What's this? A press conference? With the Beastie Boys? Not going to turn that down. This was in an incredibly swanky Soho hotel and was attended by a number of nervous online journalists who were similarly not wanting to ask questions. Presumably the press conference was so the band could get everyone out the way at once instead of prolonging the agony. I was terrified when I asked my questions, my voice felt thick and I'm sure it trembled, but they answered normally. I feel sorry for the people who did minimal research and then asked dopey questions which got them slapped in the face with sarcasm.
The band had amazing gravitas and a real no-nonsense attitude. On the way out the guy in front of my shook the hand of Adam Yauch, who was simmering behind his sunglasses. I just thanked him for his time, rather than lurching at him, and he graciously inclined his head in a nod. Cool.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
BEASTIE BOYS
The Beastie Boys recently held a press conference in Soho. Not only would a group of journalists be able to find out whatever they wanted about the hip hop legends, but it meant the band would be able to indulge in one of their favourite pastimes – teasing the press. Native.tv went along to ask a question…
The Beastie Boys are sat at the front below a projection of ‘The Mix Up’ cover – there’s Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch on the left, Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz in the middle, and Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond on the right. All three are super-smart in suits, shirt and tie. Horovitz is also sporting a hat. They’re giving off a calm but powerful presence and you can’t help but feel a little nervous.
“Shall we introduce ourselves? We’re the Beastie Boys from New York City,” says Horovitz, checking to make sure we’re not in the wrong press conference. Let’s get the questions going:
How do you think the instrumental album will affect your fanbase?
”It’ll affect them in a good way, in an emotional kind of way. A thoughtful way, you know like they might sit by the window and look out the window,” says Horovitz, exclaiming “My God!” as Yauch’s phone bleeps. “If they like it, they like it; if they don’t, what. I mean I care, you know. I think they love it,” Horovitz continues.
“People who listen to us, they know we’re into some weird shit,” says Yauch.
You say you’re into some ‘weird shit’, what are you guys into at the moment?
“Like adult/baby stuff?” asks Horovitz suspiciously. “Big size cribs?”
“I wouldn’t really want to have one, but I’m into the sneakers that have the little rollerskate wheels on the heels,” says Diamond. “You’ll see a kid walking down the street and then all of a sudden they’ll just go into rollerskating mode.”
Now you’ve been around the UK and played Connect and Bestival, are there any bands you’ve been impressed by?
“Jamie Lidell we saw the other day. I liked what he did with a sampler and he also had MC boots on, which I was very impressed about,” says Diamond.
”He had MC boots and a garbage bag hoodie,” confirms Horovitz.
“We’ve been trying to see MIA but we keep getting to places too late,” says Diamond.
You were talking about the garbage bag hoodie...?
“It was more of a disco bag…” says Yauch.
“Well first I thought it was a disco blouse,” says Diamond. “It had kind of a silver sheen to it, so it was shiny.”
“Like a disco poncho,” says Yauch. “It was like made out of the material of a shirt that an old woman might wear on New Year’s Eve, but then in the shape of a hoodie.” He then tries to explain MC boots to a puzzled crowd. “They’re kind of like cheerleader boots.”
”How about Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five?” asks Diamond. “The Message album cover? I’m sure one of them was wearing, if not all are wearing MC boots.”
“No laces though they just slip on and cover your ankles,” says Yauch. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
You helped to set up X-Large, the clothing label - are you still involved with that and what are your thoughts are on fashion and music at the moment?
“Well obviously we’re fans of the garbage bag,” says Mike. “X-Large was started by friends of mine and then I was involved little bit in the beginning but it’s really their thing, they just kind of built it up and we focused on being a band. So no, we’re not really involved. I think there was a certain time when there were a lot of clothing lines starting out and it was an exciting time, and then kind of the same thing happened with music; a lot of those clothing lines either had to become bigger businesses or stop doing it.”
With the instrumental music, is there something inherently enjoyable about playing it, or did you just decide to do a whole album as a break from the norm?
“It’s definitely fun,” says Horovitz.
“It must use a different part of your brain, playing instrumental music. It’s nice,” says Yauch.
But when you went to the studio, did you go in thinking you were going to make an instrumental record?
A resounding no. “The last record we did was all hip hop and we pretty much made it with our programming, like drum machines. When we started on this one [The Mix-Up] we just started with the instruments and just recorded a bunch of stuff. Originally we probably thought we were going to loop stuff and put vocals on it but then a lot of it sounded cool the way it was,” says Yauch.
There was talk at some point of there being another version of the album with guest vocalists?
“We’re still talking about that,” says Yauch.
“It might happen,” says Horovitz.
“It’s all talk than action. That’s the way it usually is with us anyway, a lot more talk than action,” says Diamond.
Their next UK show is instrumental only - is that more of a challenge to reach the people in the audience?
“Truth be told, when we say ‘instrumental show’ we sort of lie a bit,” confesses Diamond. “We are liars.” How much did you lie? “It’s all hip hop.” Everyone laughs. “It’s like we’re doing instrumental stuff but then we’re doing a bunch of songs that are instruments with vocals on.”
“It’s like a show that’s based around the instruments but it’s not all instrumental, maybe half instrumental,” says Yauch.
“And it’s interesting, it’s like Adam said earlier, it’s like you’re accessing a different part of your brain somehow. It’s definitely a slightly different mentality,” agrees Diamond.
Can you talk about the dress code required for your Camden gig?
“We started recording last year and we decided that while we’re recording we’re going to get into jazz cat mode. And so we started getting all these old Sixties suits and the Rat Pack look and so every day in the studio we had to wear old suits and stuff,” says Yauch, explaining their current appearance.
“Except for Fridays. Fridays was casual,” says Diamond.
“Has to be Fifties or Sixties casual. We figured we’re doing these instrumental shows, gala event… and you’re saying that people don’t say gala event here?” says Yauch
It doesn’t translate, gala event? Or what do you mean?” asks Horovitz. They’re told we Brits use it, but rarely. “Well that’s the whole point of a gala event, it’s not an everyday occasion!”
“And that’s why the dress code - this is a gala event, we figure people dress up for once,” says Yauch.
”For men, at least a jacket would be nice. Dress to impress. Shoes, not sneakers, no flip flops,” says Diamond. “Women in a nice dress or a suit.”
“Whatever you feel is impressive,” says Horovitz.
“Or whatever you think is making it more gala,” finishes Diamond.
What are your thoughts on the current state of hip hop?
“I knew that one was coming,” comes an annoyed whisper from the front. “I think it’s totally awesome,” says Horovitz. “You know, the way people rap. It’s cool. And they cut it up, on decks. You know, we’ve been asked that question before. But rap music is kind of like the only music that’s always changing every few months, it just is always going in crazy directions so… I think it’s in a great place right now.”
In recent concerts you’ve been doing a mix of three different genres so is that going to be reflected in your next album?
“We don’t exactly have a plan, we usually just go in the studio and wait and see what happens,” says Diamond.
Are you feeling anything specific at the moment?
“Like a rap opera,” says Horovitz. “Like Trapped In The Closet.”
“I was thinking more like Starlight Express,” says Diamond. “Something like that, where we rollerblade over the audience. That could work well for us.”
Mark Ronson has just been announced as doing a BBC Electric Prom in the near future – “Did you say electric prongs?!”
“Prom, that’s like graduation, right?” says Horovitz.
“It’s like a shrimp, right? An electric shrimp,” jokes Yauch.
“So it’ll be like an orchestra and then some fool with a synthesiser?” wonders Horovitz. “Cool.” They’re told that Mark Ronson will probably go to Abbey Road and work out with the orchestra.
”He’s going to work out with them? Doing sit ups and push ups and stuff? I can’t picture Mark doing that but that’s cool,” says Diamond.“If that’s part of the show, I’m going to come over to see it,” says Yauch.
Any possibility of working with Ronson in the future?
“Uh, yeah quite possibly. You never know,” says Adam. “He’s a good guy. He’s got very good hair.”
Native.tv asks: You played Live Earth this summer. How was it for you, and is climate change something you feel quite strongly about?
“Oh, am I supposed to use this?” asks Mike, finally noticing the mic on the table in front of him. “We were happy to take part in that event as soon as we got called because it was something we felt needs people’s focus, and more importantly, needs everybody’s actions.
"The good news is that it’s something that can actually really be impacted by everybody taking action. So we were happy to do it. It’s really hard with those things to know what kind of influence it has on people’s actions and daily lives.
"I was actually surprised, I really wasn’t prepared for the degree of cynicism that it was met with. That surprised me a bit.
“With our tour this summer in the States we hooked up with this non-profit [ARIA] to make it carbon neutral. Our buses were on a bio-diesel fuel, and then the venues all co-operated in terms of recycling programmes.” There’s some discussing. “That didn’t have to do with the Live Earth concert. That’s just something we were doing.”
Do you think music is lacking in the politically active sense?
“There is that Lil' Wayne video which is on YouTube now against George Bush,” pipes up Horovitz. “I didn’t expect that one. Lil' Wayne. Rapper from America,” he adds in a small voice. “That’s what I’m saying. Lil' Wayne.”
You started a record label quite recently, what are your plans with it?
”I started a record label just recently,” says Horovitz. “It’s dubstep, kind of house-garage, with the singer from Nickelback. It’s pretty hot. Grunge, grimecore, gutter punk, two-step. We had a record label. Maybe like 15 years ago or something like that.” There’s a comment about when things stop being recent. “I shitted in Australia in an alley and that was over six months ago, and I thought that’s not really that recent.”
“That’s still recent,” says Diamond. “That’s within a year.”
It’s all a bit quiet and the Beastie Boys ask if anyone has a ringer question. “It’s like a plant,” explains Diamond. “Let’s say you have like a child’s soccer team and you bring in a grown man. That would be the ringer.”
What kind of person do you think it takes to become a Beastie Boy?
“Well I would say that it sounds shallow but you know, rugged looks,” says Horovitz.
“Do we have applications?” asks Yauch. “I might be leaving soon, so…”
“We’re always open to trades,” says Diamond. “We are in discussions with R Kelly. He only wanted to give us – what’s the woman’s name, the character in the ...Closet video? – he wanted to offer Bridget. And we want Bridget coupled with the little person. He thought that was too much of his cast, he wasn’t willing to give that up. Our tour ends in October, a couple of weeks after that it’s off-season; we’re ready to start talking about trades.”
“He tried to trade me to Blink-182 and I’m still mad about it,” says Horovitz darkly.“It’s not just us. Every band is looking to get better. It’s a competitive sport, it’s a competitive league, that’s our job. Everybody needs to get better each time.”
You did an instrumental album, but is there any instrument you would never work with, like bagpipes?
“I actually like bagpipes,” says Yauch.
“I think bagpipes could be hip hop. You don’t know. It could work out. What would I not ever work with? Hard to say. I was going to say French horn but you never know, in the right way, that could be something nice,” says Diamond.
“I don’t like the splash cymbal,” says Yauch. “You always have the drummer playing and he’s like – pssh!”
“What about on the Steve Miller Band ‘Take The Money And Run’?” asks Diamond. “The splash cymbal plays the beginning part.” They argue over whether it’s a splash cymbal or not. Horovitz has his little finger in the air. “I don’t know if you do this here but this is the symbol for ‘I’ll bet you’.”
“You know what though. Sometimes you might hear a splash just like a little crash and it happens to be a splash and you wouldn’t even know.”
“I’m just saying, for my own personal preference...” argues Yauch.“See what I have to put up with?” complains Horovitz.
And on that mildly argumentative note, it’s time to sign off. The three sharp-suited Beastie Boys stand up, incline their heads and disappear.
--------
The Beastie Boys released 'The Mix-Up' in summer 2007.
Beastie Boys
MySpace
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
Interview - Amy Macdonald
This was the day after I spoke to Craig Reid from The Proclaimers - it was obviously Scottish Week somewhere (Scotland, perhaps). Amy Macdonald was quite softly spoken. She's done really well this year and built up a solid fanbase. I saw her in April 2007 in a small London club where a bottle of beer and a coke came to about £9, a shock I've never forgotten. I've just realised the office made a fifteen minute phone call to a network in Belgium. I'd hate to think what the phone bill was for that...
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
AMY MACDONALD
“When you’re on tour you find things to amuse you and there’s a fascination with Parma ham. You need to be there to appreciate it but it’s funny,” explains 20-year-old Amy Macdonald. The Glaswegian singer/songwriter is in Belgium when we ring her for an interview. Occasionally the mobile signal disappears, and on one memorable occasion the phone cuts me off entirely, resulting in a hurried call back. She’s currently trying to explain why there’s a photograph on her website showing her signing a piece of prosciutto.
“This Parma ham started to turn up on the rider so it just got to be a bit of a running joke. Our soundman is adamant that he’s going to have a vodka Parma ham, which is just Parma ham inside a glass and vodka poured over, so I can’t wait until he tries it!”
It’s a busy time for Amy. Since her first full single release in July – ‘Mr Rock and Roll’, which reached a more than respectable 12 in the charts – her life has been a whirlwind of press, gigs supporting the likes of Travis and triumphant festival performances. At the time of the interview, Amy’s on her way to Ghent – via Paris and Brussels - where she’s opening for Paul Weller. “It’s really cool, it’s a privilege to be asked.”
Amy Macdonald is usually described by lazy writers, such as myself, as being similar to KT Tunstall. This is generally because both are Scottish and play the guitar. On stage, Amy has a striking and commanding voice; it’s large and grand and wise and towers majestically over the chords she is energetically strumming.
