Extreme Listening Mode!

We recently saw Indian Red Lopez at Glasgow King Tuts and were most impressed. We caught up with the guys recently to discuss life, music and shooting Bono. Amazing how often that comes up round here….

We really liked the EP – any more recording plans in place?

Dave: Yeah we’re definitely planning more recording, probably later in the year. We have a batch of new tracks that we’d like to get down and work on a bit. We find that the recording process tends to alter our approach to songs and how we play them live – getting the basis of a track down and hearing it back can highlight what’s missing, what isn’t really working or what the track needs to give it that bit of cohesion. Sometimes its not that easy to spot things like that when we’re rehearsing, and we tend to slip into a comfort zone with the ideas in that respect. The 3 songs on the first EP are almost unrecognizable from the songs we took into the studio at the beginning, but at the same time they’re still the same songs. We’re really looking forward to seeing how that approach enhances the new songs.

How did you get together?

Mike: Scott, Dave and I are friends from school, but the line-up has evolved over the past few years with various folk dropping in and out. We’ve kind of come full circle now to where we were when our original bass player left, and its left us with another guitar player, it’s a completely new, exciting dynamic and something we’ve never done before. It certainly takes a lot of persistence, and heed-bashin’ to get the three guitars in harmony with each other. It’s also magic to be making music with such a close group of friends. We’re all from the same area in the North East, which helps to understand each other a bit better too!

Get your iPod and tell me the first five songs that come on!

Dave: Bat For Lashes – The Wizard | Andrew Bird – A Nervous Tic Motion of The Head | Whiskeytown – What the Devil Wanted | British Sea Power – No Lucifer | Broken Social Scene – Pitter Patter Goes My Heart

Mike: Pheonix – 1901 | The Postal Service – The District Sleeps Alone Tonight | PJ Harvey – The Mess We’re In | Neon Neon – I Lust U | Dirty Projectors – Cannibal Resource

Who are the bands out there at the moment that you respect?

Dave: Without doubt for me at the minute it would have to be the Fence Collective: King Creosote, Pictish Trail, OnTheFLy etc. Their approach to making music, presenting music, producing music and fundamentally playing music is really refreshing to see in the current climate. Its great to go and see one of their shows and see the same guys on stage for the whole show, but you’re actually watching 3 different bands according to the bill. They all interact, help out each other and support each other in a way that nobody else seems to do these days. Plus the music is great.

Mike: I would have to agree with Dave, however there are bands out there who are also doing something innovative and interesting. NIN for example are doing really cool things with their live shows and the viral/online promotion that went on with the release of their last record was really different. I read they left USB drives in venue toilets containing pro-tools tracks of the record for fans to remix. You definitely need to mix things up a little in order to stand out. I’m besotted with Gorillaz. What Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett have done with the last two records, the art and animations, coupled with the live shows is fantastic, and they don’t take themselves too seriously. Huge amount of respect for them.

What do you enjoy most about playing live?

Dave: Probably the aftermath if I’m being honest. We’ve got quite a complicated set up on stage with the beats, sampling and visuals. After a show its rare that we don’t end up in conversation with someone asking how it all works, where you got various bits of kit, how were you making ‘that noise’ etc. For me personally I love answering questions like that, although we don’t want too much away, but it shows that people have paid a bit of attention to us and we’ve captured their imagination long enough to make them want to come and talk to us. I suppose in essence then it’s the interaction with a crowd that does it for us.

Mike: I love seeing weeks of rehearsals and every visual aspect of the show being pulled off on the night. We’re still a relatively new band, and things can’t/don’t always go according to plan, but I just love playing the songs in sync to the visuals. All the tiny details like, the graphic changing in time with the snare hits. I’m just a geek at heart.

What are the plans for shows the rest of the year?

We’ve had quite a busy year so far with the London and Glasgow shows, plus a fairly eventful local calendar as well. We’re hoping to follow up some of the interest shown from venues we played on the tour in May with another set of shows in September/October hopefully. Plus we’ve got our first festival appearance coming up at Wizard in August. We’ve also started our own club night in our Peterhead which will be continuing in the build up to Wizard Festival by hosting a couple of Showcase events to let some of the local bands play in the area before the festival kicks off.

Do you think the internet is a help or a hindrance to an aspiring band?

Dave: I suppose it can be a bit of a double edged sword. As a promotion tool its fantastic for a band to have a focal point whereby they can point anyone straight to their myspace, where all the information they need is available. Also things like an EPK are fantastic for conveying information quickly and effectively to the right people.

But on the flipside of that, it can be completely unemotional  at the same time. The internet has almost removed the human element from the process. The best relationships we have with promoters, venues, bands are all through playing with people and meeting people. I’d like to think that a music fans first point of contact with a band should be face to face, watching them on stage. Plus, the myspace thing has become a bit saturated I think, with pretty much every band on the planet wanting you to go to their page and listen to their stuff.

And then there’s always the risk of a bit of smoke and mirrors going on. I’ve heard bands demo’s on myspace and thought they were great. Then being really disappointed with the live show.

Obvious question, but always valid – who are your major influences?

Mike: I could list names forever! I think there is an unspoken thing about our personal musical influences, in the fact that we all have really different tastes, but collectively we use this to inject what we each would want to hear in our own songs. I think (collectively), its fair to say that we could cite contemporaries like Friendly Fires, Pictish Trail, Radiohead, Joy Division, TV on the Radio, Union of Knives amongst loads more….

Ideal world, who would produce the album?

Dave: Damon Albarn

Mike: David Sitek

You have one bullet left and immunity from prosecution – who is getting it?

Dave: Bono

Mike: Bono!

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