I first heard Travis when I came across their song Why Does It Always Rain on Me? – it was in an episode of East Enders and Ian Beale was in a car, processing the discovery of his wife’s affair. It was raining. Perhaps it’s a strange way to discover a band but I have found EastEnders features many bands I have come to love. The Man Who, which came out in 1999 was actually Travis’ second album and it was obviously glorious. As good as Why Does It Always Rain on Me? is the album also featured The Fear and one of the most beautiful songs I suspect I will ever hear, Luv. Travis’ first album, Good Feeling, included All I Want to Do is Rock – still a great anthem – and Tied to the 90s. Tied to the 90s they aren’t, they’re more tied to being Travis and thank the heavens they’ve maintained their strengths through the new millennium. The Invisible Band and 12 Memories are brilliant albums as well – though perhaps 12 Memories had its detractors it’s my favorite Travis album in totality. Peace the Fuck Out indeed. 2007 saw the release of The Boy With No Name, a superbly charming panache with Closer and the stomper Selfish Jean. Now Travis has released Ode to J. Smith and struck out on their own with Red Telephone Box Records. It’s out now in the UK and will be released in the States on November 4th. You can hear several songs off it on their myspace page. They have succeeded again.

I talked with Fran Healy and Dougie Payne before their show at the Moore in 2007. It was before Healy moved to Berlin and Payne and wife, actress Kelly Macdonald became parents to Freddie Peter Payne. I wanted to find out what they thought about their home Glasgow, their new Prime Minister Gordon Brown . . . and how exactly these guys all found each other.

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Q: You were a scout when you were a kid?

Dougie Payne: Yes, I was! What on earth brought that up? Have you been looking at Wikipedia?

Q: So you learned how to do all the survival things?

DP: Yes I did. It’s funny, I was talking about this to my nephew the other day – he’s a scout now. I was asking him, what kind of stuff do you do? It seemed like it was hardcore when I was a scout compared to now – now it’s all trips abroad and going to Prague. When I was in it, it was sitting in the wet in the West Coast of Scotland and skinning rabbits. And sticking sticks up their asses to roast them over the fire. It was all pretty hardcore – maybe that was just growing up in the 80s - none of this nanny state that goes on now.

Q: They wanted to toughen you up right away.

DP: Exactly. It didn’t work.

Q: I just thought it was cute, they sent you out there to learn to survive on your own.

DP: As an eleven-year-old. They left us on an island once, a tiny little rock in the middle of the North Sea. They left us for two days to fend for ourselves, just the six of us. I remember that, that was good fun.

Q: That’s scary.

DP: It was good. Perfect training for going on tour.


Dougie Payne - Seattle 2007 - photo by Dagmar

[Fran Healy joins us.]

Q: I was just grilling Dougie on how he used to be a scout.

Fran Healy: He was. People love that - people love the scouts.

DP: Until quite late . . . until I was about 15.

FH: That’s quite impressive.

Q: You two met in school?

DP: Just after school . . . just before art school. So we were 17.

FH: Dougie knew Neil [Primrose], our drummer. He worked with Neil in a shoe shop.

DP: A scout shoe shop.

FH: Neil worked in a bar in Glasgow called the Horseshoe Bar and I used to go in there after school. I knew Dougie independently of Neil and Neil knew Dougie independently of me. Neil didn’t know you knew me and you didn’t know Neil knew me.

DP: Fran and I met just before you went for the audition for Glass Onion [Travis’ former name] –

FH: No, I went for that the day we matriculated in the art school. I met you way before that, like a year before that.

DP: That’s right, because Neil was working in the shoe shop and he said, we’ve got a singer coming in to audition. He was going on about this band, Glass Onion all the time. He was always playing with things that looked like drumsticks in the storeroom. He was always going on about Glass Onion, how we’re going to audition this singer who’s really good. And then I slowly put two and two together – it’s the same guy.

FH: The first week of art school Dougie and Andy got matey.

DP: They were giving away pound a pint Guinness and me and Andy got drunk and talking about the Monkees. We kind of all met each other very independently.

FH: I was in this band [with] Andy, myself and two brothers, eventually – five years later we got rid of the two brothers and Dougie came in. As soon as Dougie came in it became – it wasn’t a band that had advertised for anyone. It was just suddenly four mates. That was the keystone of the band, four friends. The weirder thing is that Dougie and Andy’s fathers go back twenty years – without them realizing.