On the telephone, she sounds a little nervous, which is understandable; few musicians get into the business because they really, really want to be repeatedly interviewed by strangers about the same topic. Her Scottish accent is strong and there are plenty of rolled r’s in words which I didn’t even realise had r’s in them.
Her new single is ‘L.A.’. I read that it’s about the actor Jake Gyllenhaal? “It’s been taken out of context I think,” explains Amy. “I feel everyone has somebody they really idolise, be it an actor or a musician or a sports player, and the song is just about how you can have that person and you can really respect what they do and look up to them, but you should always believe in yourself and believe you can achieve just as many things.”
Incidentally, the video wasn’t filmed in LA, but the marginally less-glamorous spot of ‘near Malaga.’ “I don’t think the budgets really cover us going all the way to LA for one day to shoot a video yet!” Amy giggles. Give it a few weeks...
And ‘L.A.’ is from her debut album ‘This Is The Life’, which popped into the charts at number two. Amy was very excited by this. “It’s a real honour that people actually went out and bought it and for it to get to number two was just amazing.”
It’s especially refreshing to see that Amy is so obviously into her music and not the whole fame and celebrity tag around, as made quite clear when we get onto her album track ‘Footballer’s Wife’.
“I just found that in Britain people seem to be completely and utterly obsessed by celebrity and things like that. Out of like ten young girls asked, at least half of them said that their ambition in life is to be a WAG. It’s absolutely horrendous that it’s impacting young girls. I’m not interested in picking up a newspaper and finding out that Colleen whatever-her-face has bought a new dress, it’s absolutely ridiculous. It sounds a horrible kind of culture that Britain’s got a bit obsessed about, that people have got famous for spending their other half’s money and I think it just deserved a rant.
“There’s football in so many countries but it only seems to be Britain that kind of has this footballer’s wife obsession. Every time I go to Europe I have to explain what the song’s about ‘cause they don’t really get it. We don’t have it in Scotland at all, it’s actually only England!”And the whole Big Brother thing kind of started it as well; people on this ridiculous show so that they can be famous for five minutes and then be cast into obscurity when nobody wants to talk about them any more.”
And let's not be forgetting ‘Poison Prince’, which was given a limited release in May, and it’s about the tabloid favourite Mr Doherty. “Pete Doherty was such a talented songwriter and just an amazing musician. Now everyone knows who he is because of his drug-taking and supermodel girlfriend and nobody’s ever really heard any of his music. For me that is such a shame, it’s a huge waste because he was a really talented musician and ‘Poison Prince’ was just my song to him to basically say please come back and leave all the rubbish behind.”
Have you heard the new Babyshambles single ‘Delivery’? “I think it’s wonderful. It’s just a great song. It sounds somewhat like The Kinks in places, I think that’s just Pete’s inspiration coming through, but I was really happy when I heard it and I thought ‘Oh, Pete’s back’. But then the next day I think he got arrested, which kind of made me think ‘oh, here we go again!’”
As well as being a major Libertines fan, Amy likes bands such as The Killers, Kings of Leon and The Coral, and is currently digging the Pigeon Detectives’ album. She saw a clip of them at T in the Park: “They just seemed to be absolutely loving it and commanding the stage. It was really cool to have an up-and-coming band that are doing so well and they’ve got so many great songs that people just want to jump along to."
Ah, T in the Park. Clearly the best-known and best-loved music festival in Scotland, and this year Amy was proud to be there, on the T-Break Stage in between The Haze and Down The Tiny Steps. “Oh that was brilliant,” Amy says excitedly. “I mean obviously I’m Scottish and really proud of that and I’ve been to T in the Park for the past five years. To be asked to perform is such an honour for me, the tent was absolutely crammed, everyone seemed to have a great time and I really enjoyed it as well so it was just awesome.”
The Scottish seem really patriotic, not like the English, so you must have had some really good support there. “Well I think the Scots tend to do that, we’re really proud of good things that come from our country. Everyone gets behind you, all the Scottish press and the radio stations, and everyone just feels it’s their duty to do as much as they can for you which is just amazing because it’s great to have the country that you’re from being really supportive like that.”
Amy also played a few gigs at Scottish landmarks earlier this year – Mount Stuart, Culzean Castle and Edinburgh Castle. It must make a real change from the sweaty beery venues. ”It was really cool to play in weird venues like castles and country houses. It was really civilised.”
Of course, some sweaty beery venues are better than other. Yes, we’re talking about the Glasgow Barrowlands. The subject of Amy’s song ‘Barrowland Ballroom’ (“And when the stars shine so bright on the cold December night / I wish that I was on the stage… Well there is magic in the air I swear”), she’s incredibly excited to be playing a Christmassy gig there. “Yeah that’s just been announced. That’s amazing, I didn’t think I’d be playing there so soon. I’m so excited about it and I really can’t wait to play and I think my friends are even more excited than me. I’ve had a text today saying ‘Can I come onstage to stagedive?’”
One final thing Amy – I was looking on your forum, and there seems to be a group of people trying to guess what your favourite flavour ice cream is. Can you put us out of our misery? “I think it’s probably chocolate,” she says with a smile in her voice. Intelligent journalism at its finest. Thanks for that.
--------
Amy Macdonald releases single ‘L.A’ on October 15th through Vertigo Records. Album ‘This Is The Life’ is out now
Amy Macdonald
MySpace
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
AMY MACDONALD
“When you’re on tour you find things to amuse you and there’s a fascination with Parma ham. You need to be there to appreciate it but it’s funny,” explains 20-year-old Amy Macdonald. The Glaswegian singer/songwriter is in Belgium when we ring her for an interview. Occasionally the mobile signal disappears, and on one memorable occasion the phone cuts me off entirely, resulting in a hurried call back. She’s currently trying to explain why there’s a photograph on her website showing her signing a piece of prosciutto.
“This Parma ham started to turn up on the rider so it just got to be a bit of a running joke. Our soundman is adamant that he’s going to have a vodka Parma ham, which is just Parma ham inside a glass and vodka poured over, so I can’t wait until he tries it!”
It’s a busy time for Amy. Since her first full single release in July – ‘Mr Rock and Roll’, which reached a more than respectable 12 in the charts – her life has been a whirlwind of press, gigs supporting the likes of Travis and triumphant festival performances. At the time of the interview, Amy’s on her way to Ghent – via Paris and Brussels - where she’s opening for Paul Weller. “It’s really cool, it’s a privilege to be asked.”
Amy Macdonald is usually described by lazy writers, such as myself, as being similar to KT Tunstall. This is generally because both are Scottish and play the guitar. On stage, Amy has a striking and commanding voice; it’s large and grand and wise and towers majestically over the chords she is energetically strumming.
On the telephone, she sounds a little nervous, which is understandable; few musicians get into the business because they really, really want to be repeatedly interviewed by strangers about the same topic. Her Scottish accent is strong and there are plenty of rolled r’s in words which I didn’t even realise had r’s in them.
Her new single is ‘L.A.’. I read that it’s about the actor Jake Gyllenhaal? “It’s been taken out of context I think,” explains Amy. “I feel everyone has somebody they really idolise, be it an actor or a musician or a sports player, and the song is just about how you can have that person and you can really respect what they do and look up to them, but you should always believe in yourself and believe you can achieve just as many things.”
Incidentally, the video wasn’t filmed in LA, but the marginally less-glamorous spot of ‘near Malaga.’ “I don’t think the budgets really cover us going all the way to LA for one day to shoot a video yet!” Amy giggles. Give it a few weeks...
And ‘L.A.’ is from her debut album ‘This Is The Life’, which popped into the charts at number two. Amy was very excited by this. “It’s a real honour that people actually went out and bought it and for it to get to number two was just amazing.”
It’s especially refreshing to see that Amy is so obviously into her music and not the whole fame and celebrity tag around, as made quite clear when we get onto her album track ‘Footballer’s Wife’.
“I just found that in Britain people seem to be completely and utterly obsessed by celebrity and things like that. Out of like ten young girls asked, at least half of them said that their ambition in life is to be a WAG. It’s absolutely horrendous that it’s impacting young girls. I’m not interested in picking up a newspaper and finding out that Colleen whatever-her-face has bought a new dress, it’s absolutely ridiculous. It sounds a horrible kind of culture that Britain’s got a bit obsessed about, that people have got famous for spending their other half’s money and I think it just deserved a rant.
“There’s football in so many countries but it only seems to be Britain that kind of has this footballer’s wife obsession. Every time I go to Europe I have to explain what the song’s about ‘cause they don’t really get it. We don’t have it in Scotland at all, it’s actually only England!”And the whole Big Brother thing kind of started it as well; people on this ridiculous show so that they can be famous for five minutes and then be cast into obscurity when nobody wants to talk about them any more.”
And let's not be forgetting ‘Poison Prince’, which was given a limited release in May, and it’s about the tabloid favourite Mr Doherty. “Pete Doherty was such a talented songwriter and just an amazing musician. Now everyone knows who he is because of his drug-taking and supermodel girlfriend and nobody’s ever really heard any of his music. For me that is such a shame, it’s a huge waste because he was a really talented musician and ‘Poison Prince’ was just my song to him to basically say please come back and leave all the rubbish behind.”
Have you heard the new Babyshambles single ‘Delivery’? “I think it’s wonderful. It’s just a great song. It sounds somewhat like The Kinks in places, I think that’s just Pete’s inspiration coming through, but I was really happy when I heard it and I thought ‘Oh, Pete’s back’. But then the next day I think he got arrested, which kind of made me think ‘oh, here we go again!’”
As well as being a major Libertines fan, Amy likes bands such as The Killers, Kings of Leon and The Coral, and is currently digging the Pigeon Detectives’ album. She saw a clip of them at T in the Park: “They just seemed to be absolutely loving it and commanding the stage. It was really cool to have an up-and-coming band that are doing so well and they’ve got so many great songs that people just want to jump along to."
Ah, T in the Park. Clearly the best-known and best-loved music festival in Scotland, and this year Amy was proud to be there, on the T-Break Stage in between The Haze and Down The Tiny Steps. “Oh that was brilliant,” Amy says excitedly. “I mean obviously I’m Scottish and really proud of that and I’ve been to T in the Park for the past five years. To be asked to perform is such an honour for me, the tent was absolutely crammed, everyone seemed to have a great time and I really enjoyed it as well so it was just awesome.”
The Scottish seem really patriotic, not like the English, so you must have had some really good support there. “Well I think the Scots tend to do that, we’re really proud of good things that come from our country. Everyone gets behind you, all the Scottish press and the radio stations, and everyone just feels it’s their duty to do as much as they can for you which is just amazing because it’s great to have the country that you’re from being really supportive like that.”
Amy also played a few gigs at Scottish landmarks earlier this year – Mount Stuart, Culzean Castle and Edinburgh Castle. It must make a real change from the sweaty beery venues. ”It was really cool to play in weird venues like castles and country houses. It was really civilised.”
Of course, some sweaty beery venues are better than other. Yes, we’re talking about the Glasgow Barrowlands. The subject of Amy’s song ‘Barrowland Ballroom’ (“And when the stars shine so bright on the cold December night / I wish that I was on the stage… Well there is magic in the air I swear”), she’s incredibly excited to be playing a Christmassy gig there. “Yeah that’s just been announced. That’s amazing, I didn’t think I’d be playing there so soon. I’m so excited about it and I really can’t wait to play and I think my friends are even more excited than me. I’ve had a text today saying ‘Can I come onstage to stagedive?’”
One final thing Amy – I was looking on your forum, and there seems to be a group of people trying to guess what your favourite flavour ice cream is. Can you put us out of our misery? “I think it’s probably chocolate,” she says with a smile in her voice. Intelligent journalism at its finest. Thanks for that.
--------
Amy Macdonald releases single ‘L.A’ on October 15th through Vertigo Records. Album ‘This Is The Life’ is out now
Amy Macdonald
MySpace
Interview - Craig Reid (The Proclaimers)
One of the bosses got very excited when I was offered a phone interview with a Proclaimer, for 1) they're musical legends and 2) it meant he could entertain the office with terrible Scottish accents, wailing 'Take a loooooooook / up the railtraaaaack'. Being so established, it was tricky racking my brains to come up with original questions. This was a nightmare to transcribe as the dictaphone picked up a nearby building site rather than Craig's quiet voice.
I'm still not sure which one's Craig and which one's Charlie. Thankfully I've never been called upon to identify either.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
CRAIG REID - THE PROCLAIMERS
Everyone’s favourite Scottish twins The Proclaimers are preparing themselves for a lengthy tour this autumn. No jokes about walking 500 miles between venues please; we expect they’ve been heard many times before. We picked up the phone to Craig Reid (he’s the one who isn’t called Charlie) and asked him a few questions…
Hello, is that Craig?
Speaking, yeah.
You’re not tempted to pretend to be your brother and make stuff up?
No! [laughs] To be honest with you, it would probably be pretty much the same answers if you spoke to him.
You might get in trouble for that. What have you been up to this week?
This week so far we’ve been doing promotion and rehearsals. Went down to London to do a couple of things.
Have you been to see your musical?
I saw it the second to last night it was on at Glasgow. I would have seen it in Edinburgh but we were recording the new album at the time. I thought it was great.
It’s a play about two guys coming out of the army and going back to Edinburgh. It’s not a Proclaimers musical, it uses our songs but I thought they did a good job and I think they’re doing it again next year in Scotland and are thinking about taking it other places.
