pre-Summer Sundae Weekender interview

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Are you still signed to Rough Trade Records?
No, we’ve left. We left about 3 weeks ago. We’re in talks with a whole host of other labels at the moment so its just gonna be picking the right one for us, who can take us on and put us where we wanna be.

Is this an indication that your third album might be going in a different direction?
No not at all, not at all. We don’t know what direction were going in. We just look at it that it ends up being what it is. Stuff we are working on at the mo sounds more like us and is a whole more…what’s the word….I dunno, it’s going to be special.

How do you write as a band?
For the first couple of albums and for new stuff it was me and Greg who were the writers….

(some Incomprehensible noise)

Sorry some f*cking lunatic just drove at me in a truck, wait its all right I know him.

(A second later….)

We’ll write stuff and take it to the band because different people can do stuff that you’d never have thought of yourself, its like having a fantastic producer on board; they can do things with it that you would never have dreamed of.

So does each band member have their individual strengths that they can bring to the band?
Oh yeah definitely, but we’ve all got common touchstones, things that we all love. We were all brought up in the same area but by different parents – u can’t all have the same morals!

So you play the keyboard and are on backing vocals, would you say you’re more technically minded than your brother Greg (lead vocals and guitar)?
Ohhh he hasn’t got a f*cking clue! Honestly man he doesn’t even care what guitar he plays, it’s just a vehicle for him to write things – but he’s become a pretty good guitarist. Greg especially doesn’t give a shit about technology, you know he hasn’t even got a telly, he still counts things on an abacus!

I bet if I speak to him I’ll get an entirely different story! Is it true that you lost a load of demos and new songs for the second album?
Yeah I lost 100 songs, which was traumatic! That was everything I had been working on for about 2 years before that. That was hardcore.

We were playing at Southampton Guildhall and I just kept them on me and things got a bit hazy - I dunno what happened, I must have just fell asleep in a bush somewhere, when I woke up they were gone.

So you haven’t found them cropping up on the internet anywhere yet then?
No, actually there have been a couple of songs where I’ve thought ‘hang on a minute’, but what can you do? That was tough.

Where do you draw all your inspiration?
It depends, it just has to be music – anything from the 50s – I listen to a lot of doo wap music at the moment – we really do wanna make a doo wap album one day.

Actually that would be a solo project probably.

Your music has a definite nostalgic feel to it – was that a deliberate thing on your part?
Yeah I think that’s the one thing we do notice that we’re doing – we are very nostalgic people. I am – I’m a bit of a hypochondriac – when I say goodbye to someone I think it’s the last time I’m ever gonna see them – I live my life like a film but I’m a bit of a shit director.

I’ve heard Michael Jackson’s been cited as one of your influences?
That’s the first time I’ve heard that - I don’t think we ever mentioned him as a major influence but the man’s fantastic, aside from his extra curricular activities. He’s a genius – look at the songs he’s written.

Bands like The Thrills tend to be a bit repetitive and after a few listens can sound dated. In comparison how have you managed to retain a fresh feel to your music?
I think we do it by being honest, a lot of people are just scared to rock the boat, which I think is a shame because a lot of bands just come out sounding exactly the same as each other. When we’re writing we don’t listen to any contemporary music at all because we don’t want that to be an influence.

You did a secret gig in Salisbury not too long ago, how did that come about?
We sometimes like to do secret gigs and that came round at a time when we‘d just written most of the new album. We wanted to play and wanted people to hear it but didn’t want them to know it was us, unfortunately when we walked into the pub one or two people recognised us and then mobile phones started ringing and then it was rammed, which was flattering. But we just change our name now – we may be the Beatlees next.

We do them all the time actually – it’s a fun thing to do – I mean we’re not at the stage where we can’t walk down the street yet or anything. It’s nice to go and be our alias for a night.

So when you play Southampton is it like a home-coming gig for you?
Ahh yeah its unbelievable, when we played in Portsmouth (there’s quite a big rivalry between Southampton and Portsmouth) that was just as fantastic.

Any new bands you particularly like or hate?
I’m not a hater, I love Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, I love Bloc Party cant wait to hear their new stuff – I love Art Brut at the moment, I’m a melancholy freak, I listen to Mogwai and Arab Strap and I wanna cry.

Got any festival horror stories?
I can think of my most horrible festival food experience – the catering isn’t usually too bad – we’re pretty lucky it’s not too bad backstage. But last time we did Oxygen we were flying out to New York the next day to do the Franz Ferdinand support in America and we got stranded in Oxygen, and our manager left and we had no money. The only thing we could do was get this f*cking chicken from this ‘independent salesman’ lets say – it was disgusting, tasted like vinegar – the only thing we had to eat in 2 days – not nice!

When you’re at a festival do you like to hang out backstage or mingle with the crowds?
I like to mix it up, go out the back and go out the front - especially if there’s a band on I wanna see.

Finally, any plans for the future?
We’ve already started writing the third album, they’re (rest of the band) working on stuff as we speak I think. But…I think we’ve got a tour booked in November.

Many thanks to Aaron for taking the time out to speak to eFestivals.

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