Normil Hawaiians : Interview

It's a great pleasure to offer an interview with the Normil Hawaiians.  Their lost album 'Return of the Ranters' has received nods from Wire, Louder Than War and Record Collector amongst other worthy publications.   With talk of a reissue series on the way it seems a good time to find out more about Normil Hawaiians, so here we go...

Hi! Thanks for taking part in this interview!  Where are you right now? What are you up to?

Guy Smith:  I'm in Wales in a community in the sticks, a long way from London......but accessible in 5 hours so not too bad.  Back in ‘85 we were all living communally in Brixton, then as we started having kids first Noel then Simon moved with their families to N.E. Kent...I harboured visions of travelling overland to Morocco in a converted bus so with Viv and our 2 kids in tow hit the road in 87 learning to juggle and playing Irish folk music.  We made it to Morocco and then spent a couple of years touring Europe, busking...but we needed a base and finding London too claustrophobic after all that  fresh air and living for the moment stumbled across the community in Wales where we've been based since, though  travelled a lot in the meantime.

You played your first show in 30 years recently at The Lexington, how did it feel to be on stage again? 

GS:  Great! I've done loads of different performances over the years from singing acapella in pubs in Wales to juggling fire shows in Japan and with different bands on stages in clubs and festivals.  First time with the Hawaiians - but it felt like last week not last century...so easy, a lot of mutual love and respect.

How did you prepare for the show?

GS:  We came up with a set list based on our favourite stuff from the albums and as Noel hadn’t drummed for years we asked the very affable Ian Button lately of Death In Vegas to deputise whilst Noel played some keyboard parts and other percussion...I wanted to do some acapella stuff too and asked Zinta Egle to provide an extra vocal presence.  We then met up and rehearsed for a week in a barn in Dover adding some extra bits to some pieces...and we all stayed at Noels place as with Jimmy and mark living in different parts of Scotland, Wilf on the South coast it was great to all hang out together again.

Some of the visuals in your show made me want to ask whether you’d seen Jacques Peretti’s BBC series ‘The Men Who Made Us Spend’ last year.   It talks about capitalism, obsolescence, how we part with our money and where it goes – did you see it?  What are your feelings on this topic?

GS:  I didn't see this, no but this is all stuff that we were aware of and debating in the squats and festivals of the 80's and singing The Big Lie (particularly) on stage at The Lexington I was reminded how relevant politically it sounded now.

Normil Hawaiians formed as a collective in Brixton in the 80s, what can you tell us about life then and what kind of connection you had to any kind of music scene?

GS:  Normil Hawaiians was formed from the ashes of punk in ‘79 by myself, Jim Lusted and our mate Kev Armstrong’s 15 year old sister Janet.  Jim and I were both 20 and had been at school together ...I'll never forget the day near the end of the fifth form, when about a dozen of us were all lined up outside the headmasters office at St Olave Grammar School for Boys to be told we were surplus to requirements and on no account would be welcomed into the sixth form...nearly everyone in that queue became a friend and most joined bands.  That school was horrible, but we had a pretty cool education listening to Zappa , Soft Machine and Hawkwind as 12 year olds.    

We formed The Tarts and with Max Splodge as our drummer, played The Roxy and wherever we could and were very much part of the second wave of punk bands formed in the wake of The Pistols, Dammed and Buzzcocks.  Until the whole punk thing splintered and we looked for new directions, Siouxsie and The Banshees were mates of mates from the same part of South London/Kent border. There was a while when just about everyone we knew was in a band, I put out a compilation album of South London bands 'East of Croydon' on Nothing Shaking Records in 1981.   

You could live off the dole then and they’d ask you what your occupation was and you said 'musician' so they just let you get on with it....some great places we rehearsed and hung out at, one was InterGalacticArt Studios down The Old Kent Road - a squatted pub with all kinds of freaks , actors and arty people passing through. There were squatted wooden Wharfs by the river and the Anarchist bookshop in Brixton, both inspiring, sometimes challenging and eclectic, smoky jazz gigs and squatted boat yards, squatted boats, peace convoy and travellers yards full of people living in busses and trucks passing through, welding sculptures.  There were the Stop The City demonstrations, Colourful but always peaceful  CND marches and north of the river we were part of Dining Outs  label and did all-nighters at the Scala; film, band, film, band with 23 Skidoo, Disco Zombies, Kan Kan, Occult Chemistry . All bands who were beginning to push the musical boundaries further out.