Your last album ‘Life With You’, are you pleased at how it’s gone down?
It’s fantastic to me. We’re proud of the records we made the last few years but this has got far more attention. It’s selling a lot better than the last few, it went in the charts so we’re very pleased with that.
You’re quite keen on your political issues, there’s a few songs on the album against the war in Iraq. Can you tell me some more about those?
Well there’s ‘The Long Haul’ which is really dealing with the idea that we’ve got to accept that this supposed war on terror - thirty, forty, fifty years they’re going to have to be doing whatever we’re doing.
And there’s also a song called ‘S-O-R-R-Y’ which is basically about the number of journalists, particularly newspaper columnists who were very keen on getting us into Iraq, they all thought it was going to be over quite soon. There’s certainly been a number who have admitted they were wrong but there’s a huge number who still won’t apologise for their part.
You’ve always been quite political in your lyrics haven’t you?
Yeah, it’s still a minority on this record [indistinct] it’s just the way it’s come out in this record, there’s probably four or five political ones on this album, maybe one or two on the last few records.
You’re in a good position to tell people your views aren’t you?
Yeah, you can’t ram it down their throats, I think you’ve got to try and do it in an entertaining way with a bit of wit and a bit of humour. But I think that if you have political views and you’re an artist then occasionally they’re liable to come out in your work. And I think there is a wealth of subject matter in the world at the moment, there’s no shortage of material.
Skip forward a bit… you’ve got a UK tour coming up, are you looking forward to it?
Very much. We’re starting in just over three weeks.
You’ve already sold out all the Scottish dates!
Yeah, we’ve actually added a few just before Christmas. But the Glasgow one sold out in the first day. This is by far the biggest UK tour we’ve been on, with the extra dates in Northern Europe it’s going to take us right up to Christmas. And then we’ll probably go to Australia and New Zealand.
No rest for the wicked.
The touring is the best part of it for us by far.
It’s why you join a band isn’t it, to play to others. Are there any bands you’re listening to yourself at the moment?
Yeah, there’s plenty of good stuff about. The Fratellis are great, The View, The Zutons.
‘I’m Going To Be (500 Miles).’ Are you fed up of it yet? And I’m sure you’re asked this question in every single interview and I’m very sorry.
No. It’s done very well for us. It’s opened up the whole world for us, we’ve been all over the world with that song.
It’s been covered quite a few times, is there anyone you’d like to see cover it?
I don’t know! [laughs] Someone multi-million selling, that would be good! I think it’s a coverable song, I think it’s one of those songs that’s easy to sing, anybody could do it really. So anybody that wants to do it is more than welcome!
How about the Peter Kay thing earlier this year?
Peter Kay got in contact with our manager exactly a year ago and suggested doing it and he’d already been in contact with Matt Lucas. He didn’t know that Matt Lucas was a big Proclaimers fan.
When we heard what they wanted to do we said yes straight away and we did the video in December last year. We really enjoyed doing the whole thing. It took me about ten views of that video to work out exactly who everybody was!
I read that in 2003 you came fifth in the Glasgow Herald’s poll to find the Most Scottish People In The World. What are you going to do to make that coveted number one spot?
Ohh, I think you’ve just got to be who you are, you know. I’m not bothered if we’re first or if we’re a hundred and first. I’m not sure how you can measure Scottishness!
I read that your brother had laser eye surgery?
No, somebody asked him that the other day. He said that he’d consider it so he’s not actually had it yet. But he wears the contact lenses quite a lot when he’s out.
One last question – I was looking on your forum and someone said they had a dream there was a statue of you in Edinburgh. Is that something you’d approve of?
That’s not something I’d approve of. I’ve always been of the opinion that statues should only be for dead people. Once we’re dead I’m sure we’ll be quickly forgotten but once we’re dead, if someone wants to do that that’s up to them.
Still got life in you yet.
Yeah, I think so!
--------
The Proclaimers are touring the UK in October, starting in Carlisle's Sands Centre on October 3rd and finishing in Aberdeen's Exhibition Centre on November 17th.
The Proclaimers
MySpace
I'm still not sure which one's Craig and which one's Charlie. Thankfully I've never been called upon to identify either.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
CRAIG REID - THE PROCLAIMERS
Everyone’s favourite Scottish twins The Proclaimers are preparing themselves for a lengthy tour this autumn. No jokes about walking 500 miles between venues please; we expect they’ve been heard many times before. We picked up the phone to Craig Reid (he’s the one who isn’t called Charlie) and asked him a few questions…
Hello, is that Craig?
Speaking, yeah.
You’re not tempted to pretend to be your brother and make stuff up?
No! [laughs] To be honest with you, it would probably be pretty much the same answers if you spoke to him.
You might get in trouble for that. What have you been up to this week?
This week so far we’ve been doing promotion and rehearsals. Went down to London to do a couple of things.
Have you been to see your musical?
I saw it the second to last night it was on at Glasgow. I would have seen it in Edinburgh but we were recording the new album at the time. I thought it was great.
It’s a play about two guys coming out of the army and going back to Edinburgh. It’s not a Proclaimers musical, it uses our songs but I thought they did a good job and I think they’re doing it again next year in Scotland and are thinking about taking it other places.
Your last album ‘Life With You’, are you pleased at how it’s gone down?
It’s fantastic to me. We’re proud of the records we made the last few years but this has got far more attention. It’s selling a lot better than the last few, it went in the charts so we’re very pleased with that.
You’re quite keen on your political issues, there’s a few songs on the album against the war in Iraq. Can you tell me some more about those?
Well there’s ‘The Long Haul’ which is really dealing with the idea that we’ve got to accept that this supposed war on terror - thirty, forty, fifty years they’re going to have to be doing whatever we’re doing.
And there’s also a song called ‘S-O-R-R-Y’ which is basically about the number of journalists, particularly newspaper columnists who were very keen on getting us into Iraq, they all thought it was going to be over quite soon. There’s certainly been a number who have admitted they were wrong but there’s a huge number who still won’t apologise for their part.
You’ve always been quite political in your lyrics haven’t you?
Yeah, it’s still a minority on this record [indistinct] it’s just the way it’s come out in this record, there’s probably four or five political ones on this album, maybe one or two on the last few records.
You’re in a good position to tell people your views aren’t you?
Yeah, you can’t ram it down their throats, I think you’ve got to try and do it in an entertaining way with a bit of wit and a bit of humour. But I think that if you have political views and you’re an artist then occasionally they’re liable to come out in your work. And I think there is a wealth of subject matter in the world at the moment, there’s no shortage of material.
Skip forward a bit… you’ve got a UK tour coming up, are you looking forward to it?
Very much. We’re starting in just over three weeks.
You’ve already sold out all the Scottish dates!
Yeah, we’ve actually added a few just before Christmas. But the Glasgow one sold out in the first day. This is by far the biggest UK tour we’ve been on, with the extra dates in Northern Europe it’s going to take us right up to Christmas. And then we’ll probably go to Australia and New Zealand.
No rest for the wicked.
The touring is the best part of it for us by far.
It’s why you join a band isn’t it, to play to others. Are there any bands you’re listening to yourself at the moment?
Yeah, there’s plenty of good stuff about. The Fratellis are great, The View, The Zutons.
‘I’m Going To Be (500 Miles).’ Are you fed up of it yet? And I’m sure you’re asked this question in every single interview and I’m very sorry.
No. It’s done very well for us. It’s opened up the whole world for us, we’ve been all over the world with that song.
It’s been covered quite a few times, is there anyone you’d like to see cover it?
I don’t know! [laughs] Someone multi-million selling, that would be good! I think it’s a coverable song, I think it’s one of those songs that’s easy to sing, anybody could do it really. So anybody that wants to do it is more than welcome!
How about the Peter Kay thing earlier this year?
Peter Kay got in contact with our manager exactly a year ago and suggested doing it and he’d already been in contact with Matt Lucas. He didn’t know that Matt Lucas was a big Proclaimers fan.
When we heard what they wanted to do we said yes straight away and we did the video in December last year. We really enjoyed doing the whole thing. It took me about ten views of that video to work out exactly who everybody was!
I read that in 2003 you came fifth in the Glasgow Herald’s poll to find the Most Scottish People In The World. What are you going to do to make that coveted number one spot?
Ohh, I think you’ve just got to be who you are, you know. I’m not bothered if we’re first or if we’re a hundred and first. I’m not sure how you can measure Scottishness!
I read that your brother had laser eye surgery?
No, somebody asked him that the other day. He said that he’d consider it so he’s not actually had it yet. But he wears the contact lenses quite a lot when he’s out.
One last question – I was looking on your forum and someone said they had a dream there was a statue of you in Edinburgh. Is that something you’d approve of?
That’s not something I’d approve of. I’ve always been of the opinion that statues should only be for dead people. Once we’re dead I’m sure we’ll be quickly forgotten but once we’re dead, if someone wants to do that that’s up to them.
Still got life in you yet.
Yeah, I think so!
--------
The Proclaimers are touring the UK in October, starting in Carlisle's Sands Centre on October 3rd and finishing in Aberdeen's Exhibition Centre on November 17th.
The Proclaimers
MySpace
Interview - Ali Love
Ali Love is great to talk to. We did a lot of taking the mick out of each other, copying each other's accents saying 'Yeah man! Yeah man!' Er, maybe you had to be there. When his phone cut out, his PR assured me he was very disappointed and he'd call back later on.
I'm still waiting!
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
ALI LOVE
Ali Love has a particular fondness for stir-fry spicy broccoli. He’s eating breakfast (at lunchtime) at his local Vietnamese when we call. It’s a regular haunt which he enjoys because they give him extra portions. I have a baked potato for my lunch, I say. Love imitates my Hampshire accent with a giggle then accuses me of sounding like his ex-girlfriend “which is quite strange. You better not be.”
Ali Love is bringing back disco. We’re not sure where from, but he’s grabbed hold of its shiny lapels, covered it in soul and funky house, and is currently painting it gold and spacey while leading it towards the dancefloor and thrusting a lightsaber in its hand. Love was once described by Drowned in Sound as ‘Skewered genius or a glorified fuck-up? You decide...’ (They later referred to him as ‘techno tit’, but that would make a great t-shirt slogan). Lovers of the underground scene may be familiar with ‘electro-punk’ ‘Lost In The K-Hole’, released in limited amounts on Love’s own I Love Records.
“I just put that out about a year or so ago just to see what happened you know? Luckily it did well. That label’s still kicking around. Obviously I got signed to Columbia but if I see a band I really like I’ll put a record out. It is a real label,” he assures me, “so if ever I make any money then I’ll maybe set it up properly and put some more stuff out on it, not just my own.”
Those of you less familiar with the dark side of the dance floor may have heard Mr Love’s dulcet tones as the vocalist for the Chemical Brothers ‘Do It Again’. The Bros heard ‘Lost In The K-Hole’ and Ed met up with Love. “I just got on well with him and we had the same taste in music and stuff, and then he gave us a call about a week or so later and just asked if I wanted to have a go at doing the vocals. And the actual day itself was just very easy, it’s one of those days where the tune writes itself.”
This means that Love has started to see the odd side of fame. “A lot of my mates have been to festivals and I’m always getting phone calls like ‘I’ve just seen your face 100ft-high in Glastonbury’ or something and I’m like, oh God, that’s weird. It’s quite funny, they made me do a really scary face so I look quite psychotic.” And that’s not your normal look. I’ll write that down. “No. I’m a lover, not a hater.” Ali Love, not Hate. “Yeah man.”
He asks where I’m based and on learning it’s in the south he asks if there are any beaches nearby. Not really, just a harbour with some pebbles a few miles away. “I like beaches. Anyway sorry. I digress.” We can talk about beaches if you like. What’s your favourite beach, Mr Love? “I don’t know.” You don’t get many in London. “No. They don’t have that many beaches in London,” he says curtly. “Sorry, I’m eating my food. How rude.”
The young Ali first got into music as a youngster, beatboxing in the school field with his friends and “making up little stupid raps. The first kind of music I was really into was kind of electro, I was only about five and that’s when electro was kind of going on. All my brothers were breakdancers so I used to go and watch them breakdance in the street.”
Now he manages to write, play and produce all his own songs. After working as a session bassist from the age of 18, he turned to the guitar and then the keyboards. “By the time I got to making this record I could play quite a lot of the instruments so I didn’t really need to get that many people in. Obviously when you do it live I’ve got a band, The Lovers.”
‘This record’ he refers to is album ‘Love Music’, which also includes previous single ‘Secret Sunday Lover’ and the gloriously smooth ‘Late Night Session.’ “That’s a night at a club that I used to run myself, which is a club below my house. So my bedroom used to be the VIP room and it was a wild time. Actually the music that was played there was more like electro but the sort of style I did it in was more Kool & The Gang or something like that. It’s a public service record. It’s to make people happy.”
Love is currently more than pleased that it’s been b-listed and was played by Terry Wogan just the other day. “That is brilliant, isn’t it?” he says. “Big up to Wogan. Wogan and Steve Wright, when I was little, watching Terry Wogan you know; I’m so glad he played my record and that made me happy. I used to listen to Steve Wright as well. He really likes it, he’s been singing along to it. So Radio 2’s where it’s at man, I’m really happy with that. A big hello to all the Radio 2 listeners out there.”
