FLY53 Interviews

Here are some interviews I did for a FLY53 promotional booklet.

THE BLEEPS

There’s only two guys in this band. But a bit like when you listen to the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and try and work out how one dude is making so many noises come out of one guitar The Bleep’s make your head go funny. Although their names sound a bit like a 16th Century French Duke and a Marvel superhero Remy LaMont and Paul Parker play music to make you dance. Over Paul’s frenetic drums Remy simultaneously lays down Hooky bass lines and peeling angular riffs while singing about how he is a Discotek. Like I said it makes your head go funny.

VICE: You make lots of sounds all at once. How do you do that, there’s only two of you?

Paul: It’s all in his guitar mate. It’s top secret. It can go from one to the power of a million just like that.
Remy: Well we used to play in a pretty straight up rock band together called Father of Boon. While we were doing that we had this wicked practice space in a squat on Cable Street. When we weren’t doing Boon stuff I’d just mess around with a drum machine and loads of delays. Just a solo thing, layering sounds.

VICE: How did that develop into a two piece?

Paul: I used to hear him playing all this stuff on his own in the space and naturally as a drummer thought that I’d sound better than a drum machine. Also a drum machine can’t talk and offer feedback. I can give Remy ideas on how to develop tracks. It’s really fun writing together just bouncing ideas off each other.

VICE: How about live? You guys have got a bit of a rep.

Remy: Well we started out developing a lot of the songs just by playing out. We’ve had at least a gig a week since I can remember, at least a year. We get to play with other bands we like too, Tigerforce, Underground Railroad. I think we were sat in a boozer the other day and worked out the only place we’ve not played in Hoxton is Cargo and we’re booked there next month.
Paul: I just love playing live man. A lot of my major influences are people that were special live, Prince man, I’ll stand by that any day, Funkadelic too, put that down, I love them!

VICE: You’ve got a single coming out in January.

Paul: Yeah, Dull Thud, we’re putting it out ourselves. It’ll be on CD with some live performance material on there as well.
Remy: We’ve been working a lot of tracks out live as well and we’ve got enough material for an album now easy, songs that hang together nicely. We’re just after a distributer!

www.myspace.com/thebleeps

THEORETICAL GIRL

Theoretical Girl is not a band. It is Amy Frolic. She writes, records, performs and tours her stark, spiralling, no wave electro-punk poetry music with a singular vision that sounds refreshingly a step apart. Despite featuring on the Digital-Penetration compilation, that the NME claimed ‘defined a genre’, and having a song on the upcoming ‘Future Love Songs’ compilation put out by the equally influential Angular Records Amy remains determined to maintain her vision.

VICE: So, your stuff doesn’t sound like that much else at the moment.

Theoretical Girl: Well, I’ve been doing this now for about a year and a half but I’ve always been tinkering away, making some kind of music. Before Theoretical Girl though the only major other thing I’d done was an all-Girl three piece called Weare6. It was fun at the time but when I stood back it just sounded so derivative. You could hear Erase Erata and The Fire Engines in the songs. I love those bands but I just wanted to do something different, that sounded more unique.

VICE: So, how did you go about chasing something unique?

Theoretical Girl: Well, the first thing I did was stop listening to other peoples music. I haven’t really listened to anything else for about a year and a half.

VICE: Seriously?

Theoretical Girl: Yep. I live alone, in a draughty loft apartment in Muswell Hill, it’s pretty desolate and helps me focus on writing. Just me and Polly, she’s my partner in crime [pulls CD player that is falling apart out of bag].

VICE: What does Polly do?

Theoretical Girl: Well I come up with bass lines and drum parts and any other noises and programme them into an old 8-Track then burn them down onto CD and Polly plays them out for me. I sing and play guitar over them. I’m not really into technology, keeping it simple helps me focus on the song.

VICE: It all works really well live, do you enjoying playing out?

Theoretical Girl: Thank you, err… I used to get really nervous but lately I’ve played some shows I’ve really enjoyed. To be honest I’m far more into writing, just being alone creating. I find it really exciting that I don’t know where the song will go. I’ve got complete control so I can take things apart, change them, put them back together, it’s the biggest thrill, more than playing out I think.

VICE: What about the future? Any plans to get any real humans to keep Polly company?

