Interview: Fenech Soler

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, Fenech Soler are the latest band keen to make it big on the electro-pop scene. Luckily for us, these guys are a shining needle in an increasingly bland haystack. I spoke to Ross from the quartet to learn more about their sequinned style, a Bjork collaboration and how they’re never far away from the country music scene.

Obviously you and Ben know each other because you’re brothers. How did you meet Daniel and Andrew and from there form the band?

Dan has been a long-term friend, he was in my class at school. Me and Ben have always been writing together and Dan’s kind of been a brother for a long time, it’s felt that way. So we started writing together and then we met Andrew later down the line, he was a studio engineer in a studio really close to us in a place called Eye and we realised that we kind of wanted to have drums and knew Andy was great at all instruments, not just drums. Drums are probably his fourth instrument actually, he’s just one of those people that’s kind of great at everything, basically. So it just seemed really simple to get him involved and he was really up for it.

There are a hell of a lot of electro-pop bands around at the minute and this in turn makes it more difficult to get noticed, yet you guys are getting a substantial amount of great press. What do you think makes you stand out from all the other electro acts out there at the minute?

I mean, there are a lot of electronic artists out there. You’ve got your La Roux’s and your Ellie Goulding’s, and I don’t suppose Marina [and the Diamonds] is very electronic, is she, but she’s a new pop act and has a few synthesizers. But I think particularly on places like Radio One, there aren’t that many actual bands that are doing the electronic thing, and we’re definitely doing that side of it, we’re not just hunched over laptops, or with Ben just stood out the front with a band behind him that no-one knows. So for that I think we are a band doing electro-pop music and actually getting on the radio here and there and I don’t think there are that many bands actually doing that. Especially male-fronted bands; it seems like there are a lot of female-fronted acts out there doing the electronic thing, which is great, I like a lot of those acts. For that we are different, and our album I think is different to what a lot of people know; it’s not just like ‘Stop and Stare’ and all the other singles. The album, it’s been really nice having that out because it shows a different side to what we do. There is a slower side rather than just electronic pop songs and there’s a heavier side as well, so I think if you listen to the record it’s not exactly what you think it will be.

Where do you get inspiration for your lyrics? No offence but I imagine that Kings Cliffe [where the band grew up and live] can’t be the most enthralling place to get ideas from!

No, no, it’s not! It’s a lovely place to live and we love it there, but the lyrics aren’t focused on Kings Cliffe itself. I don’t write the lyrics, Ben does, so I’m not the best person to ask about what his reasons are behind it, but it definitely is an imagery thing. There’s a lot of colour and imagery and escapism. I think he just goes into his head and pictures stuff really. It’s definitely not your standard indie lyrics about going down to a fish and chip shop or being dumped on a Friday night.

You’re in the middle of rather a mammoth worldwide tour and you played a huge amount of festivals over the summer. What do you enjoy most about playing live, or would you secretly rather be in the studio working on new material?

That’s a good question, I like that question! We love playing live, and that’s probably the reason we started doing music in the first place, because we watched live bands and went to gigs and that is definitely a really fun side of it. This is the first time we’ve ever done a tour like this, being a headline band; we’ve always supported or played a festival. To be a headline act is a very new thing for us and we’ve never done so many dates in a row. It’s great and we’re really enjoying it, but with a tour of a length like this, you are kind of itching to get back in the studio. But then when you’re in a studio for a length of time, you want to get back out there playing. I don’t think you can be a hundred percent satisfied with either really, but we enjoy both sides of it. When we were recording the album it kind of went hand-in-hand which was the best; we were recording during the week and then road-testing stuff at the weekend playing clubs and stuff like that.

I read that you really enjoyed playing Secret Garden Party, and I saw you at V; what did you make of that performance?

V was good; festivals are definitely one of the best things you can do because you get to go and see a lot of other bands. V especially is amazing for that, because there’s just so many good people playing. We were playing like, the smallest stage, if it was even a stage, it was more like a bar really. Secret Garden Party was good because we had a later slot. We’ve played a lot [of festivals] like, 32 in total, and a lot of them were kind of early on, at like three in the afternoon. Secret Garden Party was good because they gave us a later slot in the dance tent, we went on at like, 11 o’clock on a Friday night and everyone was really up for it. That was a highlight, and it’s really close to home for us, only about twenty minutes away. Being involved as a band at big, massive festivals like V is cool, we were just happy to be there. Hopefully this year we can etch our way up into a better slot, that’d be great.

You recently played the Warehouse Project. If you were to curate such an event yourself, who would you choose to have on the bill?

Another good question! Is this out of anybody?

Yeah.