Yes, hello. Love almost didn’t get into music as a career though, and still isn’t quite sure how he managed it. “I wanted to be a comic drawer. I don’t know why I’m doing music! That’s all I really wanted to do when I was little, I just wanted to draw comics.”
Do you do your own little Ali Love comics? “I’m so busy I hardly ever get the time to do them, to be honest. I think I’m going to try and get a hit record out and then if I’ve got any spare time I’m going to try and do a comic and actually try and get it published. That would be really great. It would be very spacey I think, and psychedelic.”
Although you might be thinking ‘Ali Love, Radio 2’ and then making assumptions about his listeners, you might be interested to know that he played the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour earlier with Pull Tiger Tail, I Say Marvin and Hadouken! “Hadouken! were good. I like that band. They’re really good energy, young kids running around, jumping up and down, they’re cool. It’s always good being on tour and having fun and it was the first time I tested out my new band. We didn’t have one argument between us and it’s a real smooth running machine, it was really good for that.”
Did you get all the scene MySpace kids turning up? “Yeah there’s quite a lot of that stuff. A few stage invasions!” You sound a bit surprised, not used to those? “No, not used to them. [laughs] Don’t really do that kind of music. Strange.”
I tell Love I saw the video to ‘Secret Sunday Lover’ and thought it looked great fun. He agrees that it was. “I tried to do a kind of Buck Rogers joke, Flash Gordon type thing, just for my enjoyment. It was great, it felt like being on the set of a sci-fi video, it was so much fun. Made me wish I was one of those actors you know, like on Battlestar Galactica or something.”
You could send out the video as a sort of casting thing? Anytime there’s a sci-fi film going. ‘Here’s my reel’. “Yeah, could do that, you’re right,” he laughs. The song itself is about the club ‘Secret Sundaze’ which Love recommends as a “really good club that’s really dedicated to the cutting edge of modern electronic music. They’re always pushing things forward.”
I look at my notes as Love munches his broccoli. There appears to be the word ‘lightsaber' written down. “I mean, I can’t drive, and my rent is £300 a month so I don’t have much money to spend on stuff, so I thought I’d go and buy a load of expensive lightsabers,” explains Love. “I’ve got one for each member of the band so we can walk on with lightsabers.”
Soon Love will be touring with fellow Londoner Just Jack and uber-producer Mark Ronson. “Just Jack is a very good friend of mine. I’ve actually recorded two songs on his album with him, so me and him go way back. I used to play in his band as a session musician, I used to play guitar with him about three years ago. [clatter of cutlery] So I think it’ll be good getting on stage with him.”
And Mark Ronson too, are you excited about that? “Yeah, I think he’s really cool. He’s a great producer. I really respect what he does.” His album’s wicked. “The Amy Winehouse production is out of this world. He’s really nailed that vibe, you know. So I’m very happy, I’m really looking forward to meeting him. He’s on the same label as me but I haven’t actually bumped into him yet.”
Ah. “Yeah. Yeah man!” Man! “Yeah man!” Bump into him and steal off his rider, man! “Yeah man!” Yeah man! “Yeah man! Yeah!”
With that profound sentence out of the way, I ask if Love has anything up his sleeves for the live shows. “I’m practising spins at the moment, like Prince. You know where Prince goes down, grabs the mic and kicks it over and then pulls it back up. I’ve been practising my guitar solos as well. So, spins and guitar solos, you can write.”
Sadly at this point the phone cuts out, probably after being dropped in someone's breakfast, but I think we’re pretty much finished. And besides, we both have food to eat.
--------
Ali Love releases 'Late Night Sessions' on 1st October (download; 8th October physical) through Columbia. Album 'Love Music' is out on 24th September
Ali Love
MySpace
I'm still waiting!
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
ALI LOVE
Ali Love has a particular fondness for stir-fry spicy broccoli. He’s eating breakfast (at lunchtime) at his local Vietnamese when we call. It’s a regular haunt which he enjoys because they give him extra portions. I have a baked potato for my lunch, I say. Love imitates my Hampshire accent with a giggle then accuses me of sounding like his ex-girlfriend “which is quite strange. You better not be.”
Ali Love is bringing back disco. We’re not sure where from, but he’s grabbed hold of its shiny lapels, covered it in soul and funky house, and is currently painting it gold and spacey while leading it towards the dancefloor and thrusting a lightsaber in its hand. Love was once described by Drowned in Sound as ‘Skewered genius or a glorified fuck-up? You decide...’ (They later referred to him as ‘techno tit’, but that would make a great t-shirt slogan). Lovers of the underground scene may be familiar with ‘electro-punk’ ‘Lost In The K-Hole’, released in limited amounts on Love’s own I Love Records.
“I just put that out about a year or so ago just to see what happened you know? Luckily it did well. That label’s still kicking around. Obviously I got signed to Columbia but if I see a band I really like I’ll put a record out. It is a real label,” he assures me, “so if ever I make any money then I’ll maybe set it up properly and put some more stuff out on it, not just my own.”
Those of you less familiar with the dark side of the dance floor may have heard Mr Love’s dulcet tones as the vocalist for the Chemical Brothers ‘Do It Again’. The Bros heard ‘Lost In The K-Hole’ and Ed met up with Love. “I just got on well with him and we had the same taste in music and stuff, and then he gave us a call about a week or so later and just asked if I wanted to have a go at doing the vocals. And the actual day itself was just very easy, it’s one of those days where the tune writes itself.”
This means that Love has started to see the odd side of fame. “A lot of my mates have been to festivals and I’m always getting phone calls like ‘I’ve just seen your face 100ft-high in Glastonbury’ or something and I’m like, oh God, that’s weird. It’s quite funny, they made me do a really scary face so I look quite psychotic.” And that’s not your normal look. I’ll write that down. “No. I’m a lover, not a hater.” Ali Love, not Hate. “Yeah man.”
He asks where I’m based and on learning it’s in the south he asks if there are any beaches nearby. Not really, just a harbour with some pebbles a few miles away. “I like beaches. Anyway sorry. I digress.” We can talk about beaches if you like. What’s your favourite beach, Mr Love? “I don’t know.” You don’t get many in London. “No. They don’t have that many beaches in London,” he says curtly. “Sorry, I’m eating my food. How rude.”
The young Ali first got into music as a youngster, beatboxing in the school field with his friends and “making up little stupid raps. The first kind of music I was really into was kind of electro, I was only about five and that’s when electro was kind of going on. All my brothers were breakdancers so I used to go and watch them breakdance in the street.”
Now he manages to write, play and produce all his own songs. After working as a session bassist from the age of 18, he turned to the guitar and then the keyboards. “By the time I got to making this record I could play quite a lot of the instruments so I didn’t really need to get that many people in. Obviously when you do it live I’ve got a band, The Lovers.”
‘This record’ he refers to is album ‘Love Music’, which also includes previous single ‘Secret Sunday Lover’ and the gloriously smooth ‘Late Night Session.’ “That’s a night at a club that I used to run myself, which is a club below my house. So my bedroom used to be the VIP room and it was a wild time. Actually the music that was played there was more like electro but the sort of style I did it in was more Kool & The Gang or something like that. It’s a public service record. It’s to make people happy.”
Love is currently more than pleased that it’s been b-listed and was played by Terry Wogan just the other day. “That is brilliant, isn’t it?” he says. “Big up to Wogan. Wogan and Steve Wright, when I was little, watching Terry Wogan you know; I’m so glad he played my record and that made me happy. I used to listen to Steve Wright as well. He really likes it, he’s been singing along to it. So Radio 2’s where it’s at man, I’m really happy with that. A big hello to all the Radio 2 listeners out there.”
Yes, hello. Love almost didn’t get into music as a career though, and still isn’t quite sure how he managed it. “I wanted to be a comic drawer. I don’t know why I’m doing music! That’s all I really wanted to do when I was little, I just wanted to draw comics.”
Do you do your own little Ali Love comics? “I’m so busy I hardly ever get the time to do them, to be honest. I think I’m going to try and get a hit record out and then if I’ve got any spare time I’m going to try and do a comic and actually try and get it published. That would be really great. It would be very spacey I think, and psychedelic.”
Although you might be thinking ‘Ali Love, Radio 2’ and then making assumptions about his listeners, you might be interested to know that he played the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour earlier with Pull Tiger Tail, I Say Marvin and Hadouken! “Hadouken! were good. I like that band. They’re really good energy, young kids running around, jumping up and down, they’re cool. It’s always good being on tour and having fun and it was the first time I tested out my new band. We didn’t have one argument between us and it’s a real smooth running machine, it was really good for that.”
Did you get all the scene MySpace kids turning up? “Yeah there’s quite a lot of that stuff. A few stage invasions!” You sound a bit surprised, not used to those? “No, not used to them. [laughs] Don’t really do that kind of music. Strange.”
I tell Love I saw the video to ‘Secret Sunday Lover’ and thought it looked great fun. He agrees that it was. “I tried to do a kind of Buck Rogers joke, Flash Gordon type thing, just for my enjoyment. It was great, it felt like being on the set of a sci-fi video, it was so much fun. Made me wish I was one of those actors you know, like on Battlestar Galactica or something.”
You could send out the video as a sort of casting thing? Anytime there’s a sci-fi film going. ‘Here’s my reel’. “Yeah, could do that, you’re right,” he laughs. The song itself is about the club ‘Secret Sundaze’ which Love recommends as a “really good club that’s really dedicated to the cutting edge of modern electronic music. They’re always pushing things forward.”
I look at my notes as Love munches his broccoli. There appears to be the word ‘lightsaber' written down. “I mean, I can’t drive, and my rent is £300 a month so I don’t have much money to spend on stuff, so I thought I’d go and buy a load of expensive lightsabers,” explains Love. “I’ve got one for each member of the band so we can walk on with lightsabers.”
Soon Love will be touring with fellow Londoner Just Jack and uber-producer Mark Ronson. “Just Jack is a very good friend of mine. I’ve actually recorded two songs on his album with him, so me and him go way back. I used to play in his band as a session musician, I used to play guitar with him about three years ago. [clatter of cutlery] So I think it’ll be good getting on stage with him.”
And Mark Ronson too, are you excited about that? “Yeah, I think he’s really cool. He’s a great producer. I really respect what he does.” His album’s wicked. “The Amy Winehouse production is out of this world. He’s really nailed that vibe, you know. So I’m very happy, I’m really looking forward to meeting him. He’s on the same label as me but I haven’t actually bumped into him yet.”
Ah. “Yeah. Yeah man!” Man! “Yeah man!” Bump into him and steal off his rider, man! “Yeah man!” Yeah man! “Yeah man! Yeah!”
With that profound sentence out of the way, I ask if Love has anything up his sleeves for the live shows. “I’m practising spins at the moment, like Prince. You know where Prince goes down, grabs the mic and kicks it over and then pulls it back up. I’ve been practising my guitar solos as well. So, spins and guitar solos, you can write.”
Sadly at this point the phone cuts out, probably after being dropped in someone's breakfast, but I think we’re pretty much finished. And besides, we both have food to eat.
--------
Ali Love releases 'Late Night Sessions' on 1st October (download; 8th October physical) through Columbia. Album 'Love Music' is out on 24th September
Ali Love
MySpace
Interview - Kennedy
Someone else I hadn't heard of at all, but he turned out to be very funny and cheeky; always makes someone nice to chat to on the phone. Kennedy sounded a bit like a cult character, though to my knowledge he never really broke through here.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
KENNEDY
On Mothers' Day, the technicolour video to Kennedy's tongue-in-cheek song about loving your mama was featured on YouTube's homepage, proving that someone there has a sense of humour. Named as one of the frontrunners in the world of dirty pop, Jack Kennedy's music is cheeky with a strong lick of funk and his album has been described as ‘an attention whore’. We spoke to him about classical music, running for presidency and why he didn’t get into acting in advertisements.
Hello, is that Mr Kennedy?
It is!
How are you enjoying yourself in London at the moment?
I love it here. I got in and I went straight to the Notting Hill Carnival and hung out there.
Were you watching it or were you in it?
I was just a civilian drinking Red Stripe and listening to huge soundsystems play dub. I didn’t even know what it was. I got off the plane, got to where I’m staying, walked outside and I was like ‘What the heck is this? Is it like this all the time?’
What kind of music do you listen to yourself?
I listen to a lot of hip hop, a lot of classic rock. As a kid I was really into The Cure and The Smiths, those were like my two favourite bands. A lot of 50 Cent, a lot of Kanye West. And I also listen to a lot of classical because I have this really old car back in the States and it only has AM radio, and so the only station it gets that’s not talk is classical. But it’s cool, I like classical. It’s better for your mind than listening to repetitive music all the time.
My car’s rubbish, it only takes cassettes.
Can you still buy cassettes? Once I got an iPod I was like, I hold onto special cassettes that I like, but my CDs are all gone.
Copied and chucked out?
I sold them all and bought some crack. Only kidding.
Your hometown is Thousand Oaks isn’t it?
Wow, you’ve done some research!
Yep, I read the press release.
It’s like a suburb of Los Angeles. I’d say it was like the Woodford Green of Los Angeles.
Are you missing it at the moment?
No, not really! I live in LA now. I’m a big fan of LA and I’m a big fan of London. It’s kind of a toss-up as to which city I like better.
How did you get into music as your career?