DP: Me and Andy didn’t notice but they were both bank managers in different banks. Before they were bank managers they were clerks in different banks on the same street. Andy’s dad and my dad used to go for lunch together back in the 60s, when they were about our age when we met.

Q: How tough a city is Glasgow?

FH: Now I don’t think it’s any tougher than any other city. Every city’s got its –

DP: Glasgow is a bit fucking crazy though. Honestly I am not putting any bad adverts out but you and I both know people who have been punched or slashed out on the street. I haven’t heard of that anywhere –

FH: In London.

DP: I don’t know anyone in London that I personally know that’s been – maybe it’s because London is a bigger city.

FH: It’s got a reputation that stems from the 60s. Places like Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield . . .they’re all places that are traditionally working class and not particularly wealthy. They’re based on heavy industry, like Sheffield and steelworks. When the heavy industry leaves there seems to be a build up of testosterone. Maybe it comes out in ways that it shouldn’t. There are aspects of it [Glasgow] that are tough but it’s a great city.

DP: It’s a brilliant city.

FH: I think it’s definitely becoming more civilized.

Q: I was impressed when you had those terrorists drive into the airport and people started beating them up.

FH: That’s Glasgow. That’s quite Glasgow. There’s a website dedicated to one of those guys called johnsmeaton.com. Only in Glasgow would people actually run towards . . .

DP: Try to get a boot in. You come to Glasgow and you’re not going to get away with that. I like that attitude towards terrorism.


Fran Healy - Seattle 2007 - photo by Dagmar

Q: Fran, I read you’re planning to move to Germany.

FH: Yeah, to Berlin. My wife is German and I want to change the backdrop. We thought Berlin would be a good place. New York was a place we were going to go to but before we go there we’re going to Berlin. It’s closer to our mothers and the boy’s grandmothers. New York’s just too far away.

Q: How’s being a dad changed you?

FH: It makes me want to work harder. I enjoy my job more. I feel more mature – but that might have nothing to do with being a father. It might just be to do with being 34-years-old and having been doing this job for 10 years. All I know that as a father, as a parent, it’s great. It’s a pleasure watching someone grow up and to be there for them and not judge them. Let them become who they’re going to become. Obviously they’re going to pick up traits of you and other people. It’s such a nice thing to see.

Q: Dougie do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?

DP: No, Kel was quite keen to know. She wanted to know if she was having a boy – she said she wanted to know if she’s got wee balls. But then a friend of mine said, don’t find out - it’s the only time in your life that you get to meet somebody with absolutely no preconceptions whatsoever. I told Kel that and she was like, that’s quite good.


Q: I read you like to test music on kids?

FH: I was kind of worried at first because I would play Clay music and he would just sit, motionless. He wouldn’t move a muscle when he listened to music – for a year. For over a year he had no reaction to music. If he had a reaction it was to sit really still – almost in a trance. Now he’s started to dance and I think he’s started to sing. Anything melodic on the radio that comes on he goes, Paba. I’m Paba.

DP: Like Robbie Williams.

FH: Robbie Williams came on the radio and I was like, son – no! I was thinking last night actually about how when I grew up I didn’t have any musical instruments around me and I gravitated towards them. To do music as a career it’s a whole different ball game but just playing an instrument . . . if you’ve always got them around you, you will gravitate towards them. When I was first gravitating towards them it was always this thing you couldn’t get. There was always this guitar and it was always in a window or in a catalog.

Q: How is Gordon Brown doing?

DP: We don’t really know at the moment because we’ve been away for months. In general I think he’s great. I really like him. I met him once at a premiere of one of my wife’s films and I thought he was fantastic. I thought he was the exact opposite of the way he’s portrayed in the British media. He’s portrayed as very dour and very serious and not particularly charming. He is incredibly charismatic, very intelligent, really charming and a really nice guy. He’s got a lovely way about him. During the Blair years – which were full of optimism and playing with the media and all that I feel like there’s a grown up in charge again rather than a celebrity. I don’t want a celebrity running the country, I want a decent politician. He seems like a pretty decent guy.

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For more photos of their show at the Moore, click here.