I think the Warehouse Project is quite a clubby vibe… It was good actually because when we played there, the band before us we are massive fans of, called Jamaica. They’re from Paris and they’re really, really cool, so I’d probably have them on again. I really like TV on the Radio, I think they would be cool. For live electronics, I think Soulwax would be really good, and then The Whispers or something. I don’t know how that would go down as a set of bands but I think I would definitely enjoy it!

What’s your favourite track on the record and why?

[Pause] I think from a live point of view, it changes everytime we play really. There’ll be songs that I like and don’t like according to whether they’ve gone right or not. But on the album, tracks like ‘Stonebridge’ which is a slower track, is kind of cool. Like I was saying, it shows a different side to what we do. I also like the heavier side to it, like ‘Golden Sun’ and tracks like that, so probably the tracks that people don’t know us for are the ones that I like the best.

Songs such as ‘The Cult of Romance’ and ‘I Need Love’ both garnered really positive reactions before your album was released. Why were they not included on your record?

Yeah, that’s an interesting one actually. We still play ‘I Need Love’ and we still really, really like it as a track; same with ‘The Cult of Romance’. When we were recording the album, we got to the finishing stages of it, and we had about fourteen tracks that we all liked and thought could go on the album. But I think for our first record we kind of just wanted to put out the best of what we had, and we felt that by keeping it short and sharp was better and by keeping on just ten tracks out of those fourteen, there’d be less margin for error. We thought people would like a more compact record, so it’s not that those other tracks will never see the light of day, because some already have, and they might be re-used or done for something else. Like I said, we still play ‘I Need Love’ live and ‘The Cult of Romance’ was the first thing we ever released, so I’m sure we’ll play it again at some point, just not on this tour.

Ben has worked with Groove Armada and as a band you have mixed tracks for people such as Marina and the Diamonds. If you could collaborate with any artists in the future, vocally rather than just remixing, who would you choose?

We’ve always listened to Bjork and I think she would be an amazing female vocalist for a track. Natasha Khan from Bat For Lashes, she’d be really cool. There’s probably loads I could think of but those two stand out for me straight away.

Your dad was a country musician. I think a lot of kids find themselves influenced by their parent’s musical tastes, yet your sound could not be any further from country if it tried!

Absolutely! You’re correct, mine and Ben’s dad was in a duo called The Duffy Brothers, which is with his brother. They were kind of a comedy-country act, and they did really well for themselves. They did more in America than they did here, because obviously [country] is a lot bigger out there and they toured with people like Tammy Winette and Dolly Parton. They’ve kind of been there and done it, which is great for us, because he’s massively supportive of us doing what we’ve been doing and he’s got some inside knowledge and helped direct us on what we should be doing at the early stages. It is a completely different style of music, but we grew up going to country and bluegrass festivals around England, and Ben actually lived in Dallas for his early years. The songwriting of it has probably filtered down; we might not be on a banjo or an acoustic guitar but the simple methods of writing a song has probably rubbed off. There’s always been musical instruments around the house, which has definitely been incremental in getting us to this point.

Do you think you still would be so heavily involved in music if your dad hadn’t?

Oh, I wouldn’t know. Probably not, maybe not. We definitely feel like we’ve got the musical gene from him and if that wasn’t there, then probably not.

Whereas most bands try to adopt as grungier look as possible, your onstage outfits are rather unique; you don’t see many other bands donning gold sequinned jackets. Is fashion something you’re really interested in or did you adopt this style to make more of a statement?

I don’t think it’s to make a statement necessarily. We definitely don’t want to go onstage in our T-shirts and jeans like we’re going down the pub, but it’s not a forced ‘costume’ type thing. It’s stuff we’ve picked up along the way and wear generally, not just onstage. It’s just kind of built up over time and we have been recoginsed for it. We’re not trying to make a big statement about what we wear, but we do like to put on a show. Well, not a show but just not wear our standard clothes. We quite like the idea of that and think it reflects the music in the way we want it to be reflected onstage as well as offstage.

And finally, what are three songs you wish you’d written?

Probably ‘Let’s Dance’ by Bowie, that’d be one. ‘Rock With You’ by Michael Jackson… [long pause]. I really like ‘King of the Rodeo’ by Kings of Leon, I don’t know why I’ve thought of that but we were listening to it earlier and I think that’s a great track. Their early stuff is amazing and I think that’s my favourite track that they’ve done. So, those three… a bit odd, but!