Theoretical Girl: Well, there’s a girl called Sam who’s a friend who may play some bass and another girl called Anna who used to play in The Ivories who may play some live drums, we’ll see. I’ve also got a single out on Half Machine Records and I’m in the studio soon to put down the next one. I’m also going to Germany in the New Year to tour which is exciting.

www.myspace.com/iamtheoreticalgirl

HEADLESS

Headless are four girls who used to hang out in London and liked the idea of being a band. So they started one. Their Myspace references bands like the Banshee’s and Kyuss but listening to latest single Sway their unhinged, intuitive riff driven rock goes beyond pinching from bands they like to create something actually exciting. We met up with the girls in a Morrocan café in Covent Garden where they were nursing post ATP hangovers with mint tea.

VICE: Hello, did you enjoy ATP?
Nell: It was wicked, I watched a Black Witchery live show on the TV channel thing and went on the water slides.
Clare: I got in a fight with Buzz Osbourne but I don’t want to talk about it.

VICE: If you could curate your own festival who would you book?
Chrissie: Us, my side project, Mudhoney, maybe Dino Jr, resurrect Tad and have Electric Wizard headline.

VICE: I think I would go to that. Do you guys adhere to the Electric Wizard school of songwriting?
Chrissie: Well, I like to take mushrooms and read about things that are challenging like Manson and the Family and serial killers but in terms of the actual songs I’m usually pretty straight. I’ll come up with an idea, hear a riff or some space in a song that’ll inspire me and then go to Nell and Clare for bass and drum parts.
Clare: We work on the songs together but you’ve got to remember though that we played our first gig with practically no songs.

VICE: Really, how did that work out for you?
Clare: Well, me and Chrissie had decided we liked the idea of being in a band so we had sort of been mentioning to people that we were in a band despite not really having done anything productive.
Chrissie: We knew the people who ran Club Motherfucker though and they liked the idea so gave us a show. Our first practice was our first show! After about two and a half songs we just screamed and jumped off stage. The crowd loved it though.
Nell: After that we began to practice like crazy as we’d all loved it. We just practiced and played out all the time. There’s so many venues and promoters in London that you can play like every night of the year and just from going out all the time before we were ever a band a lot of the promoters were friends who were willing to put us on.

VICE: How’s things outside of London?
Chrissie: We did the whole Test-Icicles tour which was really cool and we’ve played with loads of bands we love: Trencher, Comanechi, ugh…too many to mention!
Nell: We’d love to go to U.S. though….
Clare: We’ve got another single due out on White Heat in the New Year then a big UK tour around then so a load more shows outside of London, then maybe an album, we’ve got the songs we just need someone who can do it right.
Chrissie: Yeah, we don’t want anyone to fuck it up.

VICE: Then maybe that festival?

COMANECHI

Comanechi play straight up party music. Their live show is sweaty, raw and confrontational and The Gossip love ‘em so much they took them on their recent UK tour. We met up with Akiko who plays drums and sings in the band who is also really excited and happy all the time.

So, how was the tour with The Gossip then?
It was amazing! We were playing sold out venues all over the place, outside of London! We got on really with them, I was promoted to tour fun manager, so I had to make sure there was always a party to go to after the show!

Your live shows tend to have a real party atmosphere, is the live element what you enjoy most about playing in the band?
Well, I love playing live and we always want to challenge the crowd. We don’t want them to forget a show of ours after they leave! But I enjoy everything about being in a band, playing live, recording, collaborating, doing artwork.

You like keeping busy?
Yes, as well as doing Comanechi I play in Pre and we’re talking about doing a band with the guys from Trencher, I think I’ll play keyboard in that. All the records we’ve had out on White Heat I’ve created artwork for and we have a forthcoming split with Crystal Castles on Blood Of The Drash which I’m doing a cover for. I also freelance for graphic design companies and have done a limited line of t-shirts for 679.

Would you say your art background has had an influence on the sound and image of the band?
Yes, yes! Definitely. I see an affinity with current bands like Les Georges Leningrad or Aids Wolf but we are far more influenced in our approach and creative processes by artists than other musicians or bands. People like John Waters, Richard Kern or Kayoi Kusama, I love him, you should check out his dots, they are amazing!

What does the future hold for Comanechi?
Getting out of Dalston! Touring Europe and maybe the U.S.A. The Gossip said they’d love to play with us over there, That would be cool. Just playing and recording and creating, it’s all exciting for me!

www.myspace.com/comanechi

RAT:ATT:AGG

RAT:ATT:AGG sound a bit like the muppets house band playing post-hardcore. Spinning, weird sounds are underpinned with urgent rhythm while Arab On Radar screams jump out all over the place. I saw them play a while ago at the Barfly and the show ended with a load of kids onstage helping break their drums. Considering half the band are on the dole they might have regretted this in the morning. It was the first show I’d enjoyed in ages, total chaos. In other words: really fun. They all have silly names too like Connan.

