Interview - Pulled Apart By Horses @ Great Escape 2010

Previously published on mINtSOUTH.com in June 2010
Words - Suzy Sims
(c) mINtSOUTH.com

INTERVIEW - PULLED APART BY HORSES @THE GREAT ESCAPE 2010

We first spot Pulled Apart By Horses – Tom (vocals / guitar), Robert (bass), James (guitar), minus Lee (drums) who’s on paternity leave - as they’re sneaking around Brighton Dome, attempting to catch The Cribs in mid-soundcheck. When this fails, we lead them to sit in the park, surrounded by happy toddlers and a man playing the bongos in the near distance. It’s perfectly summery, outdoor beer weather. Let the interview begin:

mINtSOUTH: This is probably going to be the least professional interview you’ve had all day.
PABH: “We’ll we’re the least professional band in the world, so it’ll be fine!”

mINtSOUTH: Can you tell us a fact about yourselves?
Tom: “Robert John Lee - his original name is Robot John Lee, and he’s actually a robot that was made in the mid Nineties. And he runs on oil.”
Rob: “And I was not a body double, but the actual actor that played Robocop.”
James: “You can see the jaw structure there, look. If you shaved Rob’s hair, he’s got a metal helmet.”

mINtSOUTH: The Great Escape... Are you going to have time to stick around and see many bands?
Tom: “It’s really hard because we’re playing at 9 and there’s a few bands we want to see that are all around that sort of time. It’s really annoying.”
James: “We’re really good friends with Blood Red Shoes. They go on at half nine and we go on at quarter past. But we’re going to run over and say hi.”
Rob: “I really want to watch the Cribs. We can get away with it now because normally if Lee was here, our drummer, he’d probably hit us.”
James: “There’s Chickenhawk, they’re playing today. Try and catch them.”

Tom: “The Great Escape’s awesome. Although last time we played it was such a blur. We played at the Sallis Benney at 7pm, and then played the Pav Tav at 12am to a load of drunk people whilst being drunk ourselves, and then the next day played The Hope at 12pm still drunk. By that point we were just on the edge, we had just completely lost it but that added to it.”
James: “Because it was the first time we’d done Great Escape and been down here for it, i think we were having a little bit too much fun as well. There wasn’t much sleep had last year, but a lot of drinking, staying up.”

mINtSOUTH: What can people expect to see from the Pulled Apart By Hoses live experience?
Rob: “There’s the obvious bits which is sweat, sometimes blood. Sick doesn’t happen anymore.”
Tom “Well it does occasionally rear its head.”
Rob: “If you eat an hour before you go on. James usually adds to his collection of knee injuries [James shows off a horrifying bruised scab]

Tom: “That started off with seven stitches. And then we played a couple of gigs at the Camden Crawl.”
James: “There’s only 3 left now. This occurs regularly.”
Tom: “He’s got the knees of a cheap prostitute, from the amount of times he’s landed on them. We are a live band like, since day one we’ve just toured relentlessly and played about 400 gigs in the space of about two years.”

mINtSOUTH: I saw you a couple of times last year, when you were at Southampton Joiners and there was a lot of jumping into the crowd.
Tom: “It’s kind of like unplanned chaos, and that’s the fun of it, Just wait to see what happens and go with the flow. One thing is about Brighton, for a few of the first gigs we played here we realised the crowd are a bit too cool for school sometimes, like everyone just stands there at the back. But last year it was a lot better. It’s probably because people didn’t know us then.”

mINtSOUTH: I think Portsmouth can be worse, you get people stood there arms folded not clapping.
James: “I think it was the Wedgewood Rooms - that was a strange one.”
Tom: “Everyone’s just standing there and you’re like ‘Oh god, this is awful, everyone hates it,’ and then people come up to you after and they’re like ‘Oh that was amazing, we really loved it.’ And you’re like. shake a leg then, go on!”

Rob: “Like Tom said before it’s a case of how the crowd interaction and getting in the crowd is because we consider the crowd to be as much part of the band as we are. A lot of people know the end riff we generally finish on so we’ve had a lot of different people just get onstage. Sometimes if we’re on tour with a band or we’ve got a tech we haven’t used before, we’re like ‘Right, you’re playing.’ We did it in Europe with Blood Red Shoes. Laura-Mary and Steven got up to play at the end of ‘I Punched A Lion’... and Laura said she was more nervous to do that than to actually play the gig herself. I jumped over with my bass like ‘LET’S ROCK OUT! WOOO!’ And she was like ‘Aaargh!’ The other thing we were going to say, we hate that whole idea of there being a barrier between the crowd and the band.”
Tom: “I fucking hate barriers.”

mINtSOUTH: The thing is, the more famous you get, the bigger the gap.
Tom: “I remember we played at Audio with Sky Larkin and it was just a crappy barrier that was set up. I opened it up and then this guy came and shut it, so we ended up pushing it on the floor.”
James: “He was furious, that guy.”
mINtSOUTH snapper Rob: "From a photographer’s point of view, I do like the barriers."
Tom: “That makes sense. Well it’s not going to keep you safe with us lot. We’ll just climb all over it.”