This interview was originally published on www.culturedeluxe.com

Album review: Little Comets 'In Search Of Elusive Little Comets'

After orbiting and gaining momentum for a couple of years, Little Comets have decided to finally strike with their debut album In Search Of Elusive Little Comets. These four northern lads have come a long way from the days when they used to do impromptu gigs in the aisles of high street shops; several singles, copious amounts of touring and some strong radio play later have culminated in this release. Those who have followed the band from the very beginning will undoubtedly be able to hear the progression they have gone through before the tracks on this LP were even laid down.

With their jovial guitar-pop and witty lyrical angle on various issues, Little Comets were one of those bands you weren’t quite sure if you should be taking seriously or not, and opening track ‘Adultery’ objectifies the case in point perfectly. Hidden behind the buoyant guitar plucks and lead singer Robert Coles’ spirited staccato vocals lies a message about the destruction of cheating and the path of discontent that leads there. Luckily, the album as a whole does not act as a method for the band to preach their moral beliefs.

Debut single ‘One Night In October’ back in 2009 featured punchy percussion and shouty vocals in such abundance that The Futureheads should have been worried. Focusing on an argument between a couple, the lyrics and instrumentals were juxtaposed in such a blatant way as also demonstrated in ‘Adultery’ that it seemed to be a style they could easily have found themselves accidentally defined by. Fast-forward two years and what we are presented with is a far more mature package, almost splitting the record into two. Last single ‘Isles’ moves away from the age-old topics of love and heartbreak to focus on the current discontent experienced in Britain, whilst upcoming release ‘Joanna’ sees the familiar animated percussion abolished in favour for a slower, more lamentable ambience.

As much as it could be argued that the album is fairly divided, it serves the band well to display these two different sides to their musical persona. Too serious and they stand the chance of falling into the trap of pretension; too jolly and they could end up being considered inconsequential. With enough talent and exertion to make it to that dreaded second album, they’ve simply got to ensure they don’t burn out too quickly.

This review was originally published on www.culturedeluxe.com

Interview: Ruby Coast

Since forming in 2006, Canadian indie outfit Ruby Coast have slowly been making a name for themselves, touring with Passion Pit and recording their debut album with the producer behind Arcade Fire. As they release 'Whatever This Is' for free (download it here), I spoke to lead singer Justice McLellan to discuss why it's taken so long for their forst record to reach our ears, and their grand plan to hitchhike their way to Europe.

So, tell us how Ruby Coast met and formed as a band.

We started to hang out and jam together in high school. It basically started with us getting really stoned, messing around, playing covers [and] then later on we made a conscience effort to start writing some full songs. If we were into something we would just record it quickly on a crappy tape player then listen to it later and would come to the conclusion that we made something rad or were just really high and that it sucked.

On your Facebook page, you describe your sound as ‘indie rock with heart’. There’s a fair amount of indie rock out there at the minute, so aside from the heart, what do you think distinguishes you from the rest?

Well when you’re in a band with guitars, keys, bass and drums chances are you going to have similar timbre to other bands with the same set up. We do try to find new sounds and strive for originality but it all comes down to what feels right. There’s a million songs with the same chord progression and we just go on our instincts with the combinations we’ve made. What I’m trying to say is we won’t be obscure for the sake of being obscure. We’ve always thought about what feels right with the song opposed to “if we wait an extra beat will it distinguish us from the rest?”.

You guys formed in 2006, yet it’s taken five years before your first official album release this year. How has the band been preparing for this in those years?

It’s been way too long. Our EP received some recognition but it didn’t blow us up by any means. That left us in this spot where we were touring quite a bit and it was just a bitch to get things rolling with the new record. There are a few more reasons why but it’s in the past, so whatever. All you need to know is that it won’t happen again.

Your debut, ‘Whatever This Is’ has been produced by Howard Bileman (Arcade Fire) and Brian Paulson (Wilco). These are two pretty influential names to have scored in producing a debut album; how did they affect your style and sound?

They knew how to capture live sounds which was crucial for this record. There’s parts where it speeds up and slows down because we didn’t use a metronome and that helped our record sound a little loose and not tight like a Top 40 song. When it came down to song structures there were basically no changes. Howard had some ideas and brought some great musicians from Montreal in to lay some harp, saw and a few other things which added to the record. I must say though, Brian’s final mix on the songs made everything come together. He’s a mixing whizz and a groovy dude.

Arcade Fire are pretty huge right now, and with the same producer and similar sound, there are bound to be comparisons drawn. Are you worried that these comparisons might overshadow your own work?

Arcade Fire overshadows everyone and their grandmothers. They’re in this rare ‘legends in their own time’ kind of band so any comparison to them I’ll just take as a compliment. We just want to make art we believe in and people can take it or leave it. Comparisons haven’t stopped us from making music and it’s not something we worry about. It seems every new band I hear of is the ‘next something’ or sounds close to something.