I talked with 2/3rds of Israel’s Monotonix before their sold out show in Seattle. Ami Shalev, singer and Yonatan Gat, guitarist and I sat down in front of the Comet Tavern on Saturday night. Passersby chatted them up. We gained a fellow-interviewer. A hotdog vendor did brisk business and a fire truck raced by.

The hard-rocking, hard-touring trio Monotonix, including new drummer Haggai Fershtman, are probably coming to a city very near you if you live in the States or the UK. Their music and shows are genuinely awesome and you have every reason to check them out. Plus these guys have a wry sense of humor - quite a few of their responses to my questions were tongue in cheek, although I would believe these foxy guys are fighting off chicks and maybe I believe that the drummer is a good businessman.

Q: Do you ever get injured during your shows?

Yonatan Gat: I got this three weeks ago in Portland. [He points out a cut above his right eyebrow].

Q: Did you get stitches?

YG: No, we had to fly to New York so we didn’t have time.

Q: So you just toughed it out.

YG: I guess.

Ami Shalev: Nothing really serious – except I broke a shoulder.

Q: That’s pretty serious.

AS: Nah, I was in the Army.

Q: I wanted to ask you about that – I read you were a tank commander? What did that involve?

AS: Hard training, discipline, girls, mud, dust –

YG: Gourmet food. Grease. Women.

Q: That sounds pretty good.

AS: It’s a glamour job.

Q: What’s the craziest thing a fan has done?

YG: A woman?

Q: It could be a woman. Are they just crazy all the time?

AS: Yes, the girls are crazy about us. They get crazy only when they see us.

YG: Even before we were in the band, like just walking down the street.

Q: That would be awesome.

YG: I have to push them away – I walk around with a bat.

Q: A bat?

YG: A baseball bat, to scare the women away.

Q: That would work, but some of them might like that.

YG: That’s the problem.

Q: Does the audience ever get angry about anything you do while playing live?

AS: Only when we play too short. That’s the reason most of the people get angry.

Q: I can understand that.

Q: I was impressed how you calmed the crowd at Bumbershoot when the show got shut down early.

AS: Like Dan Deacon says, safety is first.


Shalev drums on the crowd - photo by Dagmar

Q: Yonatan, I came across something about you having to give up your cat?

YG: I had to give away my cat because we tour so much.

Q: Did he find a home?

YG: He’s staying with a friend of my ex-girlfriend. She likes him a lot. Did you see the picture of the cat?

Q: I did, he’s beautiful.

YG: Pretty cute. He’s very beautiful, but he’s very mean too.

[In case you're wondering, in the notice for the cat the Hebrew means inoculated and fixed.]

Q: Is it hard to find places to stay in all the cities since you tour so much?

YG: On our first tour we used to ask people after the show, hey can we crash at your house? This is the first tour we can actually afford hotels.

Q: Now you can spend your money on other things.

AS: Wait, what do you mean by that?

YG: Like for hotdogs.

AS: We’re saving the money for bad times. For the children.

[At this point a guy to see the show sits next to us. He talks about Dan Deacon to Shalev and Gat.]

Q: Do you ever lose each other?

YG: Sometimes I have no idea what our drummer is talking about.

AS: I always have no idea what he’s talking about.

[Now the guy next to us asks me to find out if they’re going to get naked for the show.]

Q: He wants to know if you’re going to get naked tonight.

AS: Yes.

YG: If you pay us. Maybe I’ll get naked if somebody pays me. How much are you willing to pay?

Q: We’d have to negotiate – I’ve only got so much money . . . Were you very musical in school?

YG: One day they had to choose people to sing for graduation, they kicked me out. Out of 60 people they chose 50 and I was one of the 10 they kicked out.

Q: That’s sad.

YG: Now I am playing a sold-out show in Seattle and I am showing them that they were wrong.

AS: I was always out of tune. Right now I’m still out of tune but . . .

[Now a fire truck races by.]

AS: Fire Marshall.

Q: They got here early. [Monotonix has actually set fires as part of their shows – so you never know.]


Gat and Fershtman seize the center of the Comet - photo by Dagmar (on stage taking this picture)

Q: Have you been able to do any sightseeing in Seattle?

YG: We went to Lake Washington.

AS: We saw Jimi Hendrix’s gave and Kurt Cobain’s house.

Q: Yonatan, do you ever get worried about what Ami is going to do next live?

YG: Only that he’s going to put a trash can on my head.

Q: I saw him do that to the drummer.