I started playing in high school. My friend had a The Cure cover band so I played bass with them. I didn’t really know how to play that well but they were patient, helped me along. And then as the years went by I got better and then more comfortable and started writing my own songs, started my own band, and then started my own band under my own name and that was it. I did a lot of touring around California - I lived in my van for a while - and it was just on an acoustic guitar. I did a lot of covers too, it was like me trying to do T.Rex songs.
You’ve been sort of pigeonholed as dirty pop, do you know much about that genre?
I’ve heard a little bit about it. I don’t even know how you would define it, but yeah people are calling my stuff dirty pop. It has a good ring to it. I think there’s a song out right now called ‘Mr DJ’ and that’s by a dirty pop artist called Charlean Dance.
What can people expect to see in your performances?
Well you get to see one of the world’s greatest white male dancers. Me. We try to bring like a party to the shows.
Party hats, jelly and ice cream?
Whistles, pin the tail on the donkey.
Is it not dangerous playing those games with a lot of alcohol around?
Yeah. We don’t like to play darts either while we’re on stage.
I was looking on your MySpace. Apparently you’ve got Moses and Jesus in your band. That’s quite a coup, how did you pull that one off?
It’s the holy trinity of rock bands, or of pop bands I guess. Yeah I phoned up their agents and they got back to me. It’s funny because Jesus has the same agent as Lily Allen. You would never think. Buddha’s kind of got an Eastern vibe, but it all works out.
It’s good you can sort of bring it all together like that. I also read you got kicked out of Silversun Pickups.
For setting the singer’s sweater on fire, yeah [sighs]. It was an accident, but it was a very very special sweater for him and he had a tough time letting it go. But he’s long since forgiven me and we’re still close friends. I think they’re one of the best rock bands coming out of the States right now. I play the bartender in their video and the girl working the door was their original drummer.
You’ve had a few songs in movies haven’t you?
I had a song called ‘Karate’ in a movie called The Namesake which I still haven’t seen, I heard it was a really good movie. And I heard it was kind of a serious movie too, I thought that was surprising. ‘Karate’ is not like ‘We Shall Overcome’ or anything like that.
I used to do karate. Would I learn anything from that song?
It would make you an instant black belt. I’m a pink belt.
Good belt. What sort of movies would you like to get your songs into?
I think anything other than a Hummer commercial. It’s great to have your songs in movies that you like, as opposed to Hulk which wasn’t that great a movie. But I guess sometimes you take what you can get too.
Have you done much acting yourself?
A little bit. I have an agent back in the States. I dressed up really Seventies and was roller-skating around this roller rink, and there was this agent there and she’s like ‘You’d be great in commercials.’ I was like, I’ll give it a shot. So she sent me on these auditions but I never really landed anything.
Did you have to roller-skate for all of them?
No [laughs]
That’s why you didn’t get them!
I kid you not, the first one I auditioned for, I get there and it’s for a car commercial and they’re like ‘OK we need you to strip down to your underwear and come back out on camera’. I was like ‘I thought this was for a car commercial?’ ‘It is.’ ‘Oh, right.’ And so next thing I know I’m standing in front of the camera in my underwear and they’re asking me to pretend I’m being stung by mosquitoes. I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t think this acting thing is for me.’
Who would play you if there was a film about Kennedy?
I don’t know, it would have to take a lot of casting. You could probably get Macauley Culkin, how old’s he now?
I don’t know, about 52 or something?
Yeah. You could get him to play my grandfather.
Your next single is ‘Your Mama.’ Can you tell me a bit about it?
It’s a fantastic song. Oh my God you’ve got to check out the video! The video actually makes the song. But yeah, it’s an autobiographical piece about a woman that my mum hooked me up with, one of her friends. We dated for a little bit and then we stopped and about six months later I started dating her daughter. So that was the inspiration behind the song.
Keep it in the family.
[laughs] Yeah. Not always the best idea. It’s a fun track. There’s a couple of really good remixes of it too. I think when you see the video it will all hit home for you.
And that’s off your album ‘Kennedy For President’?
Yeah, I’m running for president of the world.
How are you getting on?
Well I’m taking it one vote at a time. Do I have your vote? Sweet. Yeah, it’s one vote at a time, it’s tough but I think at this point people will vote for me over George Bush any day.
I think you probably have a better chance. Have you got any campaign slogans?
Yeah, it's ‘Kennedy For President – Let’s Do It Again.’ Which you can take however you want.
Back to the album, what’s your favourite track off there?
I like ‘Karate’ and I really like ‘Mama Made Me A Pimp’. The process of recording was so easy, it came out really naturally. Those are songs I really look forward to playing. Where I’m writing a song I’m thinking if I have to play this song every night for the next forty years, I’m gonna want to do that.
What do you want people to feel when they listen to your music?
Horny. And also I want them to move. We have a real obesity problem in the States and so we need to get people moving around more, so that’s kind of a goal.
You can put that in your presidency campaign.
[laughs] Combating obesity!
--------
Kennedy releases single ‘Your Mama’ on September 24th and album ‘Kennedy For President’ on October 8th through Atlantic. Vote Kennedy, and combat obesity.
MySpace
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
KENNEDY
On Mothers' Day, the technicolour video to Kennedy's tongue-in-cheek song about loving your mama was featured on YouTube's homepage, proving that someone there has a sense of humour. Named as one of the frontrunners in the world of dirty pop, Jack Kennedy's music is cheeky with a strong lick of funk and his album has been described as ‘an attention whore’. We spoke to him about classical music, running for presidency and why he didn’t get into acting in advertisements.
Hello, is that Mr Kennedy?
It is!
How are you enjoying yourself in London at the moment?
I love it here. I got in and I went straight to the Notting Hill Carnival and hung out there.
Were you watching it or were you in it?
I was just a civilian drinking Red Stripe and listening to huge soundsystems play dub. I didn’t even know what it was. I got off the plane, got to where I’m staying, walked outside and I was like ‘What the heck is this? Is it like this all the time?’
What kind of music do you listen to yourself?
I listen to a lot of hip hop, a lot of classic rock. As a kid I was really into The Cure and The Smiths, those were like my two favourite bands. A lot of 50 Cent, a lot of Kanye West. And I also listen to a lot of classical because I have this really old car back in the States and it only has AM radio, and so the only station it gets that’s not talk is classical. But it’s cool, I like classical. It’s better for your mind than listening to repetitive music all the time.
My car’s rubbish, it only takes cassettes.
Can you still buy cassettes? Once I got an iPod I was like, I hold onto special cassettes that I like, but my CDs are all gone.
Copied and chucked out?
I sold them all and bought some crack. Only kidding.
Your hometown is Thousand Oaks isn’t it?
Wow, you’ve done some research!
Yep, I read the press release.
It’s like a suburb of Los Angeles. I’d say it was like the Woodford Green of Los Angeles.
Are you missing it at the moment?
No, not really! I live in LA now. I’m a big fan of LA and I’m a big fan of London. It’s kind of a toss-up as to which city I like better.
How did you get into music as your career?
I started playing in high school. My friend had a The Cure cover band so I played bass with them. I didn’t really know how to play that well but they were patient, helped me along. And then as the years went by I got better and then more comfortable and started writing my own songs, started my own band, and then started my own band under my own name and that was it. I did a lot of touring around California - I lived in my van for a while - and it was just on an acoustic guitar. I did a lot of covers too, it was like me trying to do T.Rex songs.
You’ve been sort of pigeonholed as dirty pop, do you know much about that genre?
I’ve heard a little bit about it. I don’t even know how you would define it, but yeah people are calling my stuff dirty pop. It has a good ring to it. I think there’s a song out right now called ‘Mr DJ’ and that’s by a dirty pop artist called Charlean Dance.
What can people expect to see in your performances?
Well you get to see one of the world’s greatest white male dancers. Me. We try to bring like a party to the shows.
Party hats, jelly and ice cream?
Whistles, pin the tail on the donkey.
Is it not dangerous playing those games with a lot of alcohol around?
Yeah. We don’t like to play darts either while we’re on stage.
I was looking on your MySpace. Apparently you’ve got Moses and Jesus in your band. That’s quite a coup, how did you pull that one off?
It’s the holy trinity of rock bands, or of pop bands I guess. Yeah I phoned up their agents and they got back to me. It’s funny because Jesus has the same agent as Lily Allen. You would never think. Buddha’s kind of got an Eastern vibe, but it all works out.
It’s good you can sort of bring it all together like that. I also read you got kicked out of Silversun Pickups.
For setting the singer’s sweater on fire, yeah [sighs]. It was an accident, but it was a very very special sweater for him and he had a tough time letting it go. But he’s long since forgiven me and we’re still close friends. I think they’re one of the best rock bands coming out of the States right now. I play the bartender in their video and the girl working the door was their original drummer.
You’ve had a few songs in movies haven’t you?
I had a song called ‘Karate’ in a movie called The Namesake which I still haven’t seen, I heard it was a really good movie. And I heard it was kind of a serious movie too, I thought that was surprising. ‘Karate’ is not like ‘We Shall Overcome’ or anything like that.
I used to do karate. Would I learn anything from that song?
It would make you an instant black belt. I’m a pink belt.
Good belt. What sort of movies would you like to get your songs into?
I think anything other than a Hummer commercial. It’s great to have your songs in movies that you like, as opposed to Hulk which wasn’t that great a movie. But I guess sometimes you take what you can get too.
Have you done much acting yourself?
A little bit. I have an agent back in the States. I dressed up really Seventies and was roller-skating around this roller rink, and there was this agent there and she’s like ‘You’d be great in commercials.’ I was like, I’ll give it a shot. So she sent me on these auditions but I never really landed anything.
Did you have to roller-skate for all of them?
No [laughs]
That’s why you didn’t get them!
I kid you not, the first one I auditioned for, I get there and it’s for a car commercial and they’re like ‘OK we need you to strip down to your underwear and come back out on camera’. I was like ‘I thought this was for a car commercial?’ ‘It is.’ ‘Oh, right.’ And so next thing I know I’m standing in front of the camera in my underwear and they’re asking me to pretend I’m being stung by mosquitoes. I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t think this acting thing is for me.’
Who would play you if there was a film about Kennedy?
I don’t know, it would have to take a lot of casting. You could probably get Macauley Culkin, how old’s he now?
I don’t know, about 52 or something?
Yeah. You could get him to play my grandfather.
Your next single is ‘Your Mama.’ Can you tell me a bit about it?
It’s a fantastic song. Oh my God you’ve got to check out the video! The video actually makes the song. But yeah, it’s an autobiographical piece about a woman that my mum hooked me up with, one of her friends. We dated for a little bit and then we stopped and about six months later I started dating her daughter. So that was the inspiration behind the song.
Keep it in the family.
[laughs] Yeah. Not always the best idea. It’s a fun track. There’s a couple of really good remixes of it too. I think when you see the video it will all hit home for you.
And that’s off your album ‘Kennedy For President’?
Yeah, I’m running for president of the world.
How are you getting on?
Well I’m taking it one vote at a time. Do I have your vote? Sweet. Yeah, it’s one vote at a time, it’s tough but I think at this point people will vote for me over George Bush any day.
I think you probably have a better chance. Have you got any campaign slogans?
Yeah, it's ‘Kennedy For President – Let’s Do It Again.’ Which you can take however you want.
Back to the album, what’s your favourite track off there?
I like ‘Karate’ and I really like ‘Mama Made Me A Pimp’. The process of recording was so easy, it came out really naturally. Those are songs I really look forward to playing. Where I’m writing a song I’m thinking if I have to play this song every night for the next forty years, I’m gonna want to do that.
What do you want people to feel when they listen to your music?
Horny. And also I want them to move. We have a real obesity problem in the States and so we need to get people moving around more, so that’s kind of a goal.
You can put that in your presidency campaign.
[laughs] Combating obesity!
--------
Kennedy releases single ‘Your Mama’ on September 24th and album ‘Kennedy For President’ on October 8th through Atlantic. Vote Kennedy, and combat obesity.
MySpace
Interview - Rooney
Not the footballer... Everyone was getting on with life at Universal / Polydor HQ and I was waiting to be called to interview when there was a fire drill. I presume it was a drill anyway. Journalists, bands, and record label staff all milled out in the streets waiting to go back in.
It all felt a bit odd because it always take people a while to warm up to being questioned by a stranger, plus the band were trying to eat lunch, plus a couple of them wore sunglasses throughout the whole interview. Still, it all came together all right.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
ROONEY
Rooney - the band - is cool. I know this because two of them are sitting inside wearing sunglasses. This makes it very hard to make eye contact and I spend a fair bit of time staring at the bowls of crisps and mystery sandwiches on the table.
It’s lunchtime – I was meant to be in the interview room a while ago, but a fire drill left bands and visitors alike standing in the street looking lost for a bit. Now Rooney – aka Ned, Matthew, Louis, Robert and Taylor – are trying to eat their lunch while I ask them questions.
Charismatic frontman Robert Schwartzman is actually out of the room at the start; singers are always super-popular so I think he’s doing another interview down the hall. Louis Stephens looks like he could be in Kings of Leon – chiselled face, long straight hair. Matthew Winter and Ned Brower are hiding under sunnies, though Ned is easily recognisable with his shock of hair and lime green shirt. I’m sat next to laidback and baby-faced guitarist Taylor Locke.
The interview gets off to an excellent start with Ned knocking over a bottle of Sprite onto the table.
“Does baby want a napkin?” asks Matt as Ned watches the puddle progress slowly across the table towards him. Should we take bets on how long it takes for that to fall on your lap? I ask. Ned decides wiping it up would be a better idea and disappears in search of tissues.
