Category: Interviews

Athlete have been around since the turn of the century and it seems that their millenium bug has grown even more ever since lead singer Joel Potts managed to check out of a skate shop and into a tour bus.

The band are now 3 albums into their careers and have enjoyed seeing themselves mooching around the top 10, stopping for a short while at the number 1 spot with their 2nd album ‘Tourist‘

Charlotte Russell managed to sneak some time in with Joel before their recent UK tour and this is what went down.

How is life currently?

Very good thank you very much. I like autumn.

Is it true you guys skate board and used to work in a skate shop in Kensington?

Just myself, the other boys can just about cruise along! I used to manage a shop called ‘Slick Willies‘ years ago and would skate a fair bit then, never enough to get any good though really. Now I’m getting old and it just hurts too much if I fall…so I stick to snowboarding.

Are you aware that many skaters are into your band?

No not really. It’s great if they are cause I love the vibe of the skate scene. I remember when Mark Baines first came down to a gig in Sheffield and I was like “Wow…Mark Baines!”. I never really want to be part of any particular scene though; I want to make music that is scene less!

What did you learn the most from releasing your last album?

To make sure we’re always making music from the gut and because we fucking love it. I never want it to be about how many ‘units are we shifting’ – too many bands and artists are worrying about that.

What qualities did Ben Allen bring to the new album?

We really wanted someone who wasn’t an indie rock mixer. Ben Allen comes from a hip-hop background – Gnarls Barkley, P Diddy, that kind of stuff. But he says he’s had enough of hanging out with gangsters while J Lo struts around in a bikini. Basically we wanted our album ‘pimped’.

The second album “Tourist” outperforming the successful debut “Vehicles and Animals“, and single “Wires” won Best Contemporary Song at the Ivor Novello awards in May 2006. When writing new material, is there a constant awareness of having to “live up to” such successful hits?

Like I said earlier, there’s a shit load of pressure on people to sell records and be commercially successful. Our culture tells kids to pick up a guitar, write a catchy tune (preferably with an 80’s vibe), get a weird haircut and a drug habit and you’ll be famous. I want to steer clear of that bollocks. We are fortunate to be on a label that has a history of bands that make creative music from the gut that turns out to be commercially successful. What I love about the Ivor Novello, is that that award was for the song, not the commercial success that came with it. Having said all that…I’m well up for selling a shit load of records!

The songs on new album “Beyond the Neighbourhood” use more synthesisers and electronic beats than the first two albums. Is this a reflection of your personal music tastes and preferences?

I guess so. We all love electronica, stuff like B Fleishman, Efterklang and Justus kohncke. It was bubbling under the 1st two albums but is more obvious on this record.

In what ways have the band progressed and evolved since the first album?

We’re always pushing each other to be better musicians and have a better understanding of music. We are getting better and we keep evolving because of that and because we love discovering new music and being inspired by a variety of stuff. It’s a journey and if I ever feel like we’ve arrived then we may as well give up.

For the songs written on this third album, were the song writing duties shared between the band or were the majority written by one person?

We all get involved. Songs start in loads of different ways. The only rule is – I write the lyrics!

How did the writing of the songs featured on “Beyond the Neighbourhood” differ from the process with the first two albums, if at all?

A few of them began on laptops while we were on tour. Others we wrote from just jamming together which I guess has never happened before.

“Beyond the Neighbourhood” was recorded in a studio put together by the band, without the use of a producer. What overall effect did this have on the band morale and the songs recorded for the third album?

It was probably the most enjoyable record to make. It was exciting being in our OWN new studio writing and recording stuff with my mates. It was also a load cheaper!

For this album, you used organic beats, which are described as “beats made from doors shutting, switches flicking and equipment being shaken, hit or dropped“. Which was the most unusual “organic beat” you came up with and on which tracks are they used?

Oh I don’t know, probably putting the toilet seat down or doing my flies up! You’ll notice them on ‘The Outsiders‘ and ‘This Is What I Sound Like‘.

One of the new album tracks “Flying Over Bus Stops” features female vocals from Londoner Marie-Juliette. How did you get together with Marie for this track?

She’s a friend of Jonny’s (who now plays live with us). She’s got a gorgeous voice.

If you could have anyone as guest vocalist on any of your songs, who would it be and on which track?

I’d have Bruce Springsteen sing ‘Best Not To Think About It’ cause it’s got a bit of a ‘Philadelphia’ vibe!

The first single from the new album, “Hurricane” was inspired by an article in National Geographic. What other situations have inspired the writing for “Beyond the Neighbourhood”?

I wrote ‘This is What I Sound Like‘ after watching the film ‘Munich‘. Lyrics for ‘The Outsiders‘ were taken from a poem I wrote in backcountry America and ‘Best Not To Think About It‘ started after watching a documentary called ‘The Falling Man‘.

Due to the increased presence of guitar on the new album, it has been necessary to add former Weevil guitarist Jonny Pilcher to the live line up. Has this forced any changes in the way the old material is now performed live?

We’d been talking for a while about having another guitarist for playing live. Jonny is an old friend and an amazing guitarist so it’s great having him around. We wanted Jonny to come up with some new parts for the old material so yeah, it’s different, fresh and even better!

Which venues where you most looking forward to playing in and are there any venues you wanted to play but, for whatever reasons, haven’t been able to?

I always love playing in Glasgow and we’ve never been in the Barrowlands before so that should be class. Shepherds Bush in London is one of my favourite venues and we’re doing 2 nights there. Bring it on.

Which of the new songs are you most excited about debuting on this tour and which of the older songs, if any, are being dropped from the set?

‘Second Hand Stores‘ and ‘Tokyo‘ feel great to play live and have been going down really well. I’m really glad to announce we’re not going to be playing ‘El Salvador‘ from the first album! I know some people love that song but tough shit cause I don’t anymore!

Lastly, your house is burning down and you have room to take one thing with you, what would it be?

My Missus!

Thank you for taking time to answer these questions, and good luck with the album release and upcoming tours.

THANK YOU!

‘Beyond the Neighbourhood’ is out now on Parlophone Records. Visit www.athlete.mu to get the full experience.

Interview by Abjekt
Photos by Zac Slack.

El-P is a name that everyone who is remotely interested in hip hop knows. From his time in Company Flow to his career as a record label owner, the New Yorker has risen to the top of the tree and released his new album I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead this year after a prolonged absence from putting out solo material.

After rocking Dingwalls to its very core earlier this year, El returned to London for a show at the Scala and Abjekt caught up with him to discuss his history, the balancing act he performs at Def Jux and, of course, that moustache.

Starting near the beginning, obviously you were in Company Flow a while back.

This is true.

How much of an experience and how helpful was it as you moved into a solo career that you were in Company Flow? Did you get a good grounding in the group?

Yeah, I mean that was how I came into the business really. I was a solo artist first, the first Company Flow single was just me rhyming on it and Lenny was there doing the cuts and Juss joined the group later. But yeah, I didn’t have any intention of being a solo artist, I thought Company Flow was going to go on forever… but it didn’t and I kinda got used to the idea.

Luckily I think Company Flow did help me out because we always took the time to do our own solo tracks on the album, me and Juss both had 2 or 3 solo tracks on there so we weren’t strangers to doing our own songs. But it was a little scary at first because it was like “Oh shit, I’m on my own, there’s no-one to blame but me now”, but once I got used to the idea, it just seemed right.

A lot of people have cited Company Flow as an influence or a big breakthrough group for what were you doing, were you ever aware of this or were you just into what you were doing?

I don’t think you’re ever really aware at the time of how people are going to perceive it, we were just glad that anyone liked our music, we didn’t know if that was going to happen. We just liked what we were doing, we were having fun and we loved the music and making the music and the art form of it, the culture of hip hop. That was what we were all about so it was kind of like making music for yourself to a degree and I think that’s because of the fact that we had that mind state, we just made the craziest shit that we wanted to make. I think that we were lucky because we tapped into something that people really liked at the time, I think it was just right time, right place – the style just landed at the right time I think.

Once it dawned on me that we had fans and were selling records, it was really fucking weird to me, like “how is this possible?”. Of course there’s part of you that thinks you’re the dopest shit on the planet and of course you should be platinum and it’s only a matter of people hearing you and then you will be platinum… I’ve long since given that up. But honestly every time I put a record out, I’m very fucking grateful that people are still checking for me.

So, next in the time line was when Company Flow went their different ways and you started Def Jux. Was it a career plan to start a record label or was it just something you fell into doing?

Well, we started a record label before we hooked up with Rawkus, we put the first Company Flow EP out, and the 12 inches, on our own record label and that’s how we got started, fucking with Fat Beats, we came up in that era, so it was always a plan. Doing the Rawkus deal was an imprint but realistically once we signed with Rawkus, we didn’t do shit, we weren’t a record label anymore, we were just an artist/group.

But yeah, the original plan was to go to Rawkus for a one record deal and take whatever we got from that and go back to the record label idea, but we felt the best way to get exposure was fucking with someone who could put some money behind us. It was spoken about and understood at the beginning, we lost the idea for a year or two but I realised I still wanted to do that. I had this thing inside me that wanted to… not start a record label, but just involved myself in a different way. It’s like, I don’t have any love for running a record label, I could give this shit up tomorrow and I wouldn’t care, it’s really about the fact that I’ve been able to work with people I love and respect and doing the music in the way I want to do it without having to argue about it. I guess it’s a control thing.

I’ve read that you called yourself a “businessman by accident”, would you say that running the label has meant having to put your solo career on the back burner for a while for the good of the other artists on the label?

It has yeah. And that’s something pains me and that I know is a worth sacrifice. I don’t think there are that many people that have to balance their personal aspirations with other people’s. But that’s something that I chose to do because I really care about the guys that I work with, my life just changed and it wasn’t all about me. All of a sudden I had the burden and had to show them proof, because I had my friends putting their faith in me and the operation that I built. But I can tell you, now that I’ve had the chance to dip back in to doing what I really love, quite honestly my true passion is doing my own music, and I don’t wanna stop that.

I would sooner step back from the business side and do the artist side at this point and that’s something I’m considering because these past few years we needed to establish everyone and get them on their feet, but everyone’s doing good and doing their thing now. I still feel that responsibility, but I’ve got these voices inside my head and that’s what’s been driving me since day 1 – That’s the shit that got me kicked out of school, that had me in the streets drinking 40s and freestyling and that’s the voice that’s still there for me and is still the most important one.

So it was almost 5 years between Fan Dam and the new record, I was wondering if your methods in songwriting or putting the album together changed over that time? Because you worked with a lot of different artists on the High Water album…

I did a lot of different shit, I worked on a lot of different projects and it gave me a chance to fuck around with techniques and throw myself into different situations. I’m all about constantly trying to find the next style, the next idea for myself so that’s why I do those other things. I did High Water, a film score, a bunch of remixes, I produced for Cage and Lif so yeah I think I could look someone directly in the eye and say “I’ve changed, my style has changed”, because that’s kind of what I’m about anyway. I’m not one of these cats that has found the perfect thing and is happy with it, I never think there is one right way to do things, I’ve never thought that. The exciting thing for me was always to try and refine the things I say and try to make sense, in a way that reflects who I am now.