AS: He’s the victim – he’s the ultimate victim.

Q: Have you started the next cd?

YG: We’ve written a couple of songs – we’re going to record it in the spring, in San Francisco.

Q: Ami, I read an interview with David Berman where he mentions your Dad escaped the Nazis?

AS: He was in the Holocaust. He had to run away from the Nazis when he was 9 years old. He ran away from Europe. His brother was five and his sister was seven. The funny thing is that they ran away with a group of Jewish people to Iran. From Iran they came to Israel.

Q: What is it about Monotonix that’s making you so popular in the US?

AS: Our English is perfect, especially mine. I don’t know why.

YG: Our drummer is a very good businessman. This is kind of like an oxymoron – the drummer is a good businessman. It can’t be.

Q: How do you stay in shape for all this touring?

AS: We eat a lot of Little Debbie Snacks.

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For more photos of their show click here.
You can also see in some of the photos how Shalev was again able to command the audience and get them to sit down on the floor of the Comet.


Gat, Me!, Shalev - September 27, 2008

-This interview appeared originally on Little Radio.-

The Presets are an electronic/pop duo from Sydney, Australia. They just released Apocalypso, their follow-up to 2006’s Beams – both cds are excellent - and are set to tour the States in September and October with fellow Australians, Cut Copy.
I talked to the Presets’ drummer and co-writer, Kim Moyes from London. Moyes has a fantastic sense of humor and even answered some of my stranger questions about Cane Toads and masks.

Q: So you’re in London? I noticed you have a lot of shows there.

Kim Moyes: We just did a festival yesterday called Get Loaded and then we did another one called Creamfields. We’re kind of in London all the time and jet-setting around, doing festivals in Europe.

Q: You travel a lot. Do you have any pets at home?

K.M.: No. A girlfriend – a very patient girlfriend. I’m not that cruel to get pets. I suppose she could look after them but I don’t know how well she’d do.

Q: Were both of you (in the Presets) fans of Pet Shop Boys?

K.M.: Yeah, we still are. We weren’t sort of obsessive fans. I think we like what they do in terms of pop music. They’re really quite camp – and there’s one guy, you don’t really know what he does. They’ve always kind struck of as kind of weird and they’ve always had crazy video clips and flamboyant shows.

Q: How come you two weren’t wrestling in the milk in the video for This Boy’s in Love?

K.M.: We were meant to be standing in purgatory or something seeing these two people fighting. I don’t know why weren’t in it – that’s just the way the treatment came through.

Q: It’s a great video. Did it take a long time to get rid of all that dust you had flying all over you?

K.M.: It did actually – at least three showers and a couple of antihistamines.

Q: How did you find the director, Caspar Balslev?

K.M. He was great – like all directors they come in to the shoot and they’re really excited and then they get into this crazy detail about what’s going to happen and it gets a bit lost on you when you’re not a filmmaker or whatever. They’re all very passionate about what they’re doing and love to tell you about it. It’s all going over your head but you’re like, that sounds pretty cool.

Q: I don’t know how often you still use them in shows, but they’re have been a few pix of you guys in masks. Are there ones you seek out or is it a coincidence?

K.M.: The mask thing just kind of happened when we were waiting to pick up our girlfriends in Byron Bay and they were coming in on a plane about an hour later than us. So we went into this shop – it was like a fancy dress store – and they had these masks. They were just these plastic, clear masks with features on them – but if you put them on it kind of looks like you, but like a weird, older version. That was the first time we ever used them. The guy who does all of our artwork, Jonathan Zawada kind of saw that and ran with it. He’s really into skulls and masks and really exotic, weird and wonderful looking stuff. He got some masks for our first album cover and then it sort of developed into the second album cover, where a piece of bark became a mask and I was dressed up like a pumpkin. I’ve got some friends who go to parties dressed up and they really go out of their way to do really strange things when they go out. I guess people like Lee Bowery – those people from the 80s – you know, like Party Monster with Macaulay Culkin? It’s based on this whole New York dance scene and there was this really famous guy called Lee Bowery and he had this costume that would zip up over his face. He’d make these masks that were kind of like gimp masks but really elaborate, really colorful. We’ve got friends who are really into that kind of stuff. We’re always getting inspired by them.

Q: I like that. That’s cool . . . so Byron Bay, you did the second album there?