Noel Blanden:  At the same time as the Olavians demobbed I too, in a local rival school, went through a similar experience. I was hauled into the headmaster’s office and accused of theft in the most juvenile display of psychological manipulation I’d yet encountered in my young years.  I lost the last vestiges of respect for my betters who were capable of behaving in such a childish way and immediately told them where to stick their school, walked out and never went back. I was already in bands by then and came to Guy’s attention via a group I played in that comprised Jim and Berlin/Bertie (who were with/in Normil Hawaiians) and Peter Fenton who had just left Siouxsie and the Banshees (and wrote Love in A Void and Make up To Break Up). It was quite an incestuous community and yet everyone was playing in group of some kind.  Similarly Simon and Greenfield Leisure, with Cliff McLenehan (also of Normil Hawaiians), who was an old school friend of mine.

The inventiveness and quality of your recordings made me wonder if you were influenced by other artists to start a musical project.  Or, were you turned off by everything you heard at the time and wanted to do something new? 

GS:  I was doing the sound for my mates band The Heartbeats at The Rock Garden some-time around 1981 and I looked around and everyone looked the same...Slicked back hair, make-up and dinner suits.....from an inspiring post punk beginning the scene had morphed into a yuppie, Duran Duran clone thing.  Horrified I vowed to grow my hair long, head for the hills and start improvising musically.  Of course it wasn't that simple...Jim, Nick and Brian were getting a really funky groove going on guitar, bass and drums, but it wasn't my thing.  I wanted to really push the boat out and started dusting off my old Faust, Can, Gong and Hawkwind records which were big pre-punk influences. After a rather dismal gig in Camden supporting The Thompson Twins we split, leaving me with the name- and a week later a record contract with Illuminated.  Simon, another Old Olavian joined on guitar, Mark appeared from the Ether with a string synth and we recruited Noel on drums. After a while we felt comfortable swapping instruments and sometimes would improvise for 4 hours at a time in darkness doing whatever we felt like doing...anything!  Zoviet France was about doing some really radical stuff but no one else around us...it was factioning and genres and labels were being stuck on groups. We wanted to do our own thing, without labels.

How do you think you were perceived when you started?  And do you think that impression has changed at all since 'Return Of The Ranters' came out?

GS:  Hard to tell to a point...John Peel loved us at first and played 'The Beat Goes On' directly after announcing John Lennon’s death.  We had a bit of a reputation as eccentrics, slightly weird - but with only the music papers and a few fanzines around it was hard to gauge. We didn't have a manager or agent so no-one with an ear to the ground.  We were always railing against the machine, and politically nothing has changed.  We've been pleased to receive some really positive reviews and comments regarding the album since it has been released even making For The Rabbits top twenty best albums of the year- 2015, not bad for a 30 year old recording...but it does sound fresh and relevant.  But generally people seem to get it more now. We got much more stick for being different back then.

How does it feel to have 'Return Of The Ranters' finally released?

GS: Nice...it's been a long wait, but we split in '86 frustrated that the project wasn't complete, but we all needed to do different things at the time.

Why did now feel like the right time to do it?

GS: The timing does feel right, summer last year I stumbled into the cinema tent at The Green Gathering Festival where they had just shown Operation Solstice the documentary about The Battle of The Beanfield and the director Gareth Morris was there talking about the film.  We chatted and I sung The Battle of Stonehenge acapella to the whole audience and that kind of started a ball rolling. Of course 2015 is the 30th anniversary of the ambush and also of the last Brixton Riots which we were also involved in the miners’ strike and all that Jimmy sings of on Slums...the 30 year thing has significance somehow.

And of course it was helped no end by a phone call from Chris of Upset The Rhythm wanting to release our recordings, the people in the music business seem much nicer now...real enthusiasts.

Importantly when we all made contact again, finding people is relatively easy nowadays of course, we all wanted to play together again.

What was the recording process for 'Return Of The Ranters', I understand you went to Wales and worked with Dave Anderson to make this album?

GS:  We'd recorded nearly everything we'd done since '82 at Foel and Brian the engineer knew us well, Dave Anderson had become a good friend by then so we knew the environment too.  We'd go for long walks up the mountains.  We had a few half worked out ideas taken from the IGA improvisations....but none of it seemed to be going anywhere after a couple of days, so we decided to instil a bit of discipline by working on an old Eartha Kit song- something we'd never tried before. We didn't use the track, eventually and as far as I remember the entire album was written or improvised there and then over 2 weeks, but we lived it day and night. 

How important is experimentation in your music?  I saw you playing with hammers and trowels at the Lexington, so was curious about this element in your song-writing.