Who are your biggest influences right now, both musical or otherwise?

My Bloody Valentine’s record Loveless hasn’t left my record player since Christmas. Other than that, inspiration and influence is just a day to day sort of thing for me.

You’ve toured or played with bands such as Tokyo Police Club, Born Ruffians and Passion Pit. How has seeing them work on stage influenced you?

It’s made me not want to mumble like a nervous idiot on stage… I’ve always been really comfortable with how we interact together on stage so I think just listening to their music while on tour inspires me. Besides that, we’ve inspired each other to get a little too rowdy after shows.

You’ve done pretty extensive touring in America and Canada, but so far nothing over on European shores. Is that something you’d like to venture once the record has been released in the States?

Playing in Europe is my dream of all dreams. We’ll get there as soon as we have a ride. Our thumbs are out and we’re walking down the road, so pull over all of you European promoters and booking agents. I’m hoping to have some tea with Jonny Greenwood.

Finally, three songs you wish you’d written, are…

Broken Social Scene – Lovers Spit
Neil Young – After the Gold Rush
Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees

This interview was originally published on www.culturedeluxe.com

Cloud Nothings, The Hope Brighton, 6/11/10

Let's take a moment and think of Cleveland, Ohio. Does it spring to mind as a place of exciting musical developments and a hub of creativity in American culture? No you're right, it doesn't to The Fly either. Yet somehow the place has managed to spawn one of the most promising bands of 2010 in Cloud Nothings.

Deluging our eardrums from the off tonight with their agile indie-pop, there is a quintessential American college-radio essence to Cloud Nothings’ sound. 'Didn't You' with its shimmering chords and “oooh-eee-oooh”s could easily be slotted into the soundtrack of a teen angst-driven television show, and in turn it gets the crowd satisfyingly bobbing their heads along from the off. Succeding song 'Leave You Forever' sets a welcoming quicker pace to proceedings, as frenetic guitar riffs and drum beats topple over each other for dominance, and in several of the outfit’s songs, bursts of accelerated music sporadically give way to briefly toned down instrumentals before kicking back into momentum again; providing an essential variation in arrangement that prevents them from ever falling into the trappings of monotony. The lo-fi production sound that Cloud Nothings' recordings possess sadly doesn't translate live, but Dylan Baldi's virile and earnest vocals compensate sufficiently for this loss.
 

Despite the band being evidently accomplished, there remain a couple of traits in their onstage performance that betray their young age and general lack of experience tonight. Predominantly, the entire set feels very rushed and some tracks feel as though they have been put on fast forward. 'Hey Cool Kid' is a song that oozes assured nonchalance, yet the ironically geek-chic band race through it at such a speed that it appears they're trying to inconspicuously hurry past the jock in the hall rather than confront him with their discerning lyrics. That being said, the confidence Cloud Nothings need in order to be able to pace themselves so that both they and audience can enjoy their live performance entirely will undoubtedly come with time and practice.

This review was originally published on www.the-fly.co.uk

Interview: The Go! Team

Nobody does an indie-rock-garage-dance fusion quite like Mercury Prize-nominated sextet The Go! Team, and boy, do they do it well. From their humble Brighton roots they’ve taken their experimental sound all over the world and anyone who’s been privy to one of their live shows will vouch for the fact they’re not to be missed. Chantelle Pattemore caught up with The Go! Team founder Ian Parton as the band prepare to release their eagerly awaited third album, ‘Rolling Blackouts’.

Ian created The Go! Team in an effort to create a style of music that incorporated all the genres and artists he loved. Six years and three albums later, did you anticipate that what started off as more of a seemingly personal project would gain the recognition that it has?

I still think we’re a cult band – it’s still pretty rare to find people who know our music. But yeah, we’ve been lucky and managed to travel the world and play to people who know us.  It’s pretty weird when you write something on a crappy 4-track and then next thing year at Glastonbury playing it to thousands of people.

There’s been (roughly) gaps of three years between each of your album releases, which some might argue is a longer period than most bands would take in writing and recording. What were you doing in these years to develop as a band?

We never really stopped – we were touring for ages going all over the world; Singapore, Ukraine, China. Plus I had a kid, which always slows things down – in a good way – and the music takes a long time to write.  I’m no genius so I work best by hoarding ideas with lots of trial and error.  There were no left over songs at the beginning of album three; it was a nice blank slate.

Who are your biggest influences currently, both musical or otherwise, and how are they affecting your work?