K.M.: A friend of ours has a farm. We’d been doing so much touring so we went up there to get away from all the distractions and make a start on the new record. We kind of had a mini-holiday and switched on the creative brain after all that touring. It gets damaged after playing the same music every night for three years. We got to go swimming every day. There were cows.

Q: It was a cattle farm - for food?

K.M.: No, it’s more a hobby farm. There were about 15-30 cattle.

Q: So they’re kind of like pets.

K.M.: Kind of.

Q: That’s good . . . this is kind of a weird question but do you ever see Cane Toads?

K.M.: Yes, they’re in Queensland. They were introduced in Queensland to get rid of these sugar cane bugs that were eating all the sugar cane. The bugs in the cane were like crickets, or something like that – they were damaging all the plants so they brought these Cane Toads in to eat the bugs. And of course Cane Toads don’t have any natural predators in Australia. A dog knows not to eat a Cane Toad because it will die. It has poison on the back of it – no animal can eat a Cane Toad. There’s an epidemic of a plague of them now and no one knows how to get rid of them. They’re really stupid and have no natural predator so they have no guard. You can just walk up to one and kick it. There are a lot of mean people. But in some areas if you walk out into your backyard the [toads] are everywhere, like in a horror film. And some people try to smoke their skin as well because apparently it’s hallucinogenic. I don’t know anyone who’s actually done it – I wouldn’t recommend it.

Q: Do you two ever argue, like on tour?

K.M.: There are moments when we get on each other’s nerves. You’ve got six dudes in a tour bus, every day. It’s a great life but there is a lot of boring, getting to the airports on time . . . stress for an hour of music a day. When you see situations arise you step back. We had a funny situation on one of our first tours. We were away from home for four months’ straight and we were on tour with the Rapture. The whole four months we didn’t have a crew, we did all the lugging, all the setting up, all the breaking down – everything. For four months we didn’t have one argument - except when we were packing up after the very last show. It was about whether or not I could put this new guitar pedal that I’d bought into the case or in my suitcase - if I put it in with the gear it would put it over the baggage allowance weight (we were going to Japan). We were yelling at each other in the middle of a car park in front of everybody about the stupidest thing. Sometimes it’s healthy to blow off some steam.

Q: The Presets have quite a large gay following – is it to do with the dance scene?

K.M.: Definitely. I mean in Australia we were first embraced by the gay community. The dance scene in Australia is very homocentric. We have massive clubs and we have the big gay and lesbian Mardi Gras once a year.
A lot of it is quite commercial but there’s a cool underground dance scene as well. It comes back to things like Pet Shop Boys, Bronski Beat and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Those are the people who like to party the most, have a good time the most and show the least inhibition. It’s always been a real attractive thing for us – that freedom. I don’t mean to sound patronizing, it’s just a good fucking time. No matter what city we’re in we’ve had a gay following – and I guess it helps with the homo, like “fauxmo” thing that we do – playing up to it. We always said when we started out we wanted to milk the pink dollar.

Q: Did you learn to play drums when you were very small?

K.M.: Yeah, I started when I was about eight. I could barely reach the pedals. My sister started having lessons – and it was group lesson – and I really wanted to go. She went twice, and I just continued.

Q: Are your fans different, like in the U.S. compared to Australia?

K.M.: I think everywhere you go people are pretty much the same – obviously little bits of differences. I’m just talking as someone who stands up on the stage and looks out at the crowd. In Australia it’s a lot more advanced for us – the crowds are bigger. The reach has gotten more suburban whereas before it used to be more inner city and I guess hipster orientated. Those people like that are every where in the world . . . Istanbul. There’s almost the same kind of night club every where – kind of indie-disco. Now that we’re getting a bit bigger in some of the major cities people are starting to react more like they would back home. When we first started playing back home no one knew quite what to do and then they developed this kind of way getting into it. I’ve always felt it’s warmer for us in the States than anywhere else. People are kind of up for it. I think people in the States dance better than anywhere else. They really know how to dance. In Australia people don’t really dance together, they do this kind of weird robot dance. The States are just groovier, I can’t explain it. You guys should pat yourselves on the back.

Q: Before you worked as a musician you were teaching – what other types of jobs did you have?

K.M.: When I finished Uni I was teaching part time, one or two days a week, at various Catholic Girls schools. They never turned up – some were cool. I