For the same reason that I can’t be the same El-P that was 21 years old and doing a whole album of battle rap shit, I’m just a different person and I gotta make sure the music reflects that. And I feel like one of the things people know that they can count on me for is that I’m still searching and when they listen they know I’m headed somewhere, which doesn’t mean that all of a sudden its going to be some sort of harp/orchestral music with some sort of crazy lofty shit, but I am trying to get better at what I do and I think that hopefully I am. That’s the sort of thing you leave up to the fans, and I think that fans who follow what you do want to hear you make some progression and at the same time be who they are and maintain with what you fell in love with them for at the beginning and that’s really the balance that I’m trying to go for.

And to that end, you’ve got a pretty eclectic mix of guests on the album but the one thing I was really pleased about, because I have to admit I was pretty worried to start with…

As was everyone!

…Was it going to be a The Mars Volta song with El-P rapping over it, was it going to be a Cat Power song. So, obviously it was important to you to keep your sound whilst being able to bring these people in.

I just look at this shit like a sample or bringing a session musician in y’know? I don’t look at it like “hey, here’s my big rap-rock collab”, that’s bullshit to me. The fact of the matter is that if you’re a hip hop producer, you own so many records and you’re sampling all these different genres and putting them together. It’s all the same thing to me, I think people make a mistake of switching their shit up as soon as they get to collaborate with someone outside of their genre, I’ve been collaborating with people outside of my genre since I first started, they just didn’t know about it. And then some of them, when they did, sued me. I just think its an extension of the whole idea of what hip hop cats do best, which is pick apart and pull apart all the things we like from different genres and put them together to make something new that’s ours and use all the parts that sound dope to us.

I mean, 90% of your favourite hip hop records are from rock albums, breaks, little breaks or jazz records or funk records. Little moments that you got stuck in your head and once I got the chance to work with some of the cats in other ways that I’d like outside the genre, it seemed like a natural thing to bring them. It’s not like I made a list like “I’m going to go and get Trent, I’m going to get Cat Power”, I knew these people and was working with them in different capacities and I just tried to make it work, instead of making it forced.

I knew that the second everyone looked at the list of collaborators, it was going to be like “Oh fuck, here he goes, he’s trying to make his crossover” and I think that I made a concerted effort that it didn’t come out like that.

I have to say, I was so pleased to hear the record and the way it came out because it was so typically El with these guys on it.

Thank you.

There are 3 tracks on the album that are grouped together that I thought were really interesting – Dear Sirs, Run The Numbers and Habeas Corpses – and it seems like a trilogy within the album about how society is getting fucked up. What I was interested in as well was that it wasn’t you saying “Fuck Bush, Blair is a prick”, it was more an everyman style “this is how I’m reacting to it”.

But that’s my perspective period and that’s the perspective I try and put across over the whole record. I don’t think anyone needs to hear from me base logic bullshit protest grand statements. You don’t need to hear from me about George Bush, if you haven’t made your mind up about that, you’re fucked up anyway. I don’t look at it like that, I’ve been pretty lucky that I’ve never been classified as a conscious rapper, because I think people can tell that I’m not, I’m a pretty fucked up cat, I just try and approach these ideas from the point of view of someone who is just trying to get up and fucking get the train somewhere and all these things are affecting them and that very simple activity.

For me, if you’re talking about your life and really paint a picture, whatever political is going on is going to seep in somehow. But I don’t think everyone wants to hear it directly, and I certainly don’t want to talk about it, because I don’t know enough about that. I’m too smart to think I’m smart, I’d rather tell you what it felt to stand on the corner at 5am and I think if you paint the picture right and you do it with some care, people will feel the backdrop. But the middle part is the most overtly political but I avoided saying people’s names.

I would say it’s a war trilogy, the first is my response to a draft letter, saying “fuck you I’m not going to war”. Run The Numbers is me in the war, despite my protest and we’re running around looking for purpose and landmines and the third is even further into the future where I become the war, I am a part of the war and somehow a willing participant and having seconds thoughts about what it means to be human and also powerful and I guess that’s pretty much it. It’s an easier perspective, people can listen to you talk about something that is internal… who the fuck wants to see some dude stand up and rattle off a bunch of shit that you can read on any website, it’s boring. It’s just repeating easily google-able facts.

I’m more interested in the mechanisms of the mind and the struggle and how we’re going to compose ourselves during these times and still are the fucked up people that we are and trying to balance the idea that “I’m happy and I wanna live” but where we’re walking is a borderline war zone. I think that makes for interesting subject matter.

So, to take the tone a little lighter, you grew what became an infamous moustache during the recording of the album. How comes you shaved it off dude?

I finished the album dude…

I dunno man, I think you’ve started a trend, I noticed Slug has got a handlebar moustache now.

You know what? I’m going to take full responsibility for that, Slug is a fucking biter and you can tell him I said that. That’s my fucking man, but he bit my moustache. The only thing is Slug probably looks a lot cooler with his, but I needed to shave that thing off. Though I’m not gonna lie, every now and then I sneak it back in there, just for myself for a couple of days.

Right then, we’re here in London, and you’re back after playing a show at Dingwalls earlier in the year, and I’ve got to say, that was show of the year for me. Are you happy to be coming back to London so soon?

Oh yeah man, I’ve been dying to come back here.

How did you enjoy the show at Dingwalls?

That shit was NUTS man. I mean London repped, I hope they rep tonight y’know because it’s hard but London really repped which is good because London was the first spot I ever came out to perform in 97 at the Jazz Cafe and that was a legendary show for us personally, this set off us taking our music outside of our little area and I wanted to come back, when you tour the UK, you go out there and you don’t come back for a year and I just wanted to come the fuck back out man. The shows were so good and it was so fun, I just wanted to come back out and show cats out here that we were serious and that we were here. We’re not some phantoms that were just going to dip in every once in a while and think we were the shit. We had a great time performing out here and we wanted to recapture that.

Yeah, for sure. In fact, I went to that Dingwalls show with Zac and he said it was the most hardcore like show he’s seen in the last 5 years just because the crowd were so on point with the music, and had a blast.

Yeah man, that’s cool.

I don’t know if you have them with you again this time, but you had some live musicians…

Well, we’re just missing one, we’re missing the bassist because he couldn’t make it out here.

Was that something that you definitely wanted, this other dimension to the live show?

My man who plays keys for us, and our bassist are on my record, they are all friends of mine from New York and I didn’t wanna replace my music with a band, a lot of rappers are like “OK we need to step it up”, but I mean, you want a grimey hip hop show but at the same time I think it’s cool to accentuate the sound sometimes and when you’re in a live space, sometimes playing a live record is cool but having something that might not be on the record just fills the whole even more and makes it more unpredictable and I think it just makes for a better vibe personally. I’m into it, and unfortunately I can’t travel with the band the whole time, but just adding them to a few shows gives it another vibe.

So just to finish off, it’s been a pretty good year for Def Jux as far as releases go. Obviously your record came out, Aesop Rock’s and Rob Sonic’s just came out which I was really impressed by, he really stepped it up big time on that.

Rob’s murdering shit right now. I mean, Rob’s last album was slept on, people didn’t peep it as much as they should have, and I think people are starting to get ready for him because he’s proven himself to just be ridiculous.

That’s a fresh album man for sure, and there’s a Hangar 18 album coming out too this year.

Hangar 18 coming yup.

So how do you see 2007 for Def Jux?

Honestly I see 2007 as our re-emergence year. Starting with Lif’s record and Cage’s record setting the plate and I think it’s been an amazing year for us and everyone is delivering their A material and it’s great for me because I think the fans are feeling more relaxed because they’re like “You’re not going to lose your mind or disappear”. I feel a lot of good will coming from the fans again because there was a time when we didn’t put a lot of records out and there were a couple of records that people didn’t connect with for different reasons and I feel like there’s this energy now that’s come back and people realise that we’re really here and serious about this shit and it’s a great feeling.

So what’s planned for 2008 then? It’s not going to be another 5 years before the new El-P release is it?

Shit, well no. I’m putting out an EP next year and we just signed a deal with Del. Del on Def Jux, you’re the first person I’ve told about this officially. We’re releasing the album that he’s had done, The 11th Hour, he’s actually releasing that through Def Jux. Cage’s new record, we’re working on Mr Lif’s new record… we’re working on a lot of shit, it’s going to be stuff people don’t expect, but it’s going to be a really good year.

Exciting times man. We’ll that’s everything, thanks for your time and enjoy tonight!

Thank you very much, you too!

El-P’s I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead is out now on Definitive Jux and you can check out his myspace at www.myspace.com/elproducto

Named after a children’s book, Tilly And The Wall produced an unsung highlight of 2006 in their second album ‘Bottoms Of Barrels‘; a joyous mix of indie, pop, and folk that could soften the hearts of the hardest of cynics.

The Nebraska quintet are notorious for forsaking traditional percussion in favour of the amplified tap-dancing skills of Jamie Williams, and Alex Gosman caught up with her for a quick chat just before the band’s recent show at London’s Electric Ballroom.

How’s the tour going so far?

It’s been a ton of fun! It’s a pretty short tour this time around, but over the last week we’ve been going around the UK, and London is one of our favourite places to play, so we’re very excited to be back!

How on earth do you have the energy to tour so much? I think you’ve been to the UK about five times in the space of a year!

Well, we’re actually taking a break after this – we’ve just cancelled a US tour, and instead we’re going to stay home and work on the next record for about five months. We’ve been touring for almost 16 months straight, so it’ll be good to get home, but we’ve had a great time being able to travel so much on tour!

The last time you hit the UK, you were touring with CSS – how did that go?

Oh, that was amazing – it was so much fun, CSS are all lovely people and we all love their music. We’ve been friends with them for a while, so we had loads of fun together, and the crowds were awesome too. Great memories!

You released ‘Bottoms Of Barrels‘ about this time last year; are you happy with how the fans have received it, and is there anything that you’d have done differently with it, in retrospect?

Well, there’s always things you’d do differently – especially as we’re all perfectionists! But I’m still really happy with it, and we had a lot of fun making it, because it was the first time we’d been able to record in a proper studio. We had access to all this amazing equipment, and we had our friends coming down and hanging out, so it was a great experience.

So how does the songwriting process work with Tilly? Is there one main songwriter, or do you all write?

Yeah, all five of us write songs…but there isn’t really one particular way in which we do it. It depends who’s writing the song – for example, I write mine on guitar, Nick [keyboard player] writes his on the keyboard – and often it isn’t a full song, just a rough idea. Sometimes I write my tap part early on, sometimes it’s the last thing I do. Generally, if someone comes up with an idea, then we’ll all work on it together and see what we can do with it!

Speaking of your tap-dancing talents…do you ever get tired of being known as ‘that band with the tap-dancer’?

Not really, because that is what we are! It did kinda annoy me in the beginning, because it seemed to be the focus of the band; but I soon embraced it, because I love tap-dancing and I feel very lucky to be able to use it in this way. And it does help to get us press, which is always a good thing, and I don’t think it would really matter if we didn’t have the songs to back it up! So if the tap-dancing is like a gateway for people to hear our music, then that’s totally fine with me.