mINtSOUTH: What are your plans for 2010?
Tom: “We’ve got some big plans actually. The first single is coming out on June 14th and we filmed an Evil Dead style rip-off music video for it, and the album comes out a little bit after that.”
Rob: “We’re doing PukkelPop in Belgium so that’s going to be ace.”
PABH: “What else is there – Glastonbury, Truck, Heavy Fest.”
Rob: “{Offset} is pencilled in.”
James: “It was really good though last year.”
Tom: “Although between the main stage and where the crowd were, it felt like it was about a mile. When we were playing I jumped off the stage and I was going to try and get to the crowd and it took me like forever. I was just like, yeah I’m getting there! I’m getting there! And by the time I got there, I couldn’t even sing.”

James: “I think after the summer there’s talk of us doing another tour but maybe a bit bigger than this one we’re doing in June.”
Rob: “And working on album number two. We can’t wait to get another album out.”

mINtSOUTH: Album.
Rob: “I misread that as All Bum first.”
Tom: “It’s self-titled. We were thinking of things to call it and we looked at the song title list and it was like no, our songs are too ridiculously titled.”
Rob: “When we sometimes write out the setlist and we can’t be bothered to write out the full length of the songs, it’ll just say stuff like Fuck, Crap, Meat, Hammer, High Five...”
James: “You get people picking the setlist up off the stage and being like ‘What?’”

Tom: “We [recorded the album] just after Leeds Fest. We had a tiny slot to just bang it out really, but that was the best way for it because we weren’t too precious about it, we just wanted to capture it. We did it in eight days in James Kenosha’s recording studios in Bridlington. Lived off microwave lasagnes from Tesco, and went nuts basically."
James: “I keep on saying it’s like a document of the past two years of being on the road.”
Rob: “And with it being our introduction to the record buying public – all two of them – we want to make it an honest account of what we sound like live and as a band and it’s really kind of stripped back.”

mINtSOUTH Have you gone for any special vinyl editions?
James: “I was adamant it’s got to be on heavyweight vinyl.”
Tom: “We got 11 different artists, some are our friends and some are artists we just really loved, and got them to illustrate each song from the album with the lyrics. Should be a nice little package to hopefully persuade people into buying the album.”
Rob: “It’s a nice thing to own. They’re probably going to download it anyway.”

mINtSOUTH: But they shouldn’t?
Tom: “Depends what you do with it. I download stuff then if I really like it I’ll get it on vinyl anyway, just to have the artwork at the correct size.”
James: “If you download all their stuff, you should go and watch them live. Or buy a t shirt, or a single if you’re skint.”

Tom: “I hope that’s the way that people do it now. I think you get a lot of kids, it’s really good that they’re getting into music that they wouldn’t normally just because it’s available for them, but at the same time I think that the new generation of kids just take it for granted now. They’ll just download the crap out of anything.”
Rob: “You’ve got to look for the positives of it. I guess it puts a lot of emphasis on live bands now which has done us a lot of favours. I should probably go and reintroduce myself to my friends and family at some point.”
Tom: “Say sorry to our girlfriends.”

mINtSOUTH: What do you associate with Brighton?
Rob: “Music, playing gigs, getting very drunk and not being able to remember most of it, but knowing that I should go back because I did really enjoy it... but not being able to quite remember what I enjoyed.”

mINtSOUTH: The more tattoos the better the drummer? Discuss. This was more one for Lee who’s not here.
Tom: “Lee’s like the fastest drummer in the world.”
Rob: “I would say that tattoos and drummers go hand in hand, but our drummer’s only got one hand.”
James: “He was born with a kind of disfigured hand. He’s got missing fingers and half a thumb. He’s got this tattoo and it’s amazing.”
Rob: “One says LOVE on his fingers, and the other says NO ROOM FOR HATE. What it should say is, PENTHOUSE SUITE FOR HATE WITH CHOCOLATES ON THE PILLOWS. He’s an angry motherfucker. But we love him.”

Tom: “I think it gives us a bit more credibility. Like the only thing I’ve got on my body is hair and moles. It looks a bit more interesting when you see some colourful ink on someone’s skin.”
James: “And it’s cool because his tattoos are a document of his life. He doesn’t get them for fashion reasons or anything like that.”

mINtSOUTH: Final one. Gorilla Vs Bear – who would win in a fight?
Rob: “That’s what we’re talking about!”
James: “I think it might be the bear. The bear’s going to be a lot taller.”
Tom: “Maybe a bear that hasn’t eaten for a little bit. Angry dudes, aren’t they.”
Rob: “It depends what context you’re in, because if you’re talking like Yogi Bear versus King Kong, he’s got no chance. King Kong’s got him. I think bear, hands down.”
James: “Bear wins. Gorilla dead.”

Pulled Apart By Horses