There’s no one band I’d like to be like but more about taking things from loads of places all at once. Public Enemy, 60′s girl groups, B-movies, MBV; this album’s definitely driven more by songwriting and features more singing rather than the double-dutch chants people know us for. I wanted to make strange little pop songs – I’ve always been really into catchiness and melody because its the hardest thing to do – but not to have a hit or get into the charts.  So on this record I was really putting melody first and letting it run the show.  When you’ve got something you think is watertight, that’s when you can start fucking it up.

Quite a few of your songs have been used in various adverts and TV shows. How integral do you think these mainstream media inclusions have been in your success?

I have no control over who uses it in TV shows – if I could stop shows like Come Dine With Me and makeover trash using it I would but I can’t. I have actually turned down loads of TV ads and sacrificed a load of money so it’s strange that people know us through ads. I do say yes occasionally. We were recently used on an NFL ad in the States for an anti-obesity campaign – I figured it was actually quite an ok ad to do. It features these massive American football players sitting on a bus with headphones on rocking out to ‘The Power Is On’.  Pretty funny because if you could see me, I ain’t no jock.

Your debut, ‘Thunder, Lightning, Strike’ was nominated for the Mercury Prize and named as one of Pitchfork’s best albums of 2004. Do you feel this acclaim created a certain level of pressure for you when creating ‘Proof Of Youth’ and ‘Rolling Blackouts’?

There was a bit of pressure for ‘Proof of Youth’ but not so much for ‘Rolling Blackouts’ because I figured people might have thought The Go! Team had stopped anyway. I wasn’t fussed about rushing it out there. I just concentrated on the melodies and less about the hype.

You said in a previous interview before recording started on ‘Rolling Blackouts’ that you wanted the sound on this record to be more ‘schizo’. Do you feel you achieved this and how did you go about creating this?

That was an early idea [of] how I wanted the record to sound but in the end the record turned out to be more about songwriting than cut and paste.  The kick-off for this album was to listen to thousands and thousands of records and collect ideas; either samples or my own melodies and eventually I would have enough good stuff that songs would be forming – often they were my original melodies and I would fit samples to them. Once the song is written I would get on the hotline to the rest of the band and they would come in the recording stage and it grows in layers.

You’re well known for sampling other artists’ songs in your own. Whereas some might say that this method is a great way to introduce others’ music to a new audience and reinvigorate older sounds, others would argue it is perhaps an easy way out of having to spend time and energy creating your own sound. What would you say to them?

I think there are two kinds of sampling – there’s the kind where you wholesale lift a well-known song and stick a rap over it but what I’m more interested in is taking snippets of pretty obscure songs and putting them in a totally new context. I like the idea of a song featuring samples from different decades and different musical worlds – sometimes sampling can be a real art form.  The Go! Team is actually less reliant on samples than lots of people think – some songs feature no samples at all [whilst] some have twenty.

The live shows the band put on are renowned for being rather energetic. For those who haven’t been to a Go! Team show before, what should they expect to experience?

Thrashing around.  Yeah we go for it every gig – I’ve never known us do a gig where we haven’t come off stage like total wrecks, particularly Ninja – its like she’s run a marathon.  Once she popped her knee joint out from jumping around. There’s a fair bit of instrument swapping and we have two drum kits on stage – it’s pretty chaotic, not super professional.

The band are obviously heavily dominated by percussion, yet we’re currently in a time where simple guitars and drums seem to be at the forefront of the industry. How would you place the band in amongst your peers and do you believe that the ‘scene’ could do with more percussion and variety in order to kick-start it back into life?

Even now I still feel like we don’t fit into any scene or sound. Even with people like Sleigh Bells around who we get comparisons with I still feel like we’re way apart.  Part of the goal when I started the band was to put a wedge between us and the hundreds of ‘blokes with guitars and haircuts indie bands’ and I guess that’s still true.

You’ve got a series of dates stretching out ahead of you now in support for the new album. Do you feel The Go! Team and the band’s ethos are best portrayed on stage or do you prefer being in the studio where sounds can be more easily manipulated?

There’s two sides to The Go! Team and both are important. The studio is all about patience and trial and error and focus, [and] the stage is all about forgetting that shit and jumping around. We don’t try and perfectly replicate the record on stage – it’s a bigger sound. Somebody once said you can wear our sound like a suit.

Both Deerhoof and Best Coast have collaborated with you on the new record and lead vocalist Ninja has also worked with Simian Mobile Disco. Who would be your ultimate dream collaboration?

If I could go back in time it would be Mary Weiss, the lead singer of the Shangri La’s or the kickass female rapper Roxanne Shante.

This interview was originally published on www.culturedeluxe.com