And how about musical influences? It’s hard to pin your sound down to a particular genre…

Well, we all grew up with different music, so the songs do kinda reflect that! I grew up listening to a lot of 80s pop – Wham, Hall & Oates, Madonna – and I like indie music too.
Derek [singer/guitarist] is a big fan of songwriters like Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground, and Kianna [singer/bassist] really likes punk and metal music – so we all bring together lots of different-sounding ideas!

Cool, well that’s nearly it…but here’s a slightly strange question to finish! There’s two guys and three girls in Tilly And The Wall; have you ever thought about getting a Great Dane, and driving around solving mysteries in your spare time – à la Scooby Doo?

Haha, that’s a great idea! But I don’t think such a huge dog would be too happy in our van! I would like to get a little dog to bring on tour when we actually have a proper, permanent tour bus. Maybe it could wear a little sparkly top hat or something, and become the Tilly mascot!

[‘Bottoms Of Barrels‘ is out now on Moshi Moshi Records. Check www.tillyandthewall.com for more info.]

Rare are the times that you encounter a band who can make two genuinely brilliant records in as many years, and The Aggrolites are one of those bands; having cooked up an intoxicating mix of 60s reggae, ska and soul on their 2006 self-titled debut album and this year’s ‘Reggae Hit L.A.’. Oh, and they’re a great live band, too.

Alex Gosman caught up with guitarist Brian Dixon shortly after a storming show at London’s Camden Dingwalls. This was one of the last interviews the band did before the tragic passing of bassist David Fuentes, our thoughts at Crossfire go out to his family and friends.

Hi Brian! How’s the tour going?

It’s been great so far! We have three more shows left in the UK – Exeter, Swindon and then we’re playing at a scooter rally in Woolacombe on Saturday. It’ll be our first UK scooter rally, and we know that they’re bigger here than anywhere else in the world, so we’re really excited about that!

The last time you toured the UK was when you supported Madness back in December – how did that tour go for you?

It was incredible! It’s interesting, though, because everybody told us, before the tour, that nobody can open for Madness in the UK – nobody. Apparently they’ve had problems for years, because any band that tries to open for them just gets booed off the stage. But we had a great response – especially at Wembley Arena, where the crowd really got into it. When we finished playing that night, the soundmen for Madness came backstage and said that no band that had previously opened for Madness had managed to get the crowd singing along like we did; even the people in the balcony at the back were getting into it! So yeah, it was amazing.

Is there any particular story as to why you chose the name ‘The Aggrolites’?

Definitely – we take it from old-school 60s UK reggae. For the original English skinheads of the time, ‘Aggro’ was a slang term – short for aggravation, a tough guy, badass, that kinda thing. And because those skinheads made reggae so popular, Jamaican producers started using the term in their names; for example, one of Bunny Lee’s session bands was called The Aggrovators.

I didn’t know how long our band was going to be around, so I wanted to make up a name that, when you do a search for it on the internet, only that name comes up. We tried ‘Aggrolites’ and that worked perfectly – and anyone that’s into reggae would see that name, and automatically make the musical connection. So it’s kind of a marketing tool in that respect!

And how about the term ‘dirty reggae’, which you use to describe your music? Is that ‘dirty’ as in ‘grass roots’?

Pretty much, yeah – most people refer to it as ’69-’71 reggae, or skinhead reggae. But we didn’t want to give people the wrong impression – because we grew up on American soul and funk from the 60s, which has a very raw, dirty sound. What we did was to take the Jamaican reggae, and try to make it sound more raw, soulful and dirty.

You’ve previously described your recent ‘Reggae Hit L.A.’ album as a tribute to your hometown’s thriving reggae scene; has that scene always been as healthy as it is today?

No – actually, it’s almost the opposite. Reggae was never popular in the United States – it’s been very popular and well-known in the UK for years, but in the States, nobody really knows any reggae apart from Bob Marley. And don’t get me wrong, Bob Marley’s great, but there’s so much more out there.

So in Los Angeles, we had a very difficult time breaking through; we were popular everywhere else in the world, but not in our own hometown! So this new album, ‘Reggae Hit L.A.‘, is our response to that situation – we’re effectively saying to our hometown: “Hey, you guys have to check this out – this is the real deal.”. It’s like, this is reggae hitting L.A. for the first time – and it’s very exciting for us, because it’s taking off really well now, the response has been phenomenal. For the first time, we’re bigger at home than anywhere else, and every time we tour, there are more people coming to see us.

How did you come to sign to Hellcat Records?

Well, the short story is that Tim [Armstrong, Rancid singer/guitarist and Hellcat boss] was a big fan of ours…basically, three of the guys in the Aggrolites previously played in a band called the Rhythm Doctors – an instrumental band – and Tim happened to see us play, and immediately he wanted to sign us to Hellcat. But at the time, Hellcat had just signed a bunch of other bands, and couldn’t take us on just then.

So, after the Rhythm Doctors broke up, we started the Aggrolites, recorded our first album in late 2005 – and I literally took a couple of copies, walked into the Hellcat headquarters, and handed them over. Two days later, they called me back and said that Tim had listened to the record and wanted to sign us – he thought it was great. So, just after our self-titled album was released on Hellcat, Tim asked us to record an album with him, which turned out to be his solo album, ‘A Poet’s Life‘; we were his backing band for that record.

You guys spend a hell of a lot of time on tour – what would you say your best and worst touring experiences have been, so far?

The best one would have to be the Madness UK tour last December – that really was a dream come true for us. Playing sold-out arenas…it was unbelievable to see so many people singing along every night, and especially in London.

The bad part happened late last year, when we did a six and a half week tour in Europe, with only one day off! Literally, I was so exhausted by the final show of the tour, that I had to sit down onstage, because I was just too tired to stand up! So we decided that we won’t be doing that again, not that many shows in such a short time!

What are your plans for the near future, after this tour ends?

Well, after we finish these UK dates, we go back home for about six weeks, before coming back for a three week tour of mainland Europe. Then we return home for a while, to record a new album – three albums in three years! We’re keeping it all going, and we’ll definitely come back to the UK next year.

‘Reggae Hit L.A.‘ is out now on Hellcat Records. Check www.aggroreggae.com for more info.

The lads from Manchester Orchestra were over in Britain for their first ever appearance at Reading and Leeds festival, causing waves across the mud soaked fields with their mix of epic indie-rock.

Thankfully, the heavens cleared long enough for them to wander round London with us, and leader singer Andy Hull and guitarist Robert McDowell talked to Moose for a while about musical influences, golf, and childhood nightmares.

We have two member of MO in the house ready for this interview. Can you introduced yourselves please boys?

Yeah, I’m Andy Hull, the lead singer and guitar player and songwriter for Manchester Orchestra.

And I’m Robert McDowell, I play guitar.

You’ve just walked off a plane, into the city of London… and it’s raining.

Yes and it was the last time we were here too.

Do you think they’re trying to tell us something?

I think they’re trying to tell us to leave, but we’re not going anywhere!

Welcome back to the UK. So, where did you all grow up?

Most of us grew up within a ten mile radius of each other and we had all gone to the same high school and got involved in the same events growing up. From the age of about 13 we’ve been kind of collecting members in a city just north of Atlanta, Georgia in a place called Alpharetta, and we just continued to grow and lose members here and there. But now we’ve got a line up where all but one of us live within two or three miles of each other.

So did you meet up through the music scene out there or were there family connections?

No, it definitely wasn’t through any scene. I went to high school with Robert who was in 8th grade when I was in 11th grade and so I drove him home from school and he lived right next to where my parents lived and we also went to high school with Jay the bass player. And Chris, our keyboard player, was the drummer in our first band when we were 14…

Robert: Who I went to middle school with too.

So we’re all connected in that way. And Jeremiah, our drummer, was working in a studio that was right next to our house and when we lost a drummer he came in.

Came in and found his place!

Yep, and that was it.

That’s amazing, so you guys have always been into music and writing music?

Ever since I met Robert when he was 11 or 12 he was writing records and he had a recording studio in his basement when he was 13 so we would go down there and record songs after we got out of school. And I’ve been writing since I was 14. I was playing golf at high school around that time and realised that I really hated that.

Were you no good at it?

No I was terrible, so I decided to pick up the guitar which in the end made me extremely less popular than I thought it would. I thought playing a guitar would make me cool but I guess in the suburbs of the South, guitars are not cool and golf is!

Let’s talk about your musical influences because you have a unique style, you have quite a bit of emotion in your music and your lyrics are quite special. I’d be quite interested to hear what influenced your lives to make a record like the one you’ve come up with, musically.

There was a period of time between 15 and 18 that I started to hear records that were having an impact in my life rather than records that were just making me feel a certain way, they were records I was able to dive into like a book. They were albums like Death Cab For Cutie’s Photo Album, Neutral Milk Hotel In The Airplane Over The Sea is the most influential record in my life and then Built To Spill There’s Nothing Wrong With Love and Keep It Like A Secret were two records I was hit by at a certain point in my life.

And from then on it was this weird transfixion on music that was making statements and saying things, whether it was talking about a relationship – it was the way they would phrase these things about a relationship being, not life ending, but an observation on life and I saw growth in these characters and of these songwriters. Less Neutral Milk Hotel, which I feel is more a blank canvas that has been painted on with this amazing picture, but with those other records, I watched for their next records and could see them grow as people and the struggles they were having in their lives.

So at that point it was deciding to write records that I was more connected to in more than just an emotional way. I wanted people that hear our records to be invested in me as much as I was investing in them all the stuff I wanted to say. So regardless of whether that happens or not, that’s what my influence is and how I wanted it to come across.

What about yourself Robert?

Robert: A lot of the same things but when I was growing up, I had a choice between Christian music and oldies, so I listened to a lot of Oldies and I would hear their influence in a lot of people, like Elliott Smith. So then I evolved into a huge fan of him and then lots of different stuff across all genres – A lot of Pedro The Lion.

And you were definitely into the Ramones. There’s a picture on Robert’s fridge, where he’s 10 and dressed up like Kiss. That’s an influence for he and Jeremiah listen to a lot of older punk stuff.

US or UK Punk?

Robert: A lot of the New York stuff, some West Coast stuff like X, Germs…

Circle Jerks, Black Flag…?

Absolutely, and I hate that stuff!

Robert: It’s really difficult on late night drives because we’ll be blaring that out and they’ll have pillows around their ears!

Yeah they’ll be listening to hardcore and we’ll be like “Yo, we’re trying to sleep!”

What about now? When you’re on tour, what’s in your ears on the way over? What do you travel with?

On the way over here I listened to one of the greatest airplane records ever, Kid A. I listened to that all the way through and that kinda makes you feel weird all around you y’know?

Definitely here I listen to the new Spoon record. I generally don’t listen to much music when I’m on the road, I get discouraged listening to records that are so much better than mine and then getting on stage and performing every night.

