry, “’cause we’ve been doing some DJing. Yeah, it’s great! It’s fun. We’ve got lots of records that we’ve kind of collected over the years, a stupid amount of records, and it’s just kind of sifting through them, playing your favourite stuff and getting a bit of money and some beer from it.”

“Yeah,” says Matt, thinking of beer.

“I bought some Hot Club De Paris, ‘Shipwrecked’, and Good Shoes ‘Photos On My Wall’,” Henry continues. That’s a good one. “Yeah, it’s pretty now. Pretty up-to-date,” said Tom with some surprise. Where have you been doing your DJing?

“That was at the Old Blue Last. It’s kind of upstairs.” Managed to get all your friends down? “Don’t think any of my mates were there actually!” says Henry. “They didn’t really bother coming. We’re going to do some more. It’s a good little set up really, just bring some records along with you, have fun and drink free beer.” Do you get anyone coming up and requesting your songs?

“We haven’t, no,“ they say after a short pause and laugh their heads off.

“They don’t even know we exist!” says Tom.

“You can’t really do that. You can’t play your own songs,” says Henry.“At your own DJ set…” starts Matt. “It’s embarrassing,” Henry finishes.

“It’ll be like: ‘Oh, this is the best thing I can find. Whoops, it’s us!’” says Tom. I tell them about Ricky Wilson’s DJ set with Zane Lowe – they stuck on ‘I Predict A Riot’, gave him the mic and he was singing along. “Nooo…” they say, slightly mortified. “Oh no…” And I lost £20 because I bet my mate they wouldn’t play any Kaiser Chiefs.

“Although Charlie did a gig the other day,” says Tom with a chuckle, possibly feeling he can talk about it now Charlie isn’t around. “He turned up really drunk and late and forgot his guitar. It was an acoustic gig and he didn’t have a guitar. So they put on ‘Oh Creole’ which was a nice thing for them to do and he mimed along to that. He was drunk and hardly remembers it. Yeah, a few people saw that.”

“He’d just come back from San Francisco,” remembers Matt. “’Cause we had a few weeks off so we had a bit of a break. He went on holiday, came back on a late flight, and just missed everything. Turned up late, wrecked.”

“Had a few drinks on the plane,” says Tom.

“We had to do an apology gig for it,” says Henry. “Last weekend. But yeah it was good, it went really well. They liked us.”

I tell them the big screens were playing the ‘Oh Creole’ video downstairs in the record company HQ while I was waiting to speak to them. “Oh, were they? Oh, nice!” they say with smiles. That looked quite fun to film.

“Yeah, we loved it,” says Henry.

“We’ve done four promo vids now,” says Tom. “They’re all with our mate Harry who was in the original line up on keyboards, but he was more into films. When we’ve had the option to do a video with the singles and stuff, he’s done it with us.”

“We’re all kind of closet actors really,” adds Henry. “We like to ham it up.”

“The budgets have got slightly bigger but the core of the crew that do the videos for us are still friends from school, but it’s got bigger and bigger and there’s a load more people running around, and we just get to sit there and eat, and occasionally do something silly.” That sounds easy. They tell me it’s “great, brilliant.”

“The last one that we did for ‘Alarm Clock’ we did on our friend’s farm in Devon,” explains Henry. It was kind of like a ‘Scrapheap Challenge’-style dream video. And we all got to dress up and I got to be a blacksmith. And Tom got to do some welding. And you got to ride a motorbike,” he says to Matt. “And I got to drive a JCB.”

“Each thing is just Harry’s little fantasy about some mode of transport,” says Tom, “chucking Charlie in the sea, getting him to float in and things…” That was the ‘Hate Me You Do’ video – see it on their MySpace. Was Charlie in the water long? It looked cold.

“It was colder than it looked. It was freezing!” says Henry. “I swear he nearly died. And Harry just kept throwing him back in for some different angles. And the last time he threw him in, he was just lying there on his guitar case, which wasn’t floating very well. And we just were drifting apart from him. I really thought ‘oh, he’s dead!’” I suggest the reason he’s not at this interview is because he’s on his guitar case floating off the coast somewhere. “Yeah, it’s Harry’s repeated attempts to kill him that have taken their toll.”

“We’re trying to find a lookalike,” says Tom.

I ask how long it took them to do the ‘Motorcycle’ video. If you’ve not seen it, it shows Charlie wobbling around the streets on his pushbike while various band members run behind with their instruments. “One morning. We did seven takes,” says Tom. “And that was the sixth take.”

“We kind of worked it out on the kitchen table at home quite carefully,” says Henry. “Our friend Oli went and did the rounds so we knew how long it would take, we knew roughly where it would be at different parts of the song. The last take that we did was kind of the better performance – or we thought so at the time. But the last 30sec there was this big white van just behind Charlie who obviously realised he was being filmed and started doing stupid things.”