Hi Connan. How did you end up in such a silly band?
We’ve been together about 6 months. Rory had written a bunch of songs and The Semifinalists asked him to go on a week UK tour before he’d sorted a band, so we met up and practiced for 3hrs on Wednesday night and went on tour Thursday morning. I’d never met anyone else in the band before that day. Luckily we all get on. We’re thinking of all moving in together so we can be like The Monkeys.

You’ve got a record out now but you seem to enjoy the stage…
We fully admit we are in no way the tightest live band out there and that’s not really our aim. Personally I don’t wanna see a band that just replicates what they do on record I wanna see some energy and chaos and unique things happening and that’s what we try to do. We always make songs up on stage, people probably hate it but whatever… I think they are the best bits of the shows. Stuff always gets broken and people fall over break strings knock drums over, I think a lot of the crowd generally don’t get it but the ones that do seem to have a great time.

You maintain a pretty DIY approach to you’re output, are you all punks or something? I know you were in Abandon Ship…

Most of us grew up listening to loads of Punk Rock and Hardcore as well as indie rock stuff so from Swing Kids to Blur really. Everyone is a pretty big Destinys Child fan as well. Rory used to be in some band, Balls or something, Robin was in Bullet Union and Matt still does a punk band called Navajo Code. We sort of take our approach in those bands and try and do something new.

Anything else?
Ummm… We’re gonna write loads more songs, quit our jobs, actually have a proper band practice, go on loads of tours, buy some stuff to keep our equipment in, stop losing really really expensive guitar pedals and get more free stuff.

Thanks

www.myspace.com/rataattagg

LOST PENGUIN

Considering none of Lost Penguin ever wanted to be in a band and they only got together in March to write one good song that people would remember them for (“like Aqua”), they make a thrilling noise. Jarring synth blasts and confrontational boy/girl screams bounce around a chaotic stage show that always seems on the point of collapse but is somehow sustained by a pounding rhythm section. They sound a bit like a load of 5RC bands having fight with a load of Skin Graft bands inside of an Ice Cream Van that’s about to break down. In a good way. We had a chat with Kev and Matt from the band after the soundcheck at the launch party for new single Pleasurewood Kills at The Old Blue Last. Charleigh who shares vocal and ‘machines’ duties with Kev was nowhere to be seen though….

VICE: Hello, where’s Charleigh?

KEV: Err…We’re not sure. She’ll be here for the show though.

VICE: Ok. You’re live sound is pretty chaotic, what instruments do you use?

KEV: Well, Matt’s the only one who can play anything so he writes bass lines and plays them out. Me and Charleigh play keyboards and sing at each other and we used to have a clapped out Yamaha keyboard that we’d just play the demo track’s out of...

VICE: Have you started using something else now?

MATT: Well, we’ve sort of got a bit more professional since we went out to Barcelona to play some shows and we’ve started programming our own beats. We’ve even got Andrew from the Violets playing drums on the b-side to the single.
KEV: My girlfriend always said she’d dump me if I was in a band and she gave me ‘til Christmas to finish all this so I never thought about it as a band past tomorrow y’know? We’ve split up now though so I’ve thought about the songs more. They’re more complex, darker. Not just about my dad being an Ice Cream man like the first record.

VICE: How did you guys end up playing together?

MATT: Well, Charleigh’s from Glasgow I think. She was just always around in New Cross and we decided we wanted to start a band but that it was probably better to have a girl singer. We asked some other people who told us to fuck off but Charleigh was up for it. She leads a pretty mad bohemian life that sort of adds to the general chaos. Which is good.
KEV: Me and Matt knew each other from going to University in Greenwich. It’s a shit Uni for people that didn’t get any grades. ‘Cos of that though it spurred us on to do other things like put on nights and be in bands.

VICE: What else have you been up to outside of the band?

KEV: I love playing live and being in a band but yeah I’ve been doing a lot of other stuff: putting out Toy Pirate which is a fanzine, writing for some magazines, looking after X-Ray Eyes, putting on nights and I’ve just set up a label called Me and My Brother Records. The first release is going to be compilation I’m doing with Mathew !WOWOW! called Bedroom Heroes. It’s going to be bands like us, the Rotters, Look Dancing Boys and these crazy New York people called Dreamburger. Just show people the alternative to what everyone thinks is going on you know?

Busy Boys.

www.myspace.com/wheresmypenguin