In my time off then I have to get inspired and almost concentrate on inspiration and try and listen to these records. Because it does bum you out to listen to these masterpiece type records and then you have to perform your own that doesn’t really hold up at all.

Yeah but other people have got their opinions too, I mean how does it feel to be called Rolling Stone’s “Artist To Watch?”

We got told that whilst we were eting pizza in Atlanta and Jay our manager was on the phone and wrote it on a napkin and we all freaked out. It’s one of the best honours you can get and I think there are certain things in life as a musician or a human being ni your craft if you receive certain thigns, like in the States we’re playing on Letterman’s show and this Rolling Stone thing, if we did nothing else in our career, I would be OK with that and be able to die happy. Well at least I did that and I could tell my grandkids I did that.

They are certain things were we ask ourselves if people are making a mistake, like “are you sure? Do they have the right record?”, like someone put the wrong label on our record. But that’s bigger than we can understand and it’s a great honour definitely.

And what about other bands you’ve played with along the way, with your sound, you can play with many bands…

That’s been something that’s nice. We were concerned with what kind of bands would want to play with us and who we can come across alright in front of but yeah we played with a full support tour for Brand New for 6 weeks and was a completely different and younger crowd and was amazing and the response from that tour was beyond anything we could have imagined. And then there’s a tour with Kings Of Leon and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club who have probably none of the crossover fans that would come out to the show and both of those tours are dreams come true. Bands that we like and think are really great people that make great music.

They are also two big bands over here as well, they’ve picked up many fans with their records too so you should have quite a magical experience.

It’s definitely cool to have these bands that are big in the UK and then play here because it does help. We’ve gotten fans from here that have messaged us just simply because they know we’re touring with those bands in the US.

Depending on how the tour works out, if the bands asked you to come and tour Europe with them, would you do that?

That would be incredible. I mean, touring Europe with any band would. Everything we’ve done so far has been by ourselves and last time we came here, we rented our own car to fit our gear into and we drove it and that was a dangerous experience on its own!

Robert: We turned up one night and Jay, our bass player, had a bass amp probably the size of this soda can.

That was at the Water Rats and there was one 10 inch speaker for the bass cab and it ended up being the best sound of the entire week. A lot of ways with music, in the way its traded so freely on the internet, live performances are the only thing that’ll have merit, other than the idea of a record as a collection of songs, but who knows how long that’ll last unfortunately! Everything is traded so freely now which is a positive and a negative. It’s a positive because it allows artists to get their music out there, but it’s a negative because most times, songs are meant to be played together rather than a playlist, songs are supposed to be connected and weaving over the course of a record.

I feel and hope that those things stay around but I think the idea of purchasing things is on its way out and the only thing that will stand up as magical in the music industry will be live performances. And I think support tours are the greatest way to build a fanbase.

Do you download music?

I don’t even download it for free no, I mean I’ll download B-sides and whatever but I don’t even like burning records really, if it’s a record that I really want. I mean, we know people who work at music magazines who get the record early but I won’t listen to that, even if it came from someone in the band. I love the buying of the record and opening it and putting it on in your car.

There’s nothing like it is there? And there’s nothing like vinyl either and we’re seeing a rise in the amount of vinyl being put together by bands now. Is it the same in America?

It’s getting there certainly, it’s definitely increasing. We just printed off a bunch of vinyl of our record and it’s the first piece of music we’ve ever had that’s been on vinyl and now we have a 7 inch exclusively over here. And it’s so insane, it’s so cool – we listened to it for the first time the other night and the sound is just so incredible.

Have you had any bad gigs along the way? What’s been the worst story so far?

Well, we’ve played over 300 shows as a band in the last 2 years so we’ve had quite a few terrible stories.

Robert: We’ve had a lot of stories that, at the time, looked awful but looking back on them turn out to be great memories!

There’s a few stories. One night a few weeks ago we turned up at a venue in Memphis, Tennessee, and there was no stage, no mics, no a/c and it was about 105 degrees outside and then when the PA had finally been set up, I was continually being electrocuted through the mic. So by the end of the set, every time I touched the mic with my face, my entire body would squirm and freak out a little bit.

It’s lucky your beard didn’t get set on fire really isn’t it?! That’s a big fuzzer you’ve got there!

Yeah, I’ve been growing it since I was here last time.

Oh really? We left that much of an impression on you in the UK, fantastic! Who’s got the worst habits in the band?

It’s a bad habit, but I can’t complain about it because Jeremiah, our drummer, takes two showers a day. Which is odd for a band in general because it’s always the one dude were you’re like “you really need to shower” but no, every morning and every night he showers.
And if you’re playing in front of loads of people in 110 degree heat…

It’s a good thing! Especially on a tour too. We just played a tour in the States during a heatwave, it’s insane to play. We played a venue in South Carolina which was 125 degrees and kids were passing out, our drummer blacked out during the set, I blacked out twice…

Robert: I was vomiting afterwards…

It was awesome, a great memory like we said [laughs].

You could’ve cooked eggs on the stage!

Robert: I think the sound system actually shut down because of the heat.

We had camera on stage filming the night that were shutting down because of it, it was unreal.

So let’s talk about the album, it’s called I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child, which is quite a mouthful to start with. What’s the story behind that.

I named the record oddly before I wrote the lyric, which is in the first track, Wolves At Night and the record is a bit of history on my life in the last 2 or 3 years of the realisation that I don’t really own anything or deserve anything and it’s the idea of losing something that you never had which is the standard human way of living, taking everything for granted and then once it’s gone realising I never really had it in the first place.

Lyrically, there’s one particular line that I’ve come across that I’ve been waiting to ask you – “When you look at me, I’ll be digesting your legs” – Are you a cannibal?

I am yes. Do you want the full story on that?

Yep!

Alright, so I’ve always been close to my mum ever since I was a little kid, we’ve always had a close relationship and she’s the most trustworthy person I know. So I had this dream 2 years ago that my mum had been killing all my friends, taking them to our attic and then eating them.

Woah!

Yeah, and I then I woke up and was completely distraught and in an actually reality way. In the dream I had asked her why she was doing it and she’s said “because you told me it was the right thing to do”. Then I woke up and had this feeling over me that everything I trusted, because my mum was so trusted and was the good in “good versus evil”, that everything I trusted was gone. And so in the line it is more me referring to “when you look at me, I’ll be taking everything away that is good, everything you believe to be right and leaving you with everything that’s wrong.

But if people go missing at your gigs, people will be pointing fingers at you!

[laughs] Absolutely yeah! But that’s cool about lyrics but also so difficult at the same time is that, y’know the record is full of lyrics that really I only understand and I’m definitely not afraid to tell anybody what they mean but I think it would be kind of ridiculous if I tried to explain that story or line which just means something to me.

What about the recording process? It’s got a beautiful sound throughout the record, can you tell us a bit about that?

Thank you! Well, we did it all live, all the full band performed together and Robert was actually the intern at the studio and wasn’t in the band whilst we were recording it and as the process went on we realised that we needed a guitar player so by the end of the record, he was in the band.

Right place, right time! And now you’re in London….

And now he’s in London! But yeah we did it in about 3 weeks and had been playing the songs for a good while, at least most of them. Then it came time to record them and we realised we wanted it to have a feeling of urgency in the same way that Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has. Get it all out at one time and then take it all apart and put it back together.

And we did that and it took us a long time to mix it because we wanted it to sound perfect and we got an end product we were all very proud of.

So you’re happy with it.

Yeah I’m pretty happy with it, definitely but at the same time, it’s exciting because we see people reacting to it and it breathes a new life into it, where we’ve beaten it like a dead horse. Now though we want to play it more because more people want to hear it.

The album artwork, I hear it was from photos bought at a flea market.

Yeah, we bought them at a thrift store, Jeremiah bought them because they were cool old pictures. And it chronicled this guy’s life from being a little kid up until his wedding and honeymoon, so when you open up the record, there are 4 pictures of this little boy on the CD and that boy is the husband of the woman on the front of the record, taken from their honeymoon.

Do they know they’re on there?

We tried to find them…

Oh they’ll sue you eventually!

[laughs] Yeah right? But yeah we’ve put “found art” or something on the sleeve so I don’t think they probably will anyways. We try to avoid as many legal things as possible, but then again we didn’t think this many people would see these records.

So, the internet – you’ve obviously got an internet presence and have a myspace site, like most bands do. Do you think that really helps people across the planet to get into your music?

Absolutely and we do these video podcasts as well and having that gives people the ability to see what we’re like live that wouldn’t get the opportunity to see us live. I think the internet is massive for that, you go on YouTube and you can see if the band is any good live and that can either kill you or be good for you. And sure, myspace is enormous for us, there are people able to hear songs or buy records or like I said before, with people over here, if we can have 1,000 people here downloading our record without us knowing, wink wink, then I would be fine with that. I think it’s a good thing for people to get our music as easily as possible which the internet is massively helpful for.

Let’s talk about the name of the band because you’re not an Orchestra and you’re definitely not from Manchester!

No, no we’re not! Again, that was when I was in high school and had gone through a summer of listening to nothing but The Smiths and when I really get into a band, I like to involve myself completely with what their story is and where they’re from and how it happened and why are they called this and so I thought the name “The Smiths” was such a cool name. These normal, regular guys creating this politically charged music and this heartbreaking literature and songs that will tear you apart.

I always felt I was a lot like that, I mean just looking at our band, we’re not a “rock star” looking band. I guess the idea of Morrissey being from Manchester was really cool for me, though I’ve only been there once and I’m not sure I would still call it cool but all I knew of it was that this hero of mine was from there. He’s from this place that I associated with down to earth working class heroes, these underdogs in a sense. That’s sort of how I figured me and whoever was in my band would be, these normal guys.

The orchestra was the counterpart to that. At the time I didn’t want to be in a band and figured I’d just have all my friends come and be a part of it and form an orchestra. So that’s the name.

Manchester Orchestra, we look forward to seeing you on your live dates and hopefully you’ll come over again before the end of the year.

Definitely, we’re definitely coming back over in September and we’ll be back doing Scotland, Ireland, Manchester, Birmingham and London and then hopefully we’ll be back again very, very soon.

Well the record is out in September and we look forward to it!

Thank you so much, we really appreciate you having us here.

I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child is out on September 17th on Sony BMG / Favorite Gentlemen and you can check out their myspace at www.myspace.com/manchesterorchestra

Also look out for the band on tour with Kings of Leon later this year….

After rising to the top of the hip hop underground, Aesop Rock is soon to release his new album None Shall Pass signalling the return of his spaced out lyrics and distinctive sound.

Abjekt recently caught up with him to discuss the release of the new album and soon found out a lot more about Aes Rizzle.

From skateboarding as a kid to giving up being a waiter so that he could tour his album, Aesop has a lot to say and gives us an insight into just how much has gone on in his life and how that has a direct influence on the music he makes. Buckle up, it’s time to go in…

Starting right at the beginning, you started making self-financed records way back in the day, Appleseed, Music For Earthworms…

Yep.

Was music something that you always wanted to do and you felt that making it yourself was the best way to start with?