Matt fills me in on how the band began. Robert and Taylor met at one of Robert’s brother’s gig when they were both around 15 and after a while decided to form their own band.
“I was the only bass player Robert knew in high school and Robert, even though we weren’t the best of friends he asked me to try out for his band.” Matt giggles slightly. Ned was ‘a friend of friend’, and Taylor knew Louis from school.
“Yeah, we’d go to Taylor’s house and practice in his garage after school,” says Louis. “And his parents were very accommodating, like surrogate parents for a while. We drank and ate a lot of their food and drink."
Do you remember your first gig with your current line up? “Yeah, Knitting Factory, right?” says Matt. Were you knitting? “I was knitting before the show.”
“It’s a venue that’s in LA and New York,” explains Ned. “That was our first gig. It was cool. We played around LA a lot, built up a good following. By the time we were finishing school the labels started to take notice that we were filling up these clubs, so we got a record deal and started making an album and touring professionally and that was in 2002.”
This is where the UK and the US differs. The band have been well-known in the States for some time, but over here they haven’t. Does it feel weird being new again?
“No, it’s awesome,” says Taylor instantly.
“It’s great. It makes me feel like a boy again,” says Ned. “We’re excited to be back and doing this stuff you know.”
“We want to really concentrate on playing over here a lot on this record which we didn’t do nearly enough at all on the first album,” says Taylor. “After this tour we’re gonna come right back in November and maybe do more dates.”
Ah, this tour. Rooney play a few dates in the UK in September – support courtesy of Nick Harrison: “The label hooked him up with us,” explains Matt - before moving onto the wide world of Europe.
“We have a show in Switzerland supporting Ash,” says Louis. “We’ve liked that band since we first started so that’s pretty cool.” They’re doing some festivals as well, including Belgium’s Leffingleuren.
“I know Robert, who can’t be with us here right now, I know he’s very excited about Italy. I think I’m pretty excited to go to Switzerland…” begins Ned.
“Zurich, Amsterdam…” says Taylor.
“Yeah, everywhere basically. And Germany, we’d like to go back there, we have friends there.”
“It’s very exciting to be here in Europe,” affirms Louis.
‘Calling The World’. That is your latest album. “It’s tearing up the charts in the States,” says Taylor.
“Ascending the charts like a flag on a flag pole, and it took us approximately three years to complete because we made three different versions of the album,” explains Louis. “The first album we made we weren’t happy with and we left and went on tour for a while to regain our confidence, and then we made another record that we weren’t happy with so we went on tour for a while after that, and then the third year of record making was when we made ‘Calling The World’ and everybody seemed to be really happy with it our end and everybody around us, so that’s when we finally had to put it out. It’s been a long time since we had a new record out.”
Do you think your sound’s evolved much since your first album? “I think from basically taking a bunch of passes at our album, we were in like five or six different studios with different engineers and we figured out how to get sounds, how to do the things we wanted to do in our studio. I think we’re more accomplished.”
Any favourite tracks on there? “I like a song called ‘Are You Afraid’,” says Matt. “Keyboard sounds. When I was a keyboard player I liked to…”
“Make sounds,” says Taylor.
“...make sounds.”
“With a keyboard,” adds Taylor. “The third track ‘I Should Have Been After You’ is a lot of fun to play live.”
“All the songs kind of have a different face or personality, so depending on my mood I listen to different stuff. Some of it has a little bit of country some of it’s a little bit harder rock, some of it is ballad. I kind of like all the songs but it just depends what day it is,” says Ned. What day is it today? “I don’t know.” Too early to decide? “I don’t even know what day it is. Thursday? Cool.”
“You should be really proud of knowing that one,” says Matt.
“I felt like it was getting towards the end of the week but it wasn’t quite there,” says Ned.
As well as their own songs, the band are noted for their covers of Queen and The Ramones. “Johnny Ramone was a big fan of the band and a friend, so right after we recorded our first record he approached us about doing a song for their tribute record, so we picked ‘Here Today Gone Tomorrow’ because we thought that one had some room to grow. We had a lot of fun doing it and we played it live a lot for a couple of years. We’re actually talking about bringing it back into the live set,” says Matt.
“And then (‘Death On Two Legs’) we did for the Queen tribute record, which is definitely a challenge ‘cause with Queen you’re not only trying to make it your own but it’s also a struggle just to play the parts that those guys play, ‘cause they’re all really great musicians. So that was fun and challenging.”
Is there anyone you’d have in mind to cover your songs? “The Jonas Brothers.”
Ned chuckles. “There’s this funny kid band in America, they’re kind of popular. It’s like three brothers, they’re young teenagers, and they apparently covered our new single, which is odd because it just came out.” You haven’t heard it yet then? “No, I haven’t.” You probably want to avoid hearing that. “I think so!”
You know the band are getting somewhere in the UK when they appear on This Morning. For any Americans – or Brits who work and don’t have the opportunity to watch such televisual gems – it’s a morning magazine show with agony aunts, makeovers, weather reports, etc etc etc. Rooney turned up the day before this interview to play their latest single.
“Mickey Rooney was the other guest,” says Taylor. Did they have some kind of Rooney theme going on? “I think it was a coincidence.”
“You think it was a coincidence?” asks Ned. “Really?”
“I guess it was fate,” says Matt settling that matter.
“So we got to meet him. He is very… small,” says Taylor. “And very old. And we did our song.”
“We met the host and she was very nice,” says Louis. “And the guy from a soap opera cooked food. The guy from the crying show, you know this show where this man cries? It was like a bad soap opera.” Quality TV.
Embarrassing moments. I was looking on your forum and there seem to be a lot of fans who get all embarrassed when meeting you. Have you ever embarrassed yourself in front of people you admire?
“I know there have been some people who I’ve met where I’ve got really geeked out,” says Ned.“I think I embarrass myself once in a while,” says Louis. “And I block it out as best I can.” Alcohol-related? “Yeah. I had a really embarrassing moment in front of Kenny G. I wanted to just tell him how I felt and instead I think I said something like ‘Mr G, I want to be with you.’”
“He’s like, call me Kenny!” laughs Ned.
“He freaked out and said ‘Please call me Kenny.’ Anyway, it worked itself out.”
“I grabbed a girl’s butt who I thought was my girlfriend at the time but it was actually my friend’s girlfriend,” confesses Ned. “I grabbed her behind in her jeans. I walked up behind her and stuck my hands on her bare butt.”
“Really?” says Louis in surprise.
“And squeezed. And then she turned round and I saw her face.”
“Oh my God,” says Matt.
“And she turned round - and that was one of my most embarrassing moments.” You look slightly traumatised now just thinking about it. “Yeah!”
“Quite lucky though too,” muses Louis.
“It was a mixed blessing.”
Back to the music side of things – new single ‘Where Did Your Heart Go Missing?’ is out on September 10th. What’s your video like for it? “The video we shot in Los Angeles and it kind of represents a day in our collective lives,” says Ned. “It was loosely based on a Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre video but we did our own Rooney version of that with this hip hop director named Benny Boom. It was his first rock video. So it was an interesting collaboration and it was fun to make.”
“An LA day from the beach to Hollywood and inbetween,” explains Taylor. “(LA)’s a nice place to go back to when we’re not on tour. We have a lot of fans there.” Do you miss it much at the moment? “The weather’s been really nice since we got here. Better than the other times we’ve been here.”
“I’m enjoying the fall,” says Ned. Autumn. It’s autumn… “The cooler air here. Being at home is muggy in the States, where we just were.” They describe the music scene in Los Angeles as “eclectic” with pockets of scenes spread across the city, including metal (and skiffle, according to Ned).
Cheerful Robert pops in for the last question – sadly he can’t shake hands as he’s got crisps on them - and he lists plenty of the bands he’s just put on his MP3 player: “Steely Dan’s life’s work, Todd Rundgren’s life’s work, Utopia - which was a Todd Rundgren project - Michael Jackson, Prince, ELO, vocal warm ups, I’ve got the Bee Gees greatest hits, The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Ronettes, Frank Vallie and the Four Seasons.”
“DJ Bobby!” proclaim his bandmates, and they laugh.
Anyway it's a busy day of interviews they've got ahead, so I leave them to their spilt drinks and crisps...
--------
Rooney release album ‘Calling The World’ through Cherry Tree Records / Geffen on September 10th
Rooney
MySpace
It all felt a bit odd because it always take people a while to warm up to being questioned by a stranger, plus the band were trying to eat lunch, plus a couple of them wore sunglasses throughout the whole interview. Still, it all came together all right.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in September 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
ROONEY
Rooney - the band - is cool. I know this because two of them are sitting inside wearing sunglasses. This makes it very hard to make eye contact and I spend a fair bit of time staring at the bowls of crisps and mystery sandwiches on the table.
It’s lunchtime – I was meant to be in the interview room a while ago, but a fire drill left bands and visitors alike standing in the street looking lost for a bit. Now Rooney – aka Ned, Matthew, Louis, Robert and Taylor – are trying to eat their lunch while I ask them questions.
Charismatic frontman Robert Schwartzman is actually out of the room at the start; singers are always super-popular so I think he’s doing another interview down the hall. Louis Stephens looks like he could be in Kings of Leon – chiselled face, long straight hair. Matthew Winter and Ned Brower are hiding under sunnies, though Ned is easily recognisable with his shock of hair and lime green shirt. I’m sat next to laidback and baby-faced guitarist Taylor Locke.
The interview gets off to an excellent start with Ned knocking over a bottle of Sprite onto the table.
“Does baby want a napkin?” asks Matt as Ned watches the puddle progress slowly across the table towards him. Should we take bets on how long it takes for that to fall on your lap? I ask. Ned decides wiping it up would be a better idea and disappears in search of tissues.
Matt fills me in on how the band began. Robert and Taylor met at one of Robert’s brother’s gig when they were both around 15 and after a while decided to form their own band.
“I was the only bass player Robert knew in high school and Robert, even though we weren’t the best of friends he asked me to try out for his band.” Matt giggles slightly. Ned was ‘a friend of friend’, and Taylor knew Louis from school.
“Yeah, we’d go to Taylor’s house and practice in his garage after school,” says Louis. “And his parents were very accommodating, like surrogate parents for a while. We drank and ate a lot of their food and drink."
Do you remember your first gig with your current line up? “Yeah, Knitting Factory, right?” says Matt. Were you knitting? “I was knitting before the show.”
“It’s a venue that’s in LA and New York,” explains Ned. “That was our first gig. It was cool. We played around LA a lot, built up a good following. By the time we were finishing school the labels started to take notice that we were filling up these clubs, so we got a record deal and started making an album and touring professionally and that was in 2002.”
This is where the UK and the US differs. The band have been well-known in the States for some time, but over here they haven’t. Does it feel weird being new again?
“No, it’s awesome,” says Taylor instantly.
“It’s great. It makes me feel like a boy again,” says Ned. “We’re excited to be back and doing this stuff you know.”
“We want to really concentrate on playing over here a lot on this record which we didn’t do nearly enough at all on the first album,” says Taylor. “After this tour we’re gonna come right back in November and maybe do more dates.”
Ah, this tour. Rooney play a few dates in the UK in September – support courtesy of Nick Harrison: “The label hooked him up with us,” explains Matt - before moving onto the wide world of Europe.
“We have a show in Switzerland supporting Ash,” says Louis. “We’ve liked that band since we first started so that’s pretty cool.” They’re doing some festivals as well, including Belgium’s Leffingleuren.
“I know Robert, who can’t be with us here right now, I know he’s very excited about Italy. I think I’m pretty excited to go to Switzerland…” begins Ned.
“Zurich, Amsterdam…” says Taylor.
“Yeah, everywhere basically. And Germany, we’d like to go back there, we have friends there.”
“It’s very exciting to be here in Europe,” affirms Louis.
‘Calling The World’. That is your latest album. “It’s tearing up the charts in the States,” says Taylor.
“Ascending the charts like a flag on a flag pole, and it took us approximately three years to complete because we made three different versions of the album,” explains Louis. “The first album we made we weren’t happy with and we left and went on tour for a while to regain our confidence, and then we made another record that we weren’t happy with so we went on tour for a while after that, and then the third year of record making was when we made ‘Calling The World’ and everybody seemed to be really happy with it our end and everybody around us, so that’s when we finally had to put it out. It’s been a long time since we had a new record out.”
Do you think your sound’s evolved much since your first album? “I think from basically taking a bunch of passes at our album, we were in like five or six different studios with different engineers and we figured out how to get sounds, how to do the things we wanted to do in our studio. I think we’re more accomplished.”
Any favourite tracks on there? “I like a song called ‘Are You Afraid’,” says Matt. “Keyboard sounds. When I was a keyboard player I liked to…”
“Make sounds,” says Taylor.
“...make sounds.”
“With a keyboard,” adds Taylor. “The third track ‘I Should Have Been After You’ is a lot of fun to play live.”
“All the songs kind of have a different face or personality, so depending on my mood I listen to different stuff. Some of it has a little bit of country some of it’s a little bit harder rock, some of it is ballad. I kind of like all the songs but it just depends what day it is,” says Ned. What day is it today? “I don’t know.” Too early to decide? “I don’t even know what day it is. Thursday? Cool.”
“You should be really proud of knowing that one,” says Matt.
“I felt like it was getting towards the end of the week but it wasn’t quite there,” says Ned.
