Chinese Missy talks Download

Download Festival 2014

Friday 13th to Sunday 15th June 2014
Donington Park, Donington, Derbyshire, DE74 2RP, England MAP
£195 for five nights with camping

Daily capacity: 111,000

We spoke to Chinese Missy following their appearance at Download.

How was it playing to the Download crowd?
The Download crowd was absolutely amazing, first time we’ve ever had a full blown circle pit at one of our gigs, so that was pretty cool. Especially seeing my Dad pulled into it was fairly hysterical haha. We’re used to playing really small, sweaty, rammed London clubs so when you pull us out of them and drop us on a ten times bigger stage like Download with a ten times bigger crowd its fun trying recreate the same intensity and atmosphere. It means we’ve got to somehow up our game tenfold and we seemed to get a lot back from the crowd, so yeah, it was pretty awesome.

How would you describe your sound?
Straight up trashy rock and roll. There’s a lot of 70s influences but we aim to put a modern spin on them. Music to dance and have fun to really.

Can we expect to see you touring the UK soon?
Definitely, we released our debut single ‘Kickin’ About’ on the 23rd of June and playing a release show in London at the Macbeth on the 25th! Then we’re making our way up to Scotland for a series of shows on the East coast! July we’re taking it easy and writing and rehearsing and then are back on the road in August kickin’ off with a gig at The Monarch in Camden on the 1st!

Did you have chance to catch any of the other bands at Download? If so, who?
Yeah definitely, we’ve spent the whole weekend trying to watch as many as possible, quite a lot of our favourite bands have been on. Our bassist Tommy L’Heart was raised on The Quo so we went along to that. Linkin’ Park were great, so were The Temperence Movement, Rival Sons, Royal Blood etc.

Do you have any new material due out soon?
Yeah our debut single ‘Kickin About’ is out on the 23rd of June! In August we’re also recording the music video for our second single which will be out in the autumn and features the likes of David Cameron, George Osborne, Boris, Thatcher etc and is called ‘Blood On Your Hands’ so without giving too much away you can probably guess what that’s about…

Is there any particular band that you would love to be on the same bill as?
Ahh any of the rock and roll greats would be amazing, so playing on the same bill as Aerosmith has been absolutely mad.

Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to start a band?
Yeah definitely, just get out there and meet as many musicians and people as possible. It helps to find people to be in a band with but also people in other bands who you can put on shows with and go watch their gigs etc. The more friends you make, the more of a scene you’ll all have, makes it far more fun!

Do you ever get fed up with being asked the same interview questions by music reviewers?
Not at all! It’s like when people ask you whether you ever get bored playing the same songs day in day out. It’s what you do and enjoy so personally I find it all really exciting no matter how many times I’ve done it haha.

In your own words why should someone start to listen to your music?
We always say we’re a guitar band that aims to make both your feet and mind dance. We write fun songs that people can dance along and enjoy themselves to but also songs with serious points to them.

Who is more important in a band out of the drummer or the guitarist?
Haha the drummer by miles, he’s the backbone of it all, wouldn’t want to leave myself in charge of keeping time for the whole band.

Have you ever had any spinal tap moments whilst playing live?
We’re full of spinal tap moments. Once our guitarist was dancing about too much and he fell into the drum kit and then found himself beached on the bass drum mid song, imagine a tortoise on it’s back kind of thing. He then proceeded to knock over all the stands whilst trying to climb back up haha. We’ve also had gigs where we’ve played with 3 life sized cardboard cut out corgis around the stage. When things kick off they always fall over and there’s a hilarious video of us playing one song live where our bassist is pretty much running about caring for the dogs all song haha. Once we hung one up from the ceiling so it was floating above us but that resulted in a dive bombing corgi mid set.