Yeah I guess so. I always did it and I had some interest from labels but I never took anybody up on anything and I just fun doing it with my friends and I had this weird perception that if I even took a meeting with someone that it’d be shady and some weird shit would go down. After I was recording for a little while and going out around New York trying to rhyme, even before those two, there were a couple of tapes, and selling 10 or 15 copies made me psyched.

Music For Earthworms came out around 97 and we sold 200 CDs and stopped because I was cutting the covers up the covers for myself! And then Appleseed did around 2,000 CDs and it was crazy. That seemed like a lot at the time and I guess it was as I was just in and around New York mostly. It seemed natural to do it that way because I didn’t want to get involved and didn’t want to sign anything. I had a job y’know, it was just me fucking around and wasn’t anything that I ever thought would pay the bills.

Percee P’s on a couple of tracks right, how did that hook up happen?

He was just always around NY, around shows and when I was doing Music For Earthworms, I was working with this guy Dub L a lot. I think at one point he was like “Oh, Percee P’s coming by the studio” and I thought “Oh, that’s dope” and I think we all just ended up in the studio together one day and did a joint. Then me and Percee did a couple of shows together, then another song and he was just always at every New York show and had kind of been around for a long time and we just met at the studio and did a couple of jams.

Then, maybe a year ago or so, Egon hit me up from Stones Throw about doing Percee’s new record so we got to do another song together and I think that’s coming out soon.

Wicked! So then you went and signed for Mush Records. As you were saying, you didn’t want to sit down and talk about label stuff, so did you just feel it was time to make that move?

At the time I was friends with Dose One and we had gotten to know each other a little and Mush took him in as an A&R and he was like “Listen, Mush is super small” and the contract was just 3 pages long and was for just one record, basically the most simple thing possible and so I thought “Fuck it, if I don’t do this now…”.

I mean, it was basically an opportunity to get colour artwork y’know what I mean? I was used to going to the copy store and cutting it all out so it was kinda if someone else will package this for me, then fine. I had about 20 songs and I thought “yeah let’s just put them all on there” and that was the first official record. I signed in 99 and came out in 2000.

Blockhead produced a bunch of stuff on there.

Yeah it’s about half and half.

And you guys have obviously done a lot since, were you friends a long time ago or did it come about as the music happened?

I met him in 1994, we both went to the same college and he kinda failed out of college, on purpose because he didn’t really enjoy it. We got to know each other and he was rhyming at the time and he was really terrible and was making beats a little bit but didn’t get a sampler til a year later. I got a sampler around 95 or 96 and we have been best friends since then, for the past 13 or 14 years.

Even before Music For Earthworms, we’d make music on a 4-track, hundreds of songs. We have so much shit laying around. Me, him and Dub L along with a few of our close friends at the time would mix songs every day. We all had jobs and we all had shit to do but at night we’d smoke weed and make songs.

So it was quite an easy thing for you and him to do…

Yeah, I mean, there was a while where I was living at his mum’s house and we were around each other all the time – We’d make a beat and write a rhyme and record the whole fucking thing that night and that was it y’know? So yeah, there’re tapes and tapes and tapes of that shit.

Then I guess might be one of the biggest stepping stones was signing to Def Jux around 2000-2001. Did you see that as a big step at the time?

I did, I was a fan of Company Flow, I knew El’s music and he was definitely making a lot of noise in the New York underground. Basically, I had become friends with the Cannibal Ox guys from just being around New York and then when I signed to Mush, my publicist in the US was Biz3 and when El started Definitive Jux, he started working with Biz3 also so we shared a publicist and we had Vast [Aire] and Vordul [Mega] as friends so we got to know each other around the late 90s.

So after my Mush record came out, I mean, Mush wasn’t really much of a home for me. I was a first step, and it was cool, and it wasn’t a bad deal but I didn’t feel like I was part of anything. I knew El was starting this label and I guess somewhere in the back of my head I knew that was where I should be and when El heard my stuff he felt that too and we just hung out because I was hanging out with Vast a lot and he [El] was looking for the first signings to his roster.

It was him, Can Ox and [Mr] Lif. And then it was RJD2, and El said “Why don’t you do this with me?” and it felt perfect and I told Blockhead and he said it made perfect sense. It seemed like the right thing to do, it was the premier New York indie label and it felt really natural at the time and when he asked I felt like “Yeah, what the fuck else am I gonna do?” and it felt like the right move.

And then you brought out Labor Days and it got quite a lot of critical acclaim in the underground. Were you aware of that, or is it not something you particularly pay attention to?

I was aware of it, it was scary, I didn’t know what the hell to do. I still don’t know! That kinda stuff makes me nervous. But I knew because when Labor Days came out, I was still working and I remember El called me and said “You’ve gotta quit your job, you have to go on tour!” and I said “I can’t go on tour, I need to work.” and he just said “No! You’ve got a new job now, you have to follow it up, you can’t just put out a record. I was trying to figure it all out and I figured that if I was quitting my job, then it must mean something but at the same time, I was still mostly performing on the East Coast.

Float had moved a couple thousand units so I guess I knew it was going that way but I think it’s because it was Def Jux’s first year, Can Ox’s album did really well, El-P was the figurehead of the label and there was Murs, Lif, El, RJ, Can Ox and me and I think I was in the right place at the right time. I sensed it was taking off a little bit but I still don’t know how big it is, it’s hard to get an outside perspective on it. I knew that people liked that record and I came to Europe for the first time after that record and toured the US which I’d never done. It was definitely like “Oh shit!”.

So next in the timeline after the Daylight EP was the Bazooka Tooth album. A lot was made of that album because it was quite a different sound to Labor Days. First of all, do you agree with that?

Definitely. I think it sounds different, I mean, it’s not a 180 or anything, they’re definitely related but yeah it had a different edge to it and was made around 9/11 and all that shit and a bunch of other personal shit that was going on in my life and it was a turbulent time in my life and it seemed to me that I needed to make a record that was turbulent.

It’s funny because I have this real problem with getting any kind of notoriety and I guess after Labor Days, I was just nervous so I didn’t know what the fuck to do. So part of me wanted to make this really abrasive record because a) that’s how I feel right now and b) I almost want people to know… I mean, when people start identifying with you and you aren’t really identifying with anybody, it’s weird because you’re wondering why people like this shit.

I dunno, Blockhead did a few beats on there but most of the production was by me and I knew I wanted it to sound a little off and turbulent and weird. It had a bit of a different sound to Labor Days and it sold faster and better than anything I’d ever done and at the same time it was criticised a bit. People either loved it or hated it, which I’m fine with y’know but yeah people were either “Oh, this is incredible!” or they were saying “Urgh, I can’t listen to this” so it hit both ends of the spectrum in that sense.

And after that you brought out another EP – The Fast Cars EP which came with a booklet with a bunch of lyrics on…

Yeah, it had the lyrics to Float, Labor Days, Daylight, Bazooka Tooth and Fast Cars – everything I’d done officially on a label.

Was it weird to go through all the old shit that you maybe hadn’t listened to in a while?

Yeah I hadn’t listened to Float or Labor Days for years up until that day when I was trying to transcribe it and shit. It was definitely pretty odd and annoying but it was funny. I don’t like to do the lyrics on the inside of an album, I dunno why, I just think there should be artwork so I never really put the lyrics inside.

People had been asking me to do lyrics, even the label at one point, Ese, one of the owners of Jux said “You should do lyrics” and I didn’t wanna do lyrics, it just seems like it takes up so much space so I came up with doing all the lyrics at once to make up for all the shit that I didn’t do. Seemed like a good idea at the time and I knew it was going to cost a lot and the label told me it was going to cost a lot to make but we did it. No-one was expecting to make money on it, we just wanted to break even if we were lucky, so I thought “Fuck it, I’ll do it”. It’s more of a thing for the fans that have been following along. Took me fucking forever.

I bet man!

I remember the first day I was typing lyrics like “This sucks! What the fuck have I gotten myself into?” but at the end I was so psyched, I love the way it came out.

Yeah man, the booklet looked amazing!

Thank you man! The guy that did the Fast Cars video, did the book for that and he was stressing out like a motherfucker. I was sending him lyrics past the deadline but he stuck in there. And I had a different kid, Bisc1 doing the packaging for the actual CD Fast Cars. I wanted them to be able to sit together but they also had to stand on their own two but everyone ended up working together and it came out pretty good, I was psyched.

Was there stuff when you looked back, that you thought was either really good or really cheesy?

The lyrics?

Yeah.

I have a hard time listening to anything that’s more than a year old. I was listening to Float, and it’s not a great record or anything but there were some parts where, with hindsight, I’d say that’s a pretty good line and I wished I could use it now and flip it better. I know more about songs in general now I think but in the early stuff I was just gunning with the lyrics, putting too much in the songs. I had no idea about the best way to make a song, which isn’t necessarily putting as much shit as you can into it. There were a couple times when I thought it was pretty cool but I was just thinking “Man I put way too many lyrics in there”.

It’s cool but I can’t ever listen to this shit really. I can put it on but then within about 10 seconds I’m all “Aaaaargh”. I mean, Fast Cars I can listen to because it’s not that old but even then… but yeah most of the rest of it I can’t even fuck with. I just heard it too many times.

In between that and the new album, you did something for Nike – an exercise thing. How was that to do, was it cool?

It was kinda hectic because I was moving towards the end of making my album when the offer from Nike came through and I never get offers like that ever so it was super odd. Which is kinda why I liked it – It’s a big production gig which was cool for me to get and it had to serve a purpose other than just me talking about whatever the fuck I want. It was for athletes and had all these elements to it that were weird but at the end of it they said “You can do whatever the fuck you want, you get the final say”. I was like “Really? You guys are a major company, you’re gonna let me do whatever I want?!” and they told me they’d give me comments which I could take or leave.

So it was cool and they gave me a very artist friendly deal as far as who owns what for how long and it really catered towards being a good deal. It was stressful because it was 45 minutes of music and they were explaining what it is and I said I was in and asked what the timeframe was and they told me they needed it mastered in 40 days. I was like “What the fuck man?! Y’know a) I have my own record out in 3 weeks and b) that’s not that much time!” but that was the schedule they were working on so I thought I’d try and do it.

It was good because I was so in over my head working on None Shall Pass, so deep in it, that this gave me a whole other thing to think about for a little while. So every day for 40 days I was working on this weird project that had just come up so but it was cool because when I went back to my own album, I had this new view on it. I had taken a month off working on my own shit, which I hadn’t done in years and this allowed me to get away.

When you do these side projects, you can experiment and just try things to see if it works or not plus doing something for a company like Nike is interesting because I’m an independent artist and, like we’ve just spoken about, I’ve either done my own shit or been signed to indie labels so when a company that big comes to me and tells me to do what I want for 45 minutes I’m like “Well fuck yeah, alright!”. If me doing this on my own terms has gotten me this far then I’d be an idiot to say no. It was just an odd project that got tossed in my direction.

Another thing you did in between with this short story with Jeremy Fish. Had you two know each other beforehand, like you and Blockhead?