As well as their own songs, the band are noted for their covers of Queen and The Ramones. “Johnny Ramone was a big fan of the band and a friend, so right after we recorded our first record he approached us about doing a song for their tribute record, so we picked ‘Here Today Gone Tomorrow’ because we thought that one had some room to grow. We had a lot of fun doing it and we played it live a lot for a couple of years. We’re actually talking about bringing it back into the live set,” says Matt.
“And then (‘Death On Two Legs’) we did for the Queen tribute record, which is definitely a challenge ‘cause with Queen you’re not only trying to make it your own but it’s also a struggle just to play the parts that those guys play, ‘cause they’re all really great musicians. So that was fun and challenging.”
Is there anyone you’d have in mind to cover your songs? “The Jonas Brothers.”
Ned chuckles. “There’s this funny kid band in America, they’re kind of popular. It’s like three brothers, they’re young teenagers, and they apparently covered our new single, which is odd because it just came out.” You haven’t heard it yet then? “No, I haven’t.” You probably want to avoid hearing that. “I think so!”
You know the band are getting somewhere in the UK when they appear on This Morning. For any Americans – or Brits who work and don’t have the opportunity to watch such televisual gems – it’s a morning magazine show with agony aunts, makeovers, weather reports, etc etc etc. Rooney turned up the day before this interview to play their latest single.
“Mickey Rooney was the other guest,” says Taylor. Did they have some kind of Rooney theme going on? “I think it was a coincidence.”
“You think it was a coincidence?” asks Ned. “Really?”
“I guess it was fate,” says Matt settling that matter.
“So we got to meet him. He is very… small,” says Taylor. “And very old. And we did our song.”
“We met the host and she was very nice,” says Louis. “And the guy from a soap opera cooked food. The guy from the crying show, you know this show where this man cries? It was like a bad soap opera.” Quality TV.
Embarrassing moments. I was looking on your forum and there seem to be a lot of fans who get all embarrassed when meeting you. Have you ever embarrassed yourself in front of people you admire?
“I know there have been some people who I’ve met where I’ve got really geeked out,” says Ned.“I think I embarrass myself once in a while,” says Louis. “And I block it out as best I can.” Alcohol-related? “Yeah. I had a really embarrassing moment in front of Kenny G. I wanted to just tell him how I felt and instead I think I said something like ‘Mr G, I want to be with you.’”
“He’s like, call me Kenny!” laughs Ned.
“He freaked out and said ‘Please call me Kenny.’ Anyway, it worked itself out.”
“I grabbed a girl’s butt who I thought was my girlfriend at the time but it was actually my friend’s girlfriend,” confesses Ned. “I grabbed her behind in her jeans. I walked up behind her and stuck my hands on her bare butt.”
“Really?” says Louis in surprise.
“And squeezed. And then she turned round and I saw her face.”
“Oh my God,” says Matt.
“And she turned round - and that was one of my most embarrassing moments.” You look slightly traumatised now just thinking about it. “Yeah!”
“Quite lucky though too,” muses Louis.
“It was a mixed blessing.”
Back to the music side of things – new single ‘Where Did Your Heart Go Missing?’ is out on September 10th. What’s your video like for it? “The video we shot in Los Angeles and it kind of represents a day in our collective lives,” says Ned. “It was loosely based on a Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre video but we did our own Rooney version of that with this hip hop director named Benny Boom. It was his first rock video. So it was an interesting collaboration and it was fun to make.”
“An LA day from the beach to Hollywood and inbetween,” explains Taylor. “(LA)’s a nice place to go back to when we’re not on tour. We have a lot of fans there.” Do you miss it much at the moment? “The weather’s been really nice since we got here. Better than the other times we’ve been here.”
“I’m enjoying the fall,” says Ned. Autumn. It’s autumn… “The cooler air here. Being at home is muggy in the States, where we just were.” They describe the music scene in Los Angeles as “eclectic” with pockets of scenes spread across the city, including metal (and skiffle, according to Ned).
Cheerful Robert pops in for the last question – sadly he can’t shake hands as he’s got crisps on them - and he lists plenty of the bands he’s just put on his MP3 player: “Steely Dan’s life’s work, Todd Rundgren’s life’s work, Utopia - which was a Todd Rundgren project - Michael Jackson, Prince, ELO, vocal warm ups, I’ve got the Bee Gees greatest hits, The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Ronettes, Frank Vallie and the Four Seasons.”
“DJ Bobby!” proclaim his bandmates, and they laugh.
Anyway it's a busy day of interviews they've got ahead, so I leave them to their spilt drinks and crisps...
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Rooney release album ‘Calling The World’ through Cherry Tree Records / Geffen on September 10th
Rooney
MySpace
Interview - Brinkman
Brinkman were absolutely lovely, three cheerful, funny guys who were completely at ease with each other and with me in the room. They even left me a MySpace comment saying it was the best interview of the day. Aww. I often wonder what happened to the band because I've not heard a peep about them since; probably cast aside after the music industry, particularly the major labels, suffered financial woe. And that makes me sad.
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in August 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
BRINKMAN
This feels a bit like a job interview, or maybe an episode of The Apprentice. All three members of Brinkman are sat facing me across a large boardroom table at their record label’s HQ. “You’re fired!” they joke.
On the left is Neil Kerly, wisecracking drummer. Curly-haired singer Paul Cook is in the middle, and on the right is bearded bassist Tom Brown. Neil and Paul met in their mid-teens and bonded over a boxset from The Jam – little knowing they’d be supporting Paul Weller in the future - decided to form a band and have been working their way up since then. Tom is a relatively new recruit, having answered their ad in NME a couple of years ago. Their first gig was at Lennon’s Nightclub in Southampton, though they don’t remember too much as a late start meant one or two of them might have been drinking beforehand. Brinkman's music is cheerful indie pop and has been likened to the Kinks and the Beatles as well as securing them a touring spot with Travis. ‘Kirsten Dunst’, released on Label Fandango, picked up a bit of a cult following and the actress herself was ‘extremely flattered’ by the ode.
“It was a year ago literally last weekend that we signed to EMI,” remembers Neil. “It’s been a fruitful journey, let’s say.” Actually they’re signed to offshoot His Master's Voice, the famous label which was previously resurrected for Morrissey in the early 90s.
“We stormed in here and said: ‘We’ll only sign to you pencilpushers if we can have our own label.’ We didn’t even know it was His Master's Voice, we just wanted a dog on a gramophone,” says Paul.
“Stroke of luck really, wasn’t it?” Neil deadpans.
“They started going on about Morrissey, and we were just ‘Who is this Morrissey fellow? Just give us the dog on a gramophone.’ And that was it really,” says Paul. He pauses. “There’s more to it than that, obviously.”
So, likes and dislikes. I found a Brinkman press release from a few years ago and it said they like underdogs and mild cussing but don’t like avocado bathrooms –“Who does?” interrupts Neil. Paul throws his head back and laughs. Well I’ll keep that in the list of dislikes. But do you have anything else to add?
“You know when you’re sitting on the bus or public transport and people go through their ringtones? I really dislike that,” says Neil.
“Or playing actual songs. You get crap quality,” says Tom.
“I can’t make my mind up about anything. I like everything and I dislike everything,” says Paul.
“You like a Chicken Kiev on a Thursday,” prompts Neil.
“I like a Chicken Kiev, and I dislike the Enemy. I quite like Tom, and I dislike…”
“Me!” laughs Neil. “Brilliant.”
Now Brinkman all live and work in London - Tom moved from Bournemouth to join - but what’s the best thing about the city? Tom cites the multiculturalism before starting an argument with Neil over whether the answer is actually Crystal Palace or Tottenham Hotspur. “This is why (Paul) has to sit in the middle.”
“The red buses are the best thing about London for me,” says Tom.
“The clean air,” says Paul. The air you can chew on? Neil cracks up. “Black bogeys!”
If you could invent anything, what would it be? “Ahhh brilliant!” yells Neil. “An iron with a radio on it. Wouldn’t you buy that?” I don’t really iron. “If you ironed. Or a flashdrive so you could put your MP3s into it.”
“I don’t understand what you just said there,” says Tom. “What’s a flashdrive?”
“A memory stick. Put some songs on it. Put it in your iron. Listen to them while you iron.”
“While you iron? Why not turn the radio on?” Neil ignores Tom and professes his idea ‘brilliant’.
"Why is it every invention you come up with has to be built into a iron?” asks Paul.
“Isn’t that a great idea?” asks Neil, looking to me for support. Yes. “Thank you.”
“I had an idea last night,” begins Paul. “I’m not sure if it’s really an invention, but you tell me if this exists already, right. Obviously you call 999. Can you text the police?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I’ll tell you for why. Which is also the title of our album. You’re in bed. It’s summer so your window’s open. Someone climbs into your room –“
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” notes Tom.
“– and holds you at gunpoint and says ‘I’m going to rob your house and take everything, you just stay there in bed.’ If you get your phone and make a call, they’re going to hear you. If you’re under the covers and you’ve got your phone, they’re not going to know anything. You’re just going to text the police with robbery happening, your address…”
“What if they nick your phone?” asks Neil wickedly.
“Well, then you’re screwed.”
Neil has been shuffling and reading all the cards when he gets bored. He takes one and passes it to Tom. It’s about their brief TV episodes, which you can view on their website under 'Brinkman TV'.
“They’re quite amusing aren’t they,” says Paul, and someone – probably Neil – snorts. Is it a regular thing or is it a one-off when you get bored? “It was supposed to be a regular thing, but then we got bored!”
“Paul got burgled and he had his video nicked,” jokes Tom.
”He ran out of characters on his text!” says Neil.
“He didn’t have any credit!”
“We’d like to do it more,” says Paul, “but sometimes when you get the camera out and you stick it in someone’s face they just don’t feel like being funny, you know. And essentially that has to revolve around Neil. Neil is the epicentre of Brinkman humour.”
I did enjoy the dancing in the one I watched. “Choreographed, that was. I don’t know if you can tell.”
Earlier this year, Brinkman played a 14-date tour supporting Travis across the UK, which the band say was ‘brilliant,’ citing Travis’ fans relentless enthusiasm and the pleasure in playing to full houses as opposed to a ‘half-full Barfly.’ After these shows came a few with Paul Weller, who was playing warm-up gigs before his Glastonbury performance.
“We’re all big Paul Weller fans so it was quite an honour,” says Neil.
“But we had to pretend that we weren’t massive Paul Weller fans because the worse thing you can do is if he’d come over and introduced himself and we’d been like [gaping mouths].” finishes Tom.
“I was considering saying ‘You’re in my top five songwriters of all time,’ but then I thought about that a bit too much, and what if he hated one of the others,” says Paul. “There was an awkward moment where – I’m quite paranoid, so I don’t know if this is the way it actually happened or not – but when he first came over to me he went ‘Are you in Brinkman?’ and I was like ‘Yeah’ and I went ‘Paul’ as in my name and put my hand out, and he went ‘Paul Weller!’
"I’m not sure if he was just saying his name – it was all to do with the tone of the voice – or whether he was saying ‘No, not Paul. You will address me as Paul Weller, or Mr Weller, or The Guv’nor.’”
“Or The Modfather,” suggests Tom.
“Yeah. I don’t think he’d like that.”
What were the fans like, did you make a lot of new ones? “We did actually. I think equal amounts on both,” says Neil.
“It was quite eerie on the Paul Weller dates seeing how many Paul Weller clones there were in the audience,” says Tom. “There’s Paul Weller! There’s Paul Weller! Everyone dresses up exactly the same.”
“I think maybe the best Travis gig on the whole tour was Birmingham. We’ve played there a couple of times before and it’s just always been raining or cold, but the audience were just incredible. Two of these fans who were down the front for Travis turned up the last night of Paul Weller, with a ‘WE LOVE BRINKMAN’ banner which I took from them during the last song and held up just so everyone knew our name. But it was upside-down, so that helped,” says Paul.
As for their own gigs, Brinkman have just finished a residency at Water Rats in London. “It was supposed to be four nights in a row for a month and then the Paul Weller dates came up and other things so it got spread out all to nearly three months. It’s been good to have our own slot even if it was stretched out you get the chance to muck about and do different songs,” explains Tom. One of their shows saw support from The Disciplines, whose lead singer plays keyboards with REM and the previous night had been at the O2 Arena.
Are you playing any festivals this year? “We’re doing V Festival, which is our first festival, so naturally we’re very excited about that,” says Neil. “I think we’re mid-long in the day. Or thereabouts. Which is good ‘cause we can do our bit and then go and watch some other bands. If we haven’t got to rush off to Stafford that is.”
Who else is playing that you want to catch? “The Foo Fighters are playing on our day,” says Tom. “I haven’t seen them before and I think they’re one of those bands you’ve got to tick off, especially now they’re getting into one of those supergroups.”
“I want to hear the Foo Fighters do that Gillette advert one,” says Paul. “Love that one.” There’s giggling.
Have you got any festival tips or advice? “Wet Wipes, wellies…” begins Neil.
“The Three Ws!” exclaims Paul.
“Well that’s two. To be honest I haven’t done that many festivals.”
“Wet Wipes, wellies and waterproofs,” says Tom. “Nice!” says Neil.
“And wodka,” says Paul. “I’ve never been invited to a festival so I don’t know.” I don’t generally think they invite you, I think you’re meant to buy tickets. “Oh is that the way it works! I’ve never been,” he laughs.
‘Change It’ is the band’s most recent single. I ask what it’s about. “Do you want the long or short answer?” asks Paul. Neil requests the short one.