“There were bits in some of the other takes where like at the right moment this motorbike would speed past, there was a guy in like a really flash BMW with what looked like a blacked out windscreen… there were little moments but we wanted to get it in one take,” says Tom. “Some people chucked eggs at us at one point. There’s this woman who came down and said ‘Could you shut up, my grandad’s just come back from hospital’ and we were like ‘Sorry, just one more take…’” He could be in a music video, I suggest. “There was one lady who came down and said ‘Is there any way you could get my daughter in a music video?’ and that was the first thing we’d ever done really and we didn’t have any contacts. We were like ‘Yeah… [small voice] No’.”

They’ve briefly mentioned the video for ‘Alarm Clock’, which is out March 19th. “Charlie wrote it about getting up in the morning really, which is not very good.” I ask if they had to get up early for today’s round of interviews. “Yeah, I had to get up at 8.30am, which is really early for me,” says Matt.

“Yeah, we’re not used to getting up too early,” says Tom. “I think it’s probably more about a time when you’re in a band and trying to make it and stuff, you’ve got to get up and earn a bit of money to keep going and survive or whatever. And now it’s a lot easier, we don’t have to do so much of that.”

“It’s quite a stonking song,” says Henry. “We were fiddling about with different ways of playing it for a long time… the riff from it is from an old song we had years and years ago. We just kind of put the two things together and made it really simple, like harmonies all the way through. It’s always gone down really well live so we thought it would be a nice one to kick off this year, just a kind of straightforward, simple, in-your-face song.”

You’re getting some good radio play on it as well. Sara Cox made it her record of the week. “Yeah, that’s amazing,” they say. “That kind of came out from nowhere really,” says Henry, “I don’t think we expected to get that. I mean Zane Lowe’s always been really sort of supportive, he’s always played our singles and stuff, but yeah that’s a real good one. In the afternoon with people driving home.”

“Drivetime,” Tom perks up. “Steve Wright’s old slot isn’t it?” asks Henry. Do you think Steve Wright would play it?

“I don’t know, maybe he might once,” says Tom. “Radio 2’s the big one. Get Radio 2.”

“I want Ken Bruce onboard,” says Henry.“Yeah, we’ve been serenading Ken Bruce, sending him chocolates and stuff like that,” says Tom. “I’m a big Terry Wogan fan, have been a long time. I’d love to meet Terry Wogan.”

“Tom came out the service station with a Terry Wogan audio book autobiography. We’re thinking ‘Oh that’s a nice sort of bargain, slightly comedy thing to buy’,” says Henry. ”How much did it cost? Fifteen quid!”

“Nearly £16, yeah,” says Tom, slightly sheepishly. So have you had it on in the tour bus ever since? “We put it on and it’s so -”

“Slow and soothing,” interrupts Henry. Tom takes on a soft Irish accent (with a hint of Devon): “So I grew up in Southern Ireland and my mother was a gentle woman, a lovely lady.” The rest of the bands are propping up their eyelids. I thought you were going to recite it all then, Tom. He laughs.

“Oh, I know what I was going to say about ‘Alarm Clocks’,” says Henry suddenly. “They made these promotional alarm clocks for it – have you seen them?” Sadly not, but I think I want one. “This is one of those things that just happens. I like it, it’s very tasteful. They sent a load of them off, ticking in the post, around the sort of mailbomb time and had a massive security problem with them. They also thought it would be really funny to set them to actually go off at a certain time so they’d arrive and then they’d go off.”

I wondered why I didn’t have one. “It’s probably been destroyed,” says Henry. “A robot or something’s blown it up,” adds Tom. Great, looks like I’ll have to carry on being late for work for some time yet.

It’s Pancake Day, so I give them a packet of Scotch pancakes to share which they rip open with delight, cheers and a round of applause. It’s near lunchtime and they must have been talking to boring interviewers for a few hours. “Favourite topping, honey and lemon,” says Henry. “Lemon and sugar,” says Tom.

“Best gig, er…” says Tom, while the others cram food in their mouths. The recording is filled with packet rustling.

“The Ipswich one, although that was more to do with the crowd than with the gig,” says Matt between mouthfuls. Drum and Monkey in Ipswich, to be exact.

“It’s quite rough but it’s one of those places where bands don’t go that often,” says Henry.

“You tend to get a much more up-for-it crowd. We love playing in Exeter, just because it’s kind of like going home, also people we don’t know come and see us and say ‘You’re from Devon, we’re really proud of you’ which is really nice. I mean, there’s loads of good gigs. We love playing Scotland as well. Ireland, that was amazing.”

http://www.therumblestrips.com
And it’s time to leave the band to their busy plans – and their pancakes.