Not for too long. He lived in San Francisco and I was living in New York up until maybe a year and a half ago and we had a friend in common in San Francisco and through our common friend, I found out Jeremy was a big fan and he had an opportunity to pitch a cartoon to Disney and he wanted to know if I wanted to do some music for it. Fuck yeah I wanted to do some music for it! And I had just bought a Jeremy Fish print a week earlier, completely randomly because I really liked his shit.

So I was getting ready to move to San Francisco because I had just gotten married and my wife lived in San Francisco and had a job she couldn’t leave so couldn’t move to New York, so I thought “Fuck it, I’ll just move to SF”. Long story short, I was moving to San Francisco at the same time as Jeremy was doing this Disney thing and it all fell into place. So we started working together on this thing for Disney and it was pitched. Basically some people liked it but basically this shit takes forever so there’s a cartoon floating around in that world. In the meantime, I said to him I didn’t really know anyone there except my wife, so I told him to come kick it and he became my little tour guide when I moved out there and we hit it off right off the bat and became really good friends.

So we decided to collab because there was no reason not to, I just needed something else because when you’re doing solo record after solo record after solo record, I almost couldn’t think of anything else to say. And he’s the same way, he’d done so much Jeremy Fish stuff and it was refreshing to sit with someone who was having some of the same issues in the visual art world as I was in the music world.

We came up with a few ideas of things we could do and the one we used seemed obvious. I mean, Disney used to do that sort of stuff, a book with a record, and its perfect because it had music and visual. So we sat around and came up with a concept for it, it wasn’t like I made a song and he drew the pictures – I wrote and showed him the first 8 lines of the first verse and he was showing me pictures so we could see what worked with what and I could change a line and he could take a little picture out.

I brought him over and had this whole other beat for the song and he said the beat didn’t fit the pictures and he was right, so basically it was a full on collaboration and doing shit that’s interesting. And the B-Side for that, Fishtales, was for a that weird fisherman video for Element Skateboards and he said “You wanna make a fishing song?” so I said yeah, I’d make a fishing song! Me and him are probably going to do a lot more shit together, he did all the art for the record.

I was going to say, you must have hit it off pretty well if he’s continuing to work with you for this new album cover. I just saw the inlay on myspace and it looks super fresh!

Thank you! Yeah, he killed it and he’s helping out with the tour visuals and we’re doing a video for None Shall Pass and it uses a lot of the characters, animated. We’re just really good friends at the moment and his shit seems like the visual version of me. It’s kinda evil and cute at the same time, showing a good and evil view on life and I think it hit me in the right way. And when I met him I realised he was just like me – he’s originally from the East Coast, grew up skateboarding and has a lot of similarities to me.

So you’re a skater then?

Oh yeah man, I skated for a long time. I used to work at a skatepark and used to build ramps man!

Shit, I didn’t know that!

Yeah yeah, actually Jeremy interviewed me for Thrasher and we were going shoot skate photos. I hadn’t skated in about ten years and when I moved to SF, he had a skateboard company, The Unbelievers, and he gave me a set up and we went out to some parks and I skated some bowls and we wanted to do this thing for Thrasher but we just didn’t turn it around in time.

I mean, I’m rusty as hell, but we went and found some ledges and I wanted to do a ledge trick, I knew it’d be stupid but we’d shoot it all sick [laughs]. But yeah, I’ve been skating more again lately, just for transportation really, I’m a little old to be busting my fucking ass. A lot of what led me to music was the music on skate videos.

I used to buy skate videos and they’d have hip hop on or Husker Du or Jawbreaker and you’d hear so much different music and there are so many different people that skateboard, you’d have rap kids and weird dirtbags, so when all these people come together, you end up hearing a lot of music.

Do you have a favourite skate video?

Shit yeah, my first video ever was Future Primitive, Animal Chin and all that shit. I mean I think Blind Video Days is universally thought of as the greatest skate video ever, so that would probably be up there.

Back to the music then, your new album drops at the end of next month…

Yeah, August 28th.

How was the recording of that? Like you said you were really going for it…

It was awesome. I had moved out of New York and besides Jeremy and my girl, I barely know anyone in San Francisco, so I was really secluded which I prefer and I had a lot of time and some of the songs changed and changed and changed. I’ve got a bunch of live instrumentation, more than I’ve ever had before, I played a lot of bass and my wife did all the guitars and I have some other friends that played bass and drums. I tried a different approach, I don’t think it sounds like Labor Days or Bazooka Tooth, it’s just trying to take some departure from what I’ve done before.

It’s fun, I always like the new shit most and I always try and make each one stand on their own, so they all have their own vibe. So whether or not you like Labor Days, it doesn’t sound like Bazooka Tooth and whether or not you like Bazooka Tooth, it doesn’t sound like Fast Cars. So I wanted to do a bunch of stories, it’s not all linear like “Once upon a time” shit, but I wanted to capture certain parts of my life, like when I used to skateboard a lot or when I was at junior high or when I was a kid. I want to almost take myself out of the equation, I didn’t want to rap about “me me me”, I wanted it more visual and paint pictures of things.

Being so secluded this time round made it more easy to treat it more like an author was treat it. So much rap is all about braggadocio, which is cool, it’s how everyone starts but at some point you get to where you think “how much more can I say about me and how I’m dope?”. I hit a wall with that shit to be honest and it’s almost like people can’t admit they hit the wall with that shit, because the spirit of competition is pretty deep in rap music and you’re supposed to feel that forever.

At some point you get burned out talking about the same shit and when you’re someone who writes every day, you’re supposed to be versatile and there’s a LOT of shit to write about. Rap covers a very small spectrum of what there is to write about in the world. So I’m trying to increase the subject matter a little bit and at the same time increase the production of the whole record.

A lot of Blockhead’s stuff had live instrumentation put on it, the same with mine and we came together and added stuff to each other’s beats and keep trying to make it something different whilst working with the same people.

Who have you got on the guest spots for this album?

Breezly Brewin’ from the Juggaknots

Cool!

Yeah! Me, Breezly Brewin’ and Cage do a song together, El-P’s on there, Rob Sonic, this guy John Darmielle from a band called The Mountain Goats sings on there. It’s mostly just fam y’know. I don’t like to reach out too much to people I don’t know, because I like to keep them as my heroes and sometimes when it’s someone you look up to, they ruin the hero part of it when you get to know them. That’s why I always work with Blockhead, because I know him so well and I like to see how we made Float, Labor Days, Daylight, Bazooka Tooth and Fast Cars, I mean for the most part we made everything in my career together and they all sound really different still, and that’s cool to me.

Are you planning to come over here and do any live shows? Because the last time I saw you was a long time ago with C Rayz!

We’re trying to come here in December. I’m touring the US in September, October and November but I want to try and get out here for December for at least a few weeks. Right now, we don’t have it booked but we hope to get it done soon.

Yeah because El came over here recently and his show was off the fucking scale.

Yeah he really pulled out some shit this time round.

It was so fresh, so it’d be great to see you over here too… Not to put pressure on you or anything!

[laughs]

I know, I know. I had a lot of shit, like I moved, I got married and it all slowed me down but I’m super psyched on the new record and even our US tour is the biggest I’ve ever done, we’re hitting 45 cities, so we’ll definitely be over here at some point.

Looking forward to it!

Thank you man.

You’ve been playing some primarily guitar based festivals lately too, like Pitchfork…

Yeah, when you’re between tours, it’s easy to do those because it’s one offs and I can be in the studio for a month and then just go out and hit one of those, they’re easy to do. Just to stay out there, try out new material. With the tour, we have to practise for a month, but these one offs we can just go out and do them.

Was it hard to come out as “the hip hop guy”?

A lot of those rock festivals are starting to do more hip hop now. It kinda works to your advantage, in 2001 we were one of the first rap groups to play SXSW, so it was like Def Jux and a bunch of rock acts and it worked for us because people came to just see some hip hop, but now there’s tons of it – Ghostface and Rakim were just there. Coachella and Bonnaroo too. It is mostly rock but there is some hip hop now and people like it because it’s something different.

When I went to Coachella in 2004, Atmosphere, Living Legends and Eyedea & Abilities played and like you say, people seemed to like it because it wasn’t the norm. Atmosphere played before Cursive and Bright Eyes, so people go to hear some rapping.

Last time I played Coachella, I played before Arcade Fire, before they’d blown up, and we came out and you get lumped in with bands you wouldn’t be expec ted to play with, which is what makes it cool.

Well that’s it, I really appreciate it. Good luck with the new record!

Thanks so much!

Aesop Rock’s new album None Shall Pass is out on August 28th on Definitive Jux records. Check him out at www.definitivejux.net and www.myspace.com/aesoprockwins

06.07.07

The meteoric rise of Chicago rockers Madina Lake in the UK has been nothing if not spectacular.

Since their debut tour in support of fellow upstarts Paramore at the end of last year, the band has since gained so much ground that they now find themselves not only headlining the same venues that they were previously opening, but selling them out.

In some cases the quartet are even being forced to upgrade to larger capacity premises, such is the overwhelming demand from fans.

Drummer Dan Torelli talks to Ryan Bird about their fairytale start to life on this side of the pond.

How are you doing?

Fantastic! We got in this past Sunday morning, got ourselves to the hotel and settled in for a little bit, and ever since then it’s been crazy doing press stuff.

What’s it like being in Madina Lake right now?

It’s awesome – it’s so, so exciting. It’s like nothing that any of us could ever have been prepared for. Some of us were just talking earlier about how strange it is. We’re doing the same things now that we’ve always done as far as travelling around different places and playing our songs go, but everything around us is changing and really kicking into motion. It’s pretty weird watching the shows grow and the press activity getting more and more intense, but it’s really amazing. We’re having so much fun right now.

Are you looking forward to playing the [Camden] Barfly tonight?

We’re really excited to be doing that. Last time we were over in the UK was about two months ago for Give It A Name, which were huge. They were such big shows, but we love doing smaller shows like tonight. We’ve been waiting to come back to the UK and do something like this ever since.

What made you want to do a free show?

I think the idea originally started between Kerrang! and a couple of the guys from our label. I think it was something they’d been toying with for a little while, and we’d done a really small show for radio in the UK a few months back.

We had such a blast doing it that when the idea came up we were just like ‘absolutely!’ The really cool thing about it is that everyone there is going to be either friends of the band or real hardcore fans. It should be a really cool and intimate time.

It seems like the UK has really embraced you guys…

Absolutely! We came here for the very first time last October supporting Paramore when we were virtually unheard of over here. We hadn’t done much press, we hadn’t released anything, and we really had nothing to our name, so we just came here and gave it all we had. We were really surprised with the response. Right from the very first show we felt like we were really being embraced and that just encouraged us to give even more for every show. It’s just been fantastic.

Why do you think it’s going so well for you over here?

Honestly, I’m not really sure. We do what we do every single night, and that never changes whether we’re here or over in the States. I don’t know if people in the UK are just more receptive to an attitude like that or whether they just really dig the type of music that we make. Either way we greatly appreciate it and we’re always super excited to come back.

Your debut headline tour in September is almost sold out, and most of the venues that aren’t have needed to be upgraded. Is that difficult for you to believe?