“It’s about when you get like a wrong perception of someone in the papers. It’s essentially about Pete Doherty, I suppose," says Paul. "I was quite a fan of him when he was in the Libertines. Everyone knew he was a bit of a tearaway but then when he started Babyshambles and the press really rounded on him and made him this figure, I couldn’t help but start believing some of that myself and start changing my opinion of him which was wrong.
“When me and Tom lived in Ealing last year I went out and I wasn’t feeling that confident about what I was wearing. The wind was really bad and I was wearing this flat cap and I was feeling quite conscious of it. I heard someone beep their horn and I looked across - it was Pete Doherty driving this old Jag and he just went [gives thumbs up] as if to okay what I was wearing. And I just sort of dumbly went [gives double thumbs up with daft puzzled face] back at him. And from then on I thought ‘Oh what a lovely guy.’ So I felt bad about potentially changing my opinion of him.”
“Going back to that one…” says Neil, and waves the Likes and Dislikes card. Pete Doherty is now added to the list of likes.
“And I dislike myself for maybe not liking him.”
“Oh this has all gone wrong!” says Neil.
They’ve been told they were ‘too nice’ during the making of the 'Change It' promo video. “I think the next video, if it’s like that, I’m just going to be a right git,” says Paul. “I heard a certain frontman – who I won’t mention – every few seconds of film he goes and checks. They run it by him and he has to go ‘No, do that again.’ So the director is redundant. I mean, you’ve got to have a certain amount of faith in the director.”
They produced the video to previous single ‘I Wish’ themselves, with a budget of £36.70, most of that probably going on the tea in the Thermos. “Neil wrote and directed it, me and Tom starred in it. Along with Neil. So that was great, really fun actually. We argued a little bit, but I think that’s natural when you’re in a band.”
“No it’s not,” says Tom.
Brinkman’s album was finished a couple of months ago. “Just got to wait for the right time to drop it,” says Neil.“Like it’s hot,” says Tom.Sadly hot is what it's not at the moment. It's time to step into the pouring rain and leave Brinkman to their boardroom chats about trance remixes, dogs on gramophones and Neil's guilty love of Wilson Phillips' 'Hold On' ("It’s a shockingly bad song, but a great song with it"). Perhaps they went to practice 'Return Of The Mack', which was recently given an airing on Dermot O'Leary's radio show...
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Brinkman release 'Change It' through His Master's Voice on 30th July. You can catch them at V Festival.
Brinkman
MySpace
Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in August 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd
BRINKMAN
This feels a bit like a job interview, or maybe an episode of The Apprentice. All three members of Brinkman are sat facing me across a large boardroom table at their record label’s HQ. “You’re fired!” they joke.
On the left is Neil Kerly, wisecracking drummer. Curly-haired singer Paul Cook is in the middle, and on the right is bearded bassist Tom Brown. Neil and Paul met in their mid-teens and bonded over a boxset from The Jam – little knowing they’d be supporting Paul Weller in the future - decided to form a band and have been working their way up since then. Tom is a relatively new recruit, having answered their ad in NME a couple of years ago. Their first gig was at Lennon’s Nightclub in Southampton, though they don’t remember too much as a late start meant one or two of them might have been drinking beforehand. Brinkman's music is cheerful indie pop and has been likened to the Kinks and the Beatles as well as securing them a touring spot with Travis. ‘Kirsten Dunst’, released on Label Fandango, picked up a bit of a cult following and the actress herself was ‘extremely flattered’ by the ode.
“It was a year ago literally last weekend that we signed to EMI,” remembers Neil. “It’s been a fruitful journey, let’s say.” Actually they’re signed to offshoot His Master's Voice, the famous label which was previously resurrected for Morrissey in the early 90s.
“We stormed in here and said: ‘We’ll only sign to you pencilpushers if we can have our own label.’ We didn’t even know it was His Master's Voice, we just wanted a dog on a gramophone,” says Paul.
“Stroke of luck really, wasn’t it?” Neil deadpans.
“They started going on about Morrissey, and we were just ‘Who is this Morrissey fellow? Just give us the dog on a gramophone.’ And that was it really,” says Paul. He pauses. “There’s more to it than that, obviously.”
So, likes and dislikes. I found a Brinkman press release from a few years ago and it said they like underdogs and mild cussing but don’t like avocado bathrooms –“Who does?” interrupts Neil. Paul throws his head back and laughs. Well I’ll keep that in the list of dislikes. But do you have anything else to add?
“You know when you’re sitting on the bus or public transport and people go through their ringtones? I really dislike that,” says Neil.
“Or playing actual songs. You get crap quality,” says Tom.
“I can’t make my mind up about anything. I like everything and I dislike everything,” says Paul.
“You like a Chicken Kiev on a Thursday,” prompts Neil.
“I like a Chicken Kiev, and I dislike the Enemy. I quite like Tom, and I dislike…”
“Me!” laughs Neil. “Brilliant.”
Now Brinkman all live and work in London - Tom moved from Bournemouth to join - but what’s the best thing about the city? Tom cites the multiculturalism before starting an argument with Neil over whether the answer is actually Crystal Palace or Tottenham Hotspur. “This is why (Paul) has to sit in the middle.”
“The red buses are the best thing about London for me,” says Tom.
“The clean air,” says Paul. The air you can chew on? Neil cracks up. “Black bogeys!”
If you could invent anything, what would it be? “Ahhh brilliant!” yells Neil. “An iron with a radio on it. Wouldn’t you buy that?” I don’t really iron. “If you ironed. Or a flashdrive so you could put your MP3s into it.”
“I don’t understand what you just said there,” says Tom. “What’s a flashdrive?”
“A memory stick. Put some songs on it. Put it in your iron. Listen to them while you iron.”
“While you iron? Why not turn the radio on?” Neil ignores Tom and professes his idea ‘brilliant’.
"Why is it every invention you come up with has to be built into a iron?” asks Paul.
“Isn’t that a great idea?” asks Neil, looking to me for support. Yes. “Thank you.”
“I had an idea last night,” begins Paul. “I’m not sure if it’s really an invention, but you tell me if this exists already, right. Obviously you call 999. Can you text the police?”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I’ll tell you for why. Which is also the title of our album. You’re in bed. It’s summer so your window’s open. Someone climbs into your room –“
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” notes Tom.
“– and holds you at gunpoint and says ‘I’m going to rob your house and take everything, you just stay there in bed.’ If you get your phone and make a call, they’re going to hear you. If you’re under the covers and you’ve got your phone, they’re not going to know anything. You’re just going to text the police with robbery happening, your address…”
“What if they nick your phone?” asks Neil wickedly.
“Well, then you’re screwed.”
Neil has been shuffling and reading all the cards when he gets bored. He takes one and passes it to Tom. It’s about their brief TV episodes, which you can view on their website under 'Brinkman TV'.
“They’re quite amusing aren’t they,” says Paul, and someone – probably Neil – snorts. Is it a regular thing or is it a one-off when you get bored? “It was supposed to be a regular thing, but then we got bored!”
“Paul got burgled and he had his video nicked,” jokes Tom.
”He ran out of characters on his text!” says Neil.
“He didn’t have any credit!”
“We’d like to do it more,” says Paul, “but sometimes when you get the camera out and you stick it in someone’s face they just don’t feel like being funny, you know. And essentially that has to revolve around Neil. Neil is the epicentre of Brinkman humour.”
I did enjoy the dancing in the one I watched. “Choreographed, that was. I don’t know if you can tell.”
Earlier this year, Brinkman played a 14-date tour supporting Travis across the UK, which the band say was ‘brilliant,’ citing Travis’ fans relentless enthusiasm and the pleasure in playing to full houses as opposed to a ‘half-full Barfly.’ After these shows came a few with Paul Weller, who was playing warm-up gigs before his Glastonbury performance.
“We’re all big Paul Weller fans so it was quite an honour,” says Neil.
“But we had to pretend that we weren’t massive Paul Weller fans because the worse thing you can do is if he’d come over and introduced himself and we’d been like [gaping mouths].” finishes Tom.
“I was considering saying ‘You’re in my top five songwriters of all time,’ but then I thought about that a bit too much, and what if he hated one of the others,” says Paul. “There was an awkward moment where – I’m quite paranoid, so I don’t know if this is the way it actually happened or not – but when he first came over to me he went ‘Are you in Brinkman?’ and I was like ‘Yeah’ and I went ‘Paul’ as in my name and put my hand out, and he went ‘Paul Weller!’
"I’m not sure if he was just saying his name – it was all to do with the tone of the voice – or whether he was saying ‘No, not Paul. You will address me as Paul Weller, or Mr Weller, or The Guv’nor.’”
“Or The Modfather,” suggests Tom.
“Yeah. I don’t think he’d like that.”
What were the fans like, did you make a lot of new ones? “We did actually. I think equal amounts on both,” says Neil.
“It was quite eerie on the Paul Weller dates seeing how many Paul Weller clones there were in the audience,” says Tom. “There’s Paul Weller! There’s Paul Weller! Everyone dresses up exactly the same.”
“I think maybe the best Travis gig on the whole tour was Birmingham. We’ve played there a couple of times before and it’s just always been raining or cold, but the audience were just incredible. Two of these fans who were down the front for Travis turned up the last night of Paul Weller, with a ‘WE LOVE BRINKMAN’ banner which I took from them during the last song and held up just so everyone knew our name. But it was upside-down, so that helped,” says Paul.
As for their own gigs, Brinkman have just finished a residency at Water Rats in London. “It was supposed to be four nights in a row for a month and then the Paul Weller dates came up and other things so it got spread out all to nearly three months. It’s been good to have our own slot even if it was stretched out you get the chance to muck about and do different songs,” explains Tom. One of their shows saw support from The Disciplines, whose lead singer plays keyboards with REM and the previous night had been at the O2 Arena.
Are you playing any festivals this year? “We’re doing V Festival, which is our first festival, so naturally we’re very excited about that,” says Neil. “I think we’re mid-long in the day. Or thereabouts. Which is good ‘cause we can do our bit and then go and watch some other bands. If we haven’t got to rush off to Stafford that is.”
Who else is playing that you want to catch? “The Foo Fighters are playing on our day,” says Tom. “I haven’t seen them before and I think they’re one of those bands you’ve got to tick off, especially now they’re getting into one of those supergroups.”
“I want to hear the Foo Fighters do that Gillette advert one,” says Paul. “Love that one.” There’s giggling.
Have you got any festival tips or advice? “Wet Wipes, wellies…” begins Neil.
“The Three Ws!” exclaims Paul.
“Well that’s two. To be honest I haven’t done that many festivals.”
“Wet Wipes, wellies and waterproofs,” says Tom. “Nice!” says Neil.
“And wodka,” says Paul. “I’ve never been invited to a festival so I don’t know.” I don’t generally think they invite you, I think you’re meant to buy tickets. “Oh is that the way it works! I’ve never been,” he laughs.
‘Change It’ is the band’s most recent single. I ask what it’s about. “Do you want the long or short answer?” asks Paul. Neil requests the short one.
“It’s about when you get like a wrong perception of someone in the papers. It’s essentially about Pete Doherty, I suppose," says Paul. "I was quite a fan of him when he was in the Libertines. Everyone knew he was a bit of a tearaway but then when he started Babyshambles and the press really rounded on him and made him this figure, I couldn’t help but start believing some of that myself and start changing my opinion of him which was wrong.
“When me and Tom lived in Ealing last year I went out and I wasn’t feeling that confident about what I was wearing. The wind was really bad and I was wearing this flat cap and I was feeling quite conscious of it. I heard someone beep their horn and I looked across - it was Pete Doherty driving this old Jag and he just went [gives thumbs up] as if to okay what I was wearing. And I just sort of dumbly went [gives double thumbs up with daft puzzled face] back at him. And from then on I thought ‘Oh what a lovely guy.’ So I felt bad about potentially changing my opinion of him.”
“Going back to that one…” says Neil, and waves the Likes and Dislikes card. Pete Doherty is now added to the list of likes.
“And I dislike myself for maybe not liking him.”
“Oh this has all gone wrong!” says Neil.
They’ve been told they were ‘too nice’ during the making of the 'Change It' promo video. “I think the next video, if it’s like that, I’m just going to be a right git,” says Paul. “I heard a certain frontman – who I won’t mention – every few seconds of film he goes and checks. They run it by him and he has to go ‘No, do that again.’ So the director is redundant. I mean, you’ve got to have a certain amount of faith in the director.”
They produced the video to previous single ‘I Wish’ themselves, with a budget of £36.70, most of that probably going on the tea in the Thermos. “Neil wrote and directed it, me and Tom starred in it. Along with Neil. So that was great, really fun actually. We argued a little bit, but I think that’s natural when you’re in a band.”
“No it’s not,” says Tom.
Brinkman’s album was finished a couple of months ago. “Just got to wait for the right time to drop it,” says Neil.“Like it’s hot,” says Tom.Sadly hot is what it's not at the moment. It's time to step into the pouring rain and leave Brinkman to their boardroom chats about trance remixes, dogs on gramophones and Neil's guilty love of Wilson Phillips' 'Hold On' ("It’s a shockingly bad song, but a great song with it"). Perhaps they went to practice 'Return Of The Mack', which was recently given an airing on Dermot O'Leary's radio show...
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Brinkman release 'Change It' through His Master's Voice on 30th July. You can catch them at V Festival.
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