GS:  Interestingly The Lexington gig was the least experimental of all as we mainly took pre-recorded pieces and effectively copied them.  We also played more 'songs' than we would have done before. But then I suppose that in a way was an experiment.  We also stuck to single roles more, Zinta and I just sung…though Simon persuaded me to play guitar on Big Lies and I did play a bit of bass on ‘Sally IVth’ and some keyboard on Travelling West.  But generally we stuck to one thing with Simon using some samples, something we were just touching on in ‘85. As for the hammers and trowels, again this was quite toned down really from the past, though Simon makes a beautiful wail from his guitar with screwdriver jammed in the frets. We were always a bit theatrical and all of us having been involved in different musical, and circus and theatre projects over the years it was nice to put on a bit of a show and include some juggling as well as using industrial implements.

What's your favourite song on the album?

GS:  It's got to be ‘Sianne Don't Work In A Factory’, my one and only love song written for me eldest daughter. The contrast between the opening womblike sounds of the birth, followed by a gentler softer....dare I say it Love Song, then evolving into industrial factory noise seems to work.

But if I'm singing acapella live- ‘The Battle of Stonehenge’ is the one.

Some of the other tracks were complete improvisations, many with a real outpouring of emotion...almost impossible to recreate....some of the sounds Simon created particularly are quite unique, but everyone played their part.

What do you hope people take away from listening to your music?

GS: A wry smile maybe, but know we really created sounds that came from within us spontaneously and lyrics a reflection of the times. I hope it moves people one way or another

As far as I can tell all of your songs are originals, would you ever cover a song?  What would you cover if you did? 

GS:  Ha ha we actually did two covers at the Lexington gig- both acapella.  ‘Heaven’ from the David Lynch film Eraserhead, though we did it differently. The other was the chant at the end of ‘Sally IVth’ which is a Hebredian mourning song  originally sung whilst beating the chest with both fists to release grief.  Towards the end a cover version of a Leisure song kicks in.

In 1980 we did a cover of Frank Zappa’s ‘Mr Green Genes’ as part of the John Peel session we got to the BBC studio and there was a Grand Piano and Hammond Organ. We really had to use them somehow and decided to try something quite different. Nick was the best pianist amongst us so he played both parts I think.

The record has two different sleeves, can you talk us through the decision behind that and where the images came from?

GS:  The photo montage with the billboard and Stonehenge and a traveller mate of ours, Liam, was put together by Wilf back in early 86 and was to be the original front cover.  But over the years the artwork was lost somehow, Simon felt we should come up with a different cover and he chose the image of Jimmy, Jim and I before a gig we did in Basle in ‘85.  Wilf eventually found a copy of the original montage. Both seemed to have their merits so we went for both in the end.

'Return Of The Ranters' feels political, especially documenting your experience at Stonehenge in 1985, do you feel like you've outgrown the ideology you had in the 80s?  Has your perspective shifted at all?  Or do you still feel as passionately in the same things as you always have?

GS:  No not at all....though throughout the nineties things didn't seem quite so bad.  But now globalisation and technological developments have created a monster of corporate greed that like a truly successful parasite is not recognised by its hosts.  This aggressive form of capitalism without compassion is ruining the world and its life-force, the media is controlled by tax avoiding villains masquerading as protectors and informants.

Squatting is now illegal, sleeping rough is often illegal, rents and house prices are out of reach of many...where are people to go, what are they to do?

I stood as a candidate for The Green Party in the last election to help spread awareness of the plight the power mongers are putting the planet in. The whole system is crooked, but I do believe that it can be changed with stealth and education. The banks are holding countries to ransom but with a will- as in Iceland, there is a way. 

NB:   The battles 30 years ago were to destroy community and collective power bases but in doing so a terrible genie was let out of the bottle.  Democratic capitalism has all but consumed all other ideologies and has been so successful that the only route left for it is to consume itself.  It’s now capitalism versus democracy and capitalism is winning.  Global corporations are bigger than some governments and they are starting to join and merge.  These tax avoiding, people hoovering behemoths pose a great threat to freedom.  Governments disguise their own impotence and cling onto what little power they have by focussing  on peripheral issues e.g. immigration and the unseen enemy, which is why we need to do all we can to protect and promote local, family and community alternatives to just being plugged into the mainframe.  To paraphrase Guy we need to be aware of the dangers and yet celebrate hope and beauty. These are the themes of today and will I’m sure emerging in our new music.

I was wondering, now we're back in a Tory government… if your band formed today, would you say/do anything differently in your song-writing compared to 30 years ago when ‘Return Of The Ranters’ was penned?  Are there new things that trouble you today in this version of the Conservative Party?

GS:  With the internet now we know more about how we are being lied to and exploited, man being pitted against fellow man. Divide and conquer. Our lyrics today will be as critical of the powers that be, but also we see the beauty in so much and it's important not to get swamped by the negative.  I really do wonder how Cameron, Osborne IDS (sounds like a disease) can look people in the eye without flinching...I always thought that with privilege come responsibility.  HA!

How did you feel about the level of interest in Normil Hawaiians recently after such a long time since going separate ways?