I cannot believe that! When we were here with Paramore and then again a month or two later supporting Gym Class Heroes, some of the venues those bands were playing are ones that we’ve had to upgrade from. We were supporting other bands at these venues and now we’re not only headlining them but having to skip some of them out as well. At the time we’d always sit there and talk about how awesome it’d be to be able to come back and headline those types of clubs ourselves, so it’s really blowing our minds right now.

How are things back home in the US?

It’s going really well right now. The US always takes so much longer to break through in because it’s just so big. We can do a 2-week tour in the UK and hit more or less all of the key cities and towns, but in the States you have to get out for 2-months to cover the same type of territories. It’s growing really steadily at the moment and everything is beginning to start rolling for us.

You’re touring on Projekt Revolution this summer. How are you looking forward to that?

It’s going to be tremendous. I can’t even begin to imagine how awesome that tour should be. There’s so many other festivals and tours going on in the States right now, but we feel like this is just the perfect one for us to be on. We always wanted to do Warped Tour but at shows like that there’s like five or six stages that are always overlapping, so sometimes kids are faced with three of four different bands that they wanna see that are all playing at the same time. Projekt Revolution is only two stages and about ten or eleven bands, so fans won’t be faced with too many dilemmas.

It’s a very varied bill, with Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, HIM, Placebo and a few others all being so different. How do you fit in?

I would say that we’re just a rock band. If you listen to our record there are parts that are kind of heavy, there are parts that are a bit more poppy and high-energy, and there’s also a lot of darker elements to it as well. We don’t really want to get bogged down by being branded pop-rock, pop-punk, emo or any of those categories. One of the great things about this tour is that it’s not catering to a specific scene. It’s a great tour full of rock bands.

Are you looking forward to seeing and playing with any bands in particular?

I can’t wait to see Placebo every single night. I like pretty much all of the bands from the tour but Placebo is a band that I’ve been aware of and listened to for a while. I’ve never actually seen them live, so now I get to see them live every day for about six weeks. Like I said though it’s a really great tour and I think all of the bands involved are super talented at what they do. It should be a fantastic summer for everyone.

So what does the next chapter hold for Madina Lake?

Well, after we do our headline tour in the UK in September we’re heading over to Europe for the very first time, which is really exciting. I’m not sure that it’s all fully confirmed yet but I think the rough outline for it is to do a few shows in Germany, France and Holland. Then of course we get to go over to Japan for a couple of days to do the Supersonic Festival. We’re pretty much going to be seeing the rest of the year out in the States after that I think, but we still have so much word to do in 2008. We still want to hit places like Australia and obviously we look forward to coming back to the UK again as soon as possible. It’s going to be an interesting time for us. I can’t wait.

Madina Lake’s debut album ‘From Them, Through Us, To You‘ is out now on Roadrunner.

Chicago quartet Rise Against have been flying the flag for smart, propulsive melodic hardcore for eight years now, and recently completed their biggest UK tour to date in support of last year’s excellent ‘The Sufferer And The Witness‘ album. Alex Gosman caught up with bassist Joe Principe before the final show of the tour, at the London Astoria.

So how are you guys doing? How’s the tour going so far?

“It’s been great – every time we come back to Europe, it just gets better and better. This time we’re headlining the big room at the Astoria, and it’s been awesome to see the steady growth in the size of the venues we play over here, since we first came over in 2001. Every time we’ve toured the UK, London has always been the last show of the tour, and it’s a great place to finish.”

This has to be one of the best punk rock tours to hit the UK in ages – did you choose to bring along The Bronx and Cancer Bats [the support bands] yourselves?

“Yeah, whenever we’re headlining, we pick the support bands ourselves – and we really wanted to have a proper, aggressive punk rock vibe to this tour, you know? I think the reason why it’s worked so well is that although all three bands sound different to each other, we still have a lot in common, both in terms of music and attitude – so I think it’s a good mix.

We’d never met the Cancer Bats before this tour, but we knew of them because we’re all friends with Alexisonfire, who recommended them to us. We’ve known The Bronx for a while, though, and we met them through mutual friends too. It’s a good feeling when you go out on tour with some bands and everyone immediately gets along, you know?”

The last time we saw you in the UK was when you did a few dates in early September, shortly after playing the Reading/Leeds festivals. Can you give us a brief summary of what you’ve been up to since then?

“Well, after we’d finished in Europe, we went back home and toured the US with Thursday…then we did a short tour of Canada with Billy Talent, before supporting My Chemical Romance on their US tour earlier this year. So yeah, we’ve been keeping ourselves busy!”

Since you were last here, Chris [Chasse, former RA guitarist] left – was that a shock, or had he been planning to leave for a while? And how is Zach [Blair, new RA guitarist] fitting in?

“We could kind of tell that Chris wasn’t really happy, and that he was exhausted from all the touring we were doing…but it’s worked out for the best, because he’s a lot happier now, and we’re really happy with Zach; because he’s completely into the touring and all the other stuff that goes with being in a band. We’ve known him for about six years, and we feel very lucky to have him on board…it was a happy coincidence, because his previous band [Only Crime] couldn’t tour that much, so it’s worked out well for us all.”

It’s been roughly a year since you released [most recent album] ‘The Sufferer & The Witness‘ – are you happy with the responses you’ve received from fans and critics?

“Definitely; it’s had very positive reviews and praise from the fans. It’s our favourite record that we’ve done so far, and I think it really shows how much we’ve grown as a band over the last five or six years.”

Has it helped to ease the predictable ‘Rise Against on a major label!’ criticism?

“I think so…the thing is, no matter what label we’re on, you’re always going to get a record that is completely representative of us at that point in time, because we never write for anyone but ourselves. We’ve never had any interference from our label; we know some bands that have, but not us!”

From time to time, I’ve seen you labelled as a ‘political band’, which seems like a rather narrow definition. How would you describe yourselves?

“Well, yeah, the political aspect is just one side of us…I’d say we’re more of a socially-aware band. Tim [McIlrath, RA singer/guitarist] writes all the lyrics, and he writes from a personal perspective on everyday life; sometimes that encompasses politics, sometimes relationships, it’s a reflection of his state of mind at the time. If you check the lyrics on [2004’s]”Siren Song Of The Counter Culture‘, a lot of them are very politically driven, because there was a lot going on in US politics at that time.”

So what are your plans for the near future, after this UK tour ends?

“We’re going back to the US for a two and a half month tour with Comeback Kid and Silverstein; and we’ve been friends with those two bands for a long time, so it should be a fun summer!

After that, we’ll be going to Australia and New Zealand, and we’re hoping to be back in Europe around October/November time – that isn’t confirmed yet, though. We’ll probably be on the road for the rest of this year, and then start writing the new record in 2008.”

[‘The Sufferer And The Witness‘ is out now on Universal. Check www.riseagainst.com for more info]

Alex Gosman

Calvin Harris, the Scottish born producing, singing, lairy colour endorsing superman rose to fame earlier this year with this breakthrough debut single Acceptable In The 80s which smashed straight into the top 10. Since then he’s worked with Kylie, been on tour with Faithless, wowed crowds around the festivals and has just released his debut album I Created Disco on Columbia.

Abjekt recently caught up with Calvin to talk to him about all this and more, including why people shouldn’t be able to see when they catch his live show, Vera Lynn doing funk and much, much more.

So Calvin, you come from a place in Scotland called Dumfries, am I right?

That’s right yes.

Now, to someone who doesn’t come from Dumfries in Scotland, it might seem like quite a small, out of the way place. Is that a fair description?

Yeah, that’s fair. We have shops.

Really?

Yep! And we have roads.

Cars?

Yeah, some cars.

Good stuff! So, does much go on there?

Oh yes, people go shopping, they drive about and they work in their jobs.

Nice. And is there much of a nightlife?

There are so many pubs. An unusual amount of pubs in once place.

So you could do a pub crawl down one road!

Oh without a doubt. Well, there is only one road in Dumfries…

[laughs]

Not to insult where you’re from, but was living there a reason to lock yourself away and start making music in your bedroom?

Maybe partly. That and I was doing it when I should have been at school also. A combination of the two really. But no, I wouldn’t be so down on it as to say that, it’s quite a nice place. It’s good to grow up in, but then its good to leave as well.

Apparently you use an Amiga as part of your set up, is that true?

Yes, that is a fact.

A cold hard fact. And did you consciously decided to use an Amiga to make music, or was it a fluke? Or did you just like the noises that were coming out of the games?

Yeah, all of the above. My brother introduced me to the Amiga and said “use that to make rave tunes on it”. So I started making rave tunes and it progressed from there.

Glo-sticks included?

No, I wasn’t a true raver. This was around 1994, WELL after the death of rave.

I read that the last thing you bought was a £200 voice processor…

Yeah it was about £200, marked down from around £320.

How long ago was that?

Ooh, about 3 years ago I think.

So you prefer the kind of less expensive, more DIY type of deal do you?

Kind of, yeah. I wouldn’t say DIY as I don’t think I could have made it myself, which is why I bought it or it would have taken a long time to build one of those babies. But yeah I tend not to spend a huge amount on musical equipment as I don’t have very much money!

Something that you might be known for is your popularity on the ever important MySpace world. Were you surprised by your success on there, because its been a pretty big stepping stone.

Yes, totally because I was so unsuccessful in every other field of the music making thing that it was a huge shock.

So it wasn’t part of the master plan to blow up on MySpace and then take over the world?

Nooooo, there was no master plan, I joined because my mate’s band joined and I wanted to have a race with him to see who could get to 1,000 friends first, which is probably the most pathetic thing I’ve ever entered into. But he won…

He won?

Yep, he got to 1,000 first and I was sitting at around 960… but… I got a record deal.

[laughs]

It’s alright, I put him in my band as compensation, “you did well… you can play guitar”.

Sounds like a fair deal to me! So when Acceptable In The 80s came out, it did very well. Were you happy with your chart success?

Very happy, I would say almost ecstatic.

Almost, but not quiet yet?

On the brink of ecstaticness.

Has it all sunk in how quickly its all come about?

Not really. And I doubt it ever will to be honest with you, I’m just having a laugh. Just a bit of fun isn’t it? Charts and stuff, CDs coming out, all that.

Now you say in Acceptable In The 80s that you have “hugs and love” for people born in the 80s…

Yeah, kind of.

Just people born in the 80s?

Well… it’s just a song…

This is true.

It’s not really true to life, y’know.

So you don’t really want people jumping at you all over the place?

[laughs]

That sounds alright, I’d welcome it on certain days. Maybe not today, I’m a bit sleepy. But yeah, there’s a time and a place for jumping on people and I’m sure that time can be found.

Yeah, I’m sure it’ll come. You’ve got an album that’s just come out too. Was that recorded in the bedroom?

It was indeed, on the Amiga and it’s out and it’s very exciting.

And you’ve got high hopes for it I’d imagine?

Kind of, I don’t know. It’ll be nice to see it in the shops, that’s about as high a hope as I’ve got.

That’ll be when it hits you then, when you see your face all over the shops.

Maybe, yeah. All over them, saturated. On the carpet and everything, horrible.

Big projection screens showing your face all over HMV.

Urgh, that’ll be disgusting, but beautiful at the same time

The album is called I Created Disco. Do you think that 2007 is a good time to bring it back, have we been missing disco from our lives?

Not really, no. It’s not actually a very disco-y record, which is just the way it goes. It’s just the title for one of the tracks on the album which involves a man telling everyone how he created disco just before the first world war. Which is, of course, all nonsense. So I thought that would be a good album title.

The world would be a very different place if he had done.

Yeah it would, it would be horrible.

Maybe…

If we had no disco?

No, no, if he HAD invented disco before the first world war!

Oh! God, yeah. What would Bing Crosby have done?

He might have been a raver!

He’d have been like Sister Sledge I think.

Sly And The Family Stone would be nothing, it would already have happened.

They’d be collaborating with Vera Lynn.

That’s something that I think all of us want to hear… or maybe none of us want to hear.

I’d quite like to hear that – A Sly And The Family Stone re-working of White Cliffs Of Dover, might be interesting.

I think that’d sound good.

It’d be really vibe-y and probably last about 20 minutes!

The video for Acceptable In The 80s is quite a bright, maybe, dare I say garish.

Yeah its quite garish, there’s a lot of colours going on.

And, I notice at the moment, you’re wearing some pretty garish trainers. Red and green.

They are outstanding in every way.

Do you think more people should be wearing the likes of these red and green trainers?

No, I think they should be limited to me and me only. Everyone else should stick with their white or black trainers. But if you don’t mind, I’ll stick with my red and green trainers.

I’m happy with that, they’re very nice. They certainly stand out.

They are extraordinary. I’ve not made my mind up about them yet – I think I absolutely love them or I think they’re rubbish but I don’t know which one it is!

And what about your fly-eye shades? I don’t know the technical name for them.

Fly eye… well, sunglasses. That holds a bit more gravitas than “shades”.

Would you like to see people copying this trend of yours?

Yes, I think everybody should experience the sight of a fly at one time in their lives.

Can you see through them?

No… they’re made out of cardboard

[laughs]

So we’ll know about that at your concerts when everyone’s wearing them and walking into each other.

Yeah! That’s probably good for my concerts not to see what’s going on. It’ll help to absorb the sounds better.

Heightening the other senses.

Oh yes.

You recently teamed up, as many people will know, with Kylie for a song.

One song. I can’t stress that enough.

It was quite well publicised and I was just wondering how it all came about really.

Very boring A&R story number 1.

Hit me.

Jamie Nelson is his name, he does A&R for Kylie and he heard my stuff and he said “Oh, that’s good, would you like to remix All Saints?”, so I said “OK” and I did that. And then after that, he said “That was good, would you like to work with Kylie?” so I said “Well, yes!”. So we did that and before I knew it, I was in the studio with her writing a song.

And is she as nice as everyone says she is?

Very nice. Probably nicer. She made tea.

Can’t ask for more than that really.

And she let me stroke her hair!

And how is her hair? Soft?

Yes, very soft… and fluffy, like a little lamb.

You’ve now upheld everyone’s dream of how nice Kylie is. Do you have any plans to work with other musicians, on songs or remixes?

Not really.

Would you like to?

Well, I never had plans to start with, it was just kind of forced upon me and you can’t say no if someone asks if you want to work with Kylie. But I never really have the time to work with other people because I’m very controlling and precious about my music and I find it very hard collaborating. Which is good because I went down with backing tracks for that particular session so it was strictly lyrics and melody, which is fine, but just don’t mess with my bass line!

Don’t mess with your mojo!

No! Forget about it.

So you’re just going to concentrate on your own stuff for the time being then.

Yeah, I’m in quite a selfish mood nowadays so I think I’ll just stick to my own stuff.

Your own music, your own trainers…I see a bit of a trend here.

Yeah, basically just leave me alone.

Holed up in your bedroom with your Amiga.

That’s what it is!

And the opposite of leaving you alone would be going on tour with Faithless, I think that’s an opposite, playing some pretty big arenas. Was that daunting?

Some of the biggest arenas I’ve ever seen. Exciting and daunting but I don’t know, I’m not really feeling either of them at the moment. I’m on a strange sort of plateau of nonchalance.

And how about being on a tour bus? I’m sure that’s something you have an opinion on.

I don’t like the tour bus, I must admit. I don’t like it. It was not a pleasant experience for me, I didn’t get any sleep. I was laid on the floor bunk, literally rolled on the carpet into my bunk and then realised I had about a centimetre of space above my head when I was lying down. It was like a coffin! And it was also lined in red which lent itself to the coffin effect.

They’re trying to tell you something I think.

Perhaps! Regarding my career maybe! But yeah I’m pretty sure I slept under the gear box too because every time they changed gear, my head would bang on the ceiling. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Maybe you’ll get used to it. I hope you do for your sake!

Lots of painkillers!

And do you try and change the arenas into big disco ball dance-offs?

Yes, that was my brief when I agreed to support Faithless.

You’d only do it if a dance off ensued.

I hope there’s going to be break dancing over the seats.

There might be some injuries, but if you’re dancing, who cares?

There’s nothing wrong with a disco injury.

And how do you set up live? Do you DJ or do you have a band?

Ah, I can’t DJ! I’ve never DJ’d because of that. I do have a band, there’s five of us inclusive, and I am the front man. My job is to occasionally “sing”, that’s in inverted commas, and basically dance about to the other members of the band who are actually musicians.

Genuine musicians!

Yeah! But yeah it’s good, it works out really well.

Well that’s it, good luck with everything, the album is out now so everyone should get it and get to know you!

Yes, get to know me and my wonderful trainers.

Calvin’s debut album I Created Disco is out to buy now on Columbia Records and you can check out his website at www.calvinharris.tv

Hailing from a thriving scene that’s birthed the likes of Alexisonfire, Comeback Kid and Billy Talent; Cancer Bats look set to follow suit into punk’s major leagues.

Blending rugged hardcore with stoner rock’s slow and twisted grooves, the Ontario quartet are a truly unique proposition capable of throwing down with any band on the live circuit.

Prior to their whirlwind appearance at Oxford’s Zodiac, front man Liam Cornier spoke to Ryan Bird about life in one of punk rock’s hottest new propositions.

How’s the tour going thus far?

Fucking sweet! It started a couple of weeks back in Germany and went through Austria, the Czech Republic and all those sort of places, and now here we are in the UK. We’re friends with bands like Alexisonfire who have toured with Rise Against and The Bronx before, and they told us we would hit it off really well with both those bands, which so far is definitely the case.

You’ve been the opening act on every date right through Europe. Do you find that frustrating or can it actually be a blessing?

I dunno, I guess it can be both. Obviously it can be a little frustrating going on first because you’re often going onstage like 10 minutes after the doors have opened. We’ve had a few people on this tour coming up to us afterwards and telling us that our last 2 songs rocked! On the other hand, playing last can be a bummer for me personally because I’m so eager to play. I’m sat watching these other bands tear it up all night whilst thinking ‘I wanna play now!’.

What’s been the major difference between UK crowds and those in Europe?

Oh, I really have no idea. That’s a tough one to call. I guess that maybe UK crowds are a bit more rowdy, but it’s not really too different from what I’ve seen. Europe as a whole compared to the American crowds is very different, though. A lot of Americans only seem to care about bands from their own country rather than enjoying music for what it’s worth.

Are you homesick?

No way! We don’t really have much of a life at home. We don’t even have homes to be honest with you. We very much live on the road, which can be tiring for sure, but it’s a whole lot better than sitting on your ass in a house that’s crammed full of other people.

There seems to be a few Canadian bands getting recognition lately, particularly bands like Alexisonfire and Comeback Kid. Is it good for you as both their friends and fellow countrymen to see them doing so well?

Absolutely! We’ve been friends with those guys since forever, so it’s great to see them doing well for themselves. They’ve worked really hard for it. They tour and tour and tour and go to the same places over and over again, which is what you have to be prepared to do if you want to be successful.

The amount of Canadian bands doing so well lately would suggest that there’s quite a healthy scene…

I guess so, but it’s kind of weird. It’s healthy in as much as all the bands are super cool with each other and are always willing to help other bands out, but if you go outside the major towns and cities there’s not really a lot going on. You won’t find many venues for bands to play in and so forth, which can make it tough.

Do you think that Canadian bands would get a little more recognition if the country didn’t share a border with America?

Definitely! Not being from America means that breaking the market over there is almost impossible from the off, but it’s so easy to be totally left in the shadows because we’re so close by. Americans tend to have this attitude that they’re the best at everything, so why should they bother paying attention to anything else. It’s hard.

Your debut album ‘Birthing The Giant‘ was released last year through Hassle/Distort. How did the deal come about?

Basically, Hassle have a distribution deal with our Canadian label Distort for outside territories, so once you sign with Distort, Hassle automatically have the option to put it out elsewhere. They heard what we’d done with the record and seemed really into it, so they took us on and put it out.

Have you been happy with the support you’ve received from your labels?

Yeah, so far the feedback and support we’re getting from both Hassle and Distort is awesome. Everyone seems to be giving us as much time and effort as we could ask for. Everybody seems really on point and into what we do, which is a huge help from a business perspective.

The record seems to be a very varied affair. Was that natural or did you set out with a certain sound in mind?

I suppose that we had a certain sound that we wanted to create, but it was purely because we all have such varied tastes that we’re naturally swayed towards the genres we love best. Our guitar player is a massive Stoner-Rock and Heavy Metal fan, whereas I’m more Punk and Hardcore orientated, so we toss ideas back and forth until it works.

You recorded with Gavin Brown (Billy Talent, Danko Jones). How was your experience with him?

It was really cool! Gavin is a musician first and foremost, which gives him a really broad understanding of both sides of the coin. As a producer he knows what he’s aiming for, but as a musician he knows what can and can’t be achieved and what works and doesn’t work, so he’s able to give you a really wide knowledge of what you’re doing.

Did any of his methods confuse you?

I guess the way he records the drums is a little out of the ordinary. He had our drummer record the drums and the cymbals separately, so he’d have to play an entire song with no cymbals and then play it again with just the cymbals. It was a little strange at first because it’s something we’ve never done before, but if you listen to the record it really worked. It stops them from interfering with each other and gives you a much crisper sound, but at the time we did think he may be a little crazy!

You’ll be back in the UK for Download, but what’s on the cards after that?

Pretty much right after Download we’ll be supporting Gallows on their UK tour, which should be an absolute blast. Then I think we’re going to start writing a new record. Just tossing ideas around and laying some rough demos down. We probably won’t be recording until 2008. It looks like we may also be back in the UK towards the end of the year with our friends in Comeback Kid. We’ve always wanted to tour with them, and every time we’ve come close to setting it up something has gone wrong or been changed at the 11th hour, but it’s finally happening. Come and say ‘hey’ if you see us hanging around at the shows!

Cancer Bats debut album ‘Birthing The Giant‘ is available now through Hassle/Distort. The band can be found at www.cancerbats.com