GS:  Nice!

What do you plan on doing with the momentum that has built up for the band now?  New songs? Reissues? Touring?

GS:  It was so good to get back to performing with such good friends that we can't just leave it at that.  We are planning a few gigs around Easter – Brighton & London again...but we want to play interesting places, we'll see. We still all live miles from each other so we are limited with what we can do, but definitely re-issues with Upset The Rhythm if all goes to plan...then who knows,  more recording- it's possible and we want to do it so....

What have been the main differences you've experienced from being in a band in the 80’s compared to now, technology has changed the game so much for example, and have you felt any part of the process is helped or hindered with the way things work today?

GS:  Well the biggest difference for us was the ability to use visuals , something we couldn't afford in the 80's.  A friend of Jimmy’s put them together after we gave him an idea of what we wanted and then he pinged ‘em back down to us to use as backdrops.  Brilliant! 

NB:  We have already seen a change of approach as much of our pre-rehearsal exchanges and practice has been facilitated online.  Despite this, Normil Hawaiians have never been defined by the current technology.  One of the main reasons ‘Return of The Ranters’ has been well received (apart from the lyrical resonances) has been that it doesn’t sound like it was recorded in the 80’s.  So much 80’s music is unlistenable now, as bands at the time rushed to embrace nascent technological developments without pausing to reflect how best to utilise them,  Consequently those records are locked in a time capsule.  We deliberately eschewed novelty and concentrated on performance and the dynamic interplay of our personalities to grow our sound, only allowing into the process that which added value. That is part of our blueprint.  What we did know was that we did not want to sound like every other band at the time. Today, we are all aware of and use modern recording aids (there is some awesome tech out there) and fully expect to trade ideas and explore online platforms to develop new songs (out of necessity given that we all live so far apart) but the most important thing is that what emerges has worth and fits our ethos.  It’s a very democratic process.

Is there anything you want to say that you feel you haven't been able to yet as a band?  If so please share!

Simon Marchant:  I would say that the things we have done best in the past have been our recordings. These have been honest and very much simply a record of 'what happened then'; a triangulation of political, spiritual and geographical aspects. I don't feel we've really done this live, though, and I would dearly love to do so in future.  But to do this with integrity is quite an intimate thing. It's exposing and so can be quite a challenge. Ironically, I feel that in order to feel free to perform effectively in this way, to eschew rigidity and form, we have to create structures and frameworks within which such freedom can take place and this is something currently being worked on.

For more about the Normil Hawaiians and to pick up a copy of 'Return of the Ranters' CLICK HERE!

Rattle : Interview

* Photo - Simon Parfrement

Nottingham outfit Rattle have been making huge strides with their duelling drums and vocal performance up and down the country lately.  After seeing them a few times this year I had to know more about them, so here we are, a few questions shared with Rattle, if you've not had a chance yet check them out FACEBOOK & BANDCAMP or try and catch them at a show - totally worthy of your time!
 
Hi – after some digging I couldn’t find much in the way of interviews on Rattle so thought I’d kick this off with some ‘get to know you’ questions, how do you know each other?  I want to know about the start of Rattle!

KB: This is the first interview! 

Theresa and I both live in Nottingham; we’d both lived in Nottingham for quite a few years playing in other bands before we became friends. First of all we got together to trade music skills – the plan was that I would teach Theresa to play the guitar, and she would teach me to play drums. But instead Rattle happened.

TEZ: There was a period where I’d often go out and recognize people that were going to the same gigs, with the same coats on, week after week for about a year. It took a while before we started chatting and became friends, and fairly soon after we started making music. 

Did you have a goal in mind when you started Rattle? Is there something you want to achieve from this project?

KB: Rattle happened very organically, almost by mistake. I had a sneaking hope that maybe Theresa and I might make some good, worth pursuing music with me playing guitar and her playing drums, but all of sudden we were playing something that become the song ‘Boom’. It was very clear right from the start that we didn’t need anything else but the drums and voices. In terms of what we want to achieve or a goal - we both wanted to make an album, which is something we have very almost done, and I think we just wanted to play as many gigs as possible, and get out and about.

TEZ: When we started playing we were just working out how different rhythms worked together; they didn’t feel like songs until Katy added some vocals and we started structuring them. A lot of people asked if we were going to add any additional instruments, but it never felt like there was any space or need for anything else and it felt really freeing to focus on what people might overlook as ‘the backing track’, and to be really attentive and creative with that. I think Rattle’s also partly a response to hearing bands cluttering their sound with too many changes or instruments, I find that sometimes turns me off a bit and paring things down can be much more exciting.  

Bit of a straight forward question, but to get some background on Rattle I was wondering what kind of drummers you are drawn to?

KB: I am always drawn to anything that seems to me to be different and unusual. I’m really lucky to have met and have played with most of my favourite drummers, Charles Hayward of This Heat, Katherina Bornefeld of the Ex, Sayaka Himeno of Nisennemondai, Jim White of Dirty Three, Yoshimi P-We of Boredoms.

I also love Chris Corsano, Ringo….

TEZ: All of the above – I guess we’re both drawn to un-flashy, percussive drummers who can give a different feel to the song, I’d add to that list Mick Fleetwood.

On your Facebook page it says Theresa is ‘highs’ and Katharine is ‘lows’, I don’t play the drums could you outline what you both take charge of when you’re writing/performing?

KB: Theresa is highs, ie: high hat, cymbals, cowbell, snare, but also the low low floor tom. I am lows, which is the bass drum, toms, and snare.

I suppose it is a bit like a band with two guitarists sharing one set of guitar strings between two guitars.

Can you talk about the song ‘Starting’?  It’s really stuck in my head!

KB: Starting started with a Theresa rim beat, and I came in with the bass drum and the toms. I think on that one I was trying to be purposefully awkward in the best sounding of ways, to go against Theresa’s beat as much as I could in the catchiest way possible. Awkward and catchy are definitely two things I think I try to get involved in as many songs as possible.

Tez: It’s got a stop and start to it that is a bit cheeky, I really like stop/start or false endings, you enjoy the song so much you’re a bit sad when it ends, then it comes back again and you’re extra excited! It’s a good positive mantra of a vocal line. 

How long does it take to complete a song, and how do you get started? 

KB: We start with an idea, something that is made up on the spot or something that might have popped into my head in down times at a Kogumaza (the other band I play drums in) practice or through Theresa’s practicing. I write the vocal melodies and words, sometimes whilst playing in our practice room and more often later when I am driving in my car listening to practice recordings. It depends how complete and how good the starting point is I suppose. Some songs have become quite full in the first few minutes or even seconds of playing them, and we’ve been able to play them live after a few rehearsals and keep them growing slowly like mould. But some have needed some real elbow work to bend into shape. 

TEZ: It’s really easy to get together and make a beat/riff that works well, but it takes a while to get it structured so it resembles a song.  There are also loads of things that might be changed or added when we’re recording so it doesn’t feel fully complete until we’ve finished that stage. We’ve had stuff knocking around for a couple of years now that are finally coming into their finished form. 

To my ears at least Rattle reminds me a bit of Talk Normal – do you know that band?  What do you make of that comparison?

KB: I’ve seen Talk Normal once before, I do remember really enjoying them, particularly the performance aspect, definitely something quite natural and raw about them which I think is something I hope we do have in Rattle, even without the distortion and the dirty sounds you can get out of a guitar.

TEZ: I hadn’t heard about them at all until you mentioned them but now I’ve heard them I like them, so thanks. 

How do you feel about being compared to other bands in general – is it weird?  Do think it helps or hinders trying to get people to form an idea of what your sound is like?

KB: I think we are very lucky in Rattle and it happens very little. We often get told “I’ve never seen anything like that before” or “I haven’t seen anything like that for twenty years” which to me is very exciting and flattering. Do we want to see things we’ve seen before? It’s much more exciting to see something you can’t place. It’s Starting! Rattle would probably be quite difficult for the lazy journalist. We’ve been compared to The Raincoats a few times, The Slits, The Melvins and The Sugarcubes. Lots of ‘The’ bands!

TEZ: It’s been great generally as people don’t really know what to compare us to; we sometimes get some slightly off the wall comparisons which is flattering and a good way to find new stuff (as in your last question).   

How long have you been playing live?  It felt like you’d been doing it for some time during the shows I’ve been to this year

KB: We’ve been playing live since 2012. We like to play live with Mark Spivey, also from Kogumaza, who adds effects from the desk.

TEZ: We started playing live quite soon after we started and we’ve been lucky enough to get offered some really great, interesting gigs when we only had a few ideas put together. I think we’ve really developed what we do as a direct result from playing live and we would have gone in a totally different, probably much duller, direction if we hadn’t been able to get out of the house. When you rehearse you know you can always stop and start again if you make a mistake, you can think too much, but there’s loads of good pressure and good mistakes that come out of playing live that keep things fresh.

As a relatively new band I was wondering, do you find performing live is something to develop as you play more, or does the chemistry between you two feel spot on and it just works? 

KB: We’re definitely getting more comfortable playing live the more that we play. We don’t put on much of a show, but I think people find it interesting to watch the interplay between the two drums. I’d like to develop the ‘live show’ aspect of Rattle, we are both visual artists too and love making films and I think there is a lot we could do with that, and lights, and reflections, but at the moment the most important and fun thing for me certainly is playing the drums and singing, so any Rattle time we have is focused on that!

TEZ: We just work on the songs and getting them right, it’s good to give the impression when we play that we’ve totally improvised everything in the moment, but in reality we’re usually counting numbers and hoping we get the changes in time. As we’ve played more and more though we definitely feel more comfortable with just responding to what each other are doing, a lot of the time it feels like we’re carrying a tea-set on a tight-rope, but that’s when we can play the best gigs. 

What’s been the most memorable show you’ve played?

KB: We were incredibly happy to invite Charles Hayward (This Heat) up to Nottingham to play at our EP launch at a Nottingham gallery space last year. His set was amazing and he’s a really incredible and inspiring person. We also worked with Jim Boxall, a  visual artist who created some film projections for our set which worked really well.

TEZ: We played with The Ex a couple of times last year and that was awesome as they were so great, just so energetic and inspiring.  

Who have been your favourite bands to play with?

KB: Charles Hayward, The Ex, Obits, Sauna Youth, Xylouris White, Richard Dawson 

TEZ: … Konono no. 1, Sleaford Mods, The Wharves

If you could choose a line up to be on, any band, any era, which 3 bands would you like to share a bill with?

KB: Oh my. I like to dance after we’ve played. So:

Joy Division, B52s (circa 1979), Moondog

TEZ: Talking Heads, David Bowie, New Order 

Are there any bands you’d like to play with that are around now?

KB: We have been very lucky, a lot of my dreams have already come true in this respect. 

TEZ: ESG, Earth, Cate Le Bon, there’s lots

What’s the most memorable show you’ve been to?

KB: Neurosis at Dudley JBs in 1999. They were a physical force!

Tez: Thee oh sees at the Leeds Brudenell 2013 

You’re from Nottingham – what can you say about the music scene there? Is there anything you would change?

TEZ: Nottingham has a huge collection of talented people who are doing really interesting things, completely unrelated to each other artistically but socially connected and really supportive. It’s really uncomplicated and inexpensive to put a gig on at the Chameleon, JT Soar, or Stuck On A Name, and have amazing sound quality and people who really, really look after you and love independent music. 

All of this isn’t necessarily represented by the way the music scene is sometimes marketed, which is often represented by someone trying to make out there’s a certain ‘sound’ or to push for a no. 1 single, that sometimes feels at odds with people making a really independent and diverse scene that’s frequently amazing. 

What was the first album that really made an impact on you?

KB: Nirvana, Nevermind. That bit on Drain You with the build-up. Suddenly just listening to music was never going to be enough!

TEZ: This question has set off a BLUR (arf) of 90’s album listening and it’s hard to pin-point just one, but in terms of thinking about playing music I remember listening the Stone Roses 1st album and thinking I’d like to play the drums, Reni had such intricacies and riffs, what an ace drummer!  

What’s coming up for Rattle so readers know what to try and catch – shows, recorders etc!

TEZ: We’re playing Cops and Robbers summer bash in Leeds Wharf Chambers on 24th July, and at the tramlines fringe festival at the Picture House Social Sheffield on 25th July, in Manchester on 1st August and the double dot bash festival on 12th September http://www.doubledotbash.net/. We’re finishing off recording and mixing our first album and we’re hoping to put together some kind of tour in the autumn. 

The Urinals : Interview

It's a real thrill to offer up an interview with John from The Urinals, read on to find out what's coming up for the seminal west coast outfit!! 

You have a live album coming up, is it a compilation of different recordings or was it made during one performance?

I’m plundering the vaults for usable stuff from 1978-1983 so it’ll probably be a hybrid Urinals/100 Flowers release.  I’m trying to find interesting performances or songs that no one has heard us cover before – there should be some real surprises here, including performances of songs that sound much different from the released versions, and at least one cover that I’d forgotten about.  These are from cassettes, where the sound quality is variable from one show to the next, so some cleaning up will be required.

What’s your most memorable show?

Several are memorable – our first Sunset Strip performance at Gazzari’s (with The Last, Go Go’s, and an early Jeffrey Lee Pierce band, the Cyclones), our first show outside California (Raul’s in Austin), opening for Sonic Youth at the Wadsworth in LA, touring the West Coast with Yo La Tengo, being pelted at a Battle of the Bands in San Diego.   For sheer glorious surrealism, our first set at the Chaoyang Park International Pop Festival in Beijing in May of 2005.  Not that it was our best, but it was the most unexpected and unlikely.  To have found ourselves as the sole U.S. band is still mind-boggling to me.  You’re welcome, America.

What can we expect from the new album?

Aggressive, angular hard pop with more texture than you might expect.  Shortest song is :45 with only one longer than 3:14 so we’re still into brevity and minimalism, but with more nuance. Guitarist Rob Roberge brings a different element to the band – his influences are Stones/Dolls and Americana, but you’ll still know it’s us - it’s the next logical step after WHAT IS REAL AND WHAT IS NOT.

Will the new album be self-released on happy squid too?

Yes – it’s in the layout stage now, so it shouldn’t be too long, but I’ve been wrong on these things before, so don’t quote me.  Or even allow me to quote myself.

How do you approach recording? Do you come to a session with ideas already mapped out, or is it a more instinctive thing?

When we go into the studio, the songs have been written, arranged, and played live (a lot!)  The specific solos and overdubs are not set, so there IS room for some improvisation, but the structures are known.  One song on the new album, however, was re-arranged in the mixing stage, so I’m not against a little digital trickery to make a song the fullest expression of itself.

From some digging on the internet it looks like you still live/work/write music in Southern California? Does the area inform the music you write?

I suppose so, but it’s not something I think about.  A song like CALIFORNIA’S FALLING INTO THE OCEAN was about a specific local event, and SURFIN’ WITH THE SHAH employs a surf beat, which is very SoCal, but our approach doesn’t consciously reference our culture, though I suppose it is OF its culture.

Having said that, when we were starting out and going into Hollywood to see the Dangerhouse bands, I felt like the L.A. punk scene was the best one in the U.S.  At that time though, our biggest early influences were Wire, Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, and the Ramones – none of which are from SoCal. Once you find your own voice however, the influences recede. They act initially to get you to strap on a guitar or yowl into a microphone.

Do you prefer playing or recording? With the experience you have now is there a piece of advice you’d give yourself when you first playing in a band? If so what would it be?

Playing is way more fun, unless it’s a horrible night in a dim club with 2 paying customers, crappy sound, and a belligerent sound guy.  But when it’s not that, and one is free to concentrate on the songs and the performance, AND get feedback from the audience – it’s the best. Recording is kind of dull, actually, because it takes so long.  I do love the finished product though – it just takes a lot of doing to get to it.

Advice to my younger self? Go on tour, network with people. Near the end of 100 Flowers, we had become a tight and dynamic unit, but not too many people outside of LA had been given the opportunity to see us. I think we could’ve taken the band to the next level had we been more careerist, which of course was a dirty word back then, so pretend I didn’t say that.

It’s well written about how Urinals forged their sound from not knowing how to play when you got started.  I was wondering if over time you’ve honed your skills through experience, and if it’s still important to write songs sounding like they’ve come from an untaught place?

I would say it’s important to write songs that sound different.  There’s no way we could get away with pretending we don’t know what we’re doing (though technically, being self-taught and unable to read music, Kevin and I still don’t.) That would be dishonest and would suggest that we aren’t interested in evolving into the next iteration of the Urinals.  It’s more important to retain one’s own unique perspective and try not to get absorbed into someone else’s version of pop music.

I’ve also read a lot about how Urinals was kicking against what everyone was listening to when you got started with the concept of a ‘joke punk’ band.  What do you make of the current wave of music?  Can a band still make a radical statement when there’s so much out there that has said so much now?

A radical statement can now be thought of as commercial. Look at Kanye West’s last record, some of which sounds like late 1970s/early 1980s industrial music. Or No Age, who are appealing to a mass audience way beyond what would’ve been conceivable in the early days of punk.  What they’re saying may be familiar, but the way they’re saying it is new to commercial radio. I tend to think however, that most everything has been expressed – what’s left?

How does it feel to have bands like No Age, Yo La Tengo and Mike Watt cover your songs?  Are there any new bands that you currently like to listen to?

It’s a pleasure to have the material covered.  It’s gratifying that people find it resonant enough to lend their own interpretation to.

I am exposed to new music more often in a live situation, when we’re playing on a bill with someone we’ve never been exposed to before.  Recently memorable bands I’ve seen have been AUNTIE PANTY, SHARK TOYS, PLAYBACKDOLLS, and AUDACITY.

In an interview you said sex was recorded in a gym, the interview read as though you had limited options when it came to studio space, do you think this added another dimension to how your songs sound?  Have you continued to record in unusual venues?

SEX sounds the way it does because of the space in which it was recorded – also ORANGE ANAL SIN, which was recorded in a parking structure, is similarly massive.  There’s some footage on YouTube of us playing SHAH with Bruce Licher in a downtown gallery a couple of years ago that also has that quality.  We really like that kind of sound, but we’ve moved away from recording in spaces like that. Instead, we use the studio to try to present the material in its most dynamic way – sometimes that dynamism is lost when the space overwhelms it.

If you were sliced in half what would be inside?

A solid sphere of dark chocolate (72% cacao) with a thin layer of pistachio Grenache.

The Urinals Facebook

Protomartyr : Interview

Detroit's Protomartyr are poised to release a new album on Hardly Art and venture over to Europe for a slew of dates and I for one couldn't be more thrilled - I got to talk to Joe to find out what makes 'em tick - and well dressed dogs.

This might be the first time people hear about Protomartyr, so I thought I’d start things off with asking what’s the ‘goal’ of the band? Is there something you’ve set out to achieve?

There's no goal, really. It started as a way to get free drinks at bars and it just kinda snowballed. We do have the goal of trying to be a punctual band and to smash the "punk-time" hegemony. We load in fast and load out faster.

I saw you just did a show in your hometown at The Lager House, how did it go?

It was our best Lager House show yet. It was packed. Our pals from Austin, Spray Paint played. I see you interviewed them as well. Nice. We also played with Shelley Salant aka Shells. Her album "In A Cloud" is great. In the past, not many people would come out to our shows, which is typical. I remember having to buy my friends drinks just to cajole them into coming out. If you can manage it, that's a good tip to have people like your band at the onset: Get them drunk.

I’m a big fan of Death & Index.... I’m curious to know if there are any traces of these older scenes around today in Detroit?

Both great bands. There's ghosts around here and there if you're looking. We played a show with DAS, whose album "Non-Chalant" is one of those lost classics. I guess he did the original artwork for the Death album that was never used. We played Jumbo's with him along with The Intended, another good Detroit band.

Over here in Europe it feels like the only time we learn about Detroit is through images of dilapidated buildings in newspapers, but I read about this Heidelberg Project which looked kind of awesome – have you seen been to these houses?

Yeah I have. It's kinda turned into a tourist trap slash arsonist's dream. I honestly didn't register how dilapidated Detroit was until I traveled around. I assumed all cities looked like this.

From pieces already written about Protomartyr it sounds like you formed from hanging out and playing in Butt Babies, looking back did you think the band would reach the scale it has now?

Not at all. If the early Protomartyr knew a blog in England would want to interview us after the first leg of a two month North American tour we'd spit up our Wheaties. It's all rather exciting, but you can't let it affect you. I did purchase some prescription sunglasses though. Ha ha.
Protomartyr have been active for around 4 years, has your approach to playing and writing together changed over this time at all?

Not really. We've moved from an overpriced shithole practice space to the cozy confines of Scott's basement. That's about it.

What can you tell us about your new album on Hardly Art? It’s been 2 years since the first album, so were you still fired up from ‘No Passion All Technique’ and ready to crack on with some more material?

A good number of these songs were written right after the first one, so yeah, we were fired up and ready to go. Larger labels move a lot slower than something like Urinal Cake. A bunch of lawyers and departments, etc. So it took a bit. We already have an album's worth of new songs ready to go. We've been playing a couple on tour. I hope we can start recording again after all this touring rigamarole is done.

I streamed the new album on NPR I LOVE “Pagans”, can you tell me a bit about that track?

A bit. It takes place in Jumbo's bar and involves two philosophical drunks. It's about contrapasso, the Detroit Tigers, and the trash that covers the city. It's also about other things.

The recording of the album itself sounds significantly different from the first LP did you approach your studio setup in a new way this time around?

It's a different studio (Key Club in Benton Harbor) with a different guy recording it (Bill Skibbe), so we just adjusted accordingly.
How do you know an album is finished?  Do you have a plan from the get go or does it evolve more organically?

We don't really have the funds to have an album develop organically in the studio. We kinda need the songs to be ground into dust by practice and demoing before we step into the studio. Maybe if the label loosens the purse strings the next time around we'll be more opaque about it. But again, we almost have a whole album ready to go, so it's being planned out as we speak.

Do you prefer playing or recording music?

I prefer sleeping above all things.

Protomartyr gets described predominantly as a Punk band when you go through reviews, do you agree with this?  Do you care how people label your music?

Well, we self-identified as "punk-ish" early on because I yelled a bunch and the songs were short. I know people need shorthand identifiers, especially in this world of made-up microgenres. Now we get called "post-punk". I guess that's because I was born in 1977? I can't quite figure it out. But people can call it whatever they like, unless they call it "shit" or something.

What’s your definition of ‘punk’ in 2014?

A true punk wouldn't define punk. Did I get it right?

You’re coming out to Europe in August is there anywhere/anything you’re excited to see/do?

Everywhere and anyone!

“I’m full of dust and guitars” Syd Barrett – if you were sliced in half what would be inside?

A genteel world where dogs walk on their hind legs, talk, and dress really nice.

Protomartyr FACEBOOK

London show is on Tuesday 19th August @ The Lexington

presented by Upset The Rhythm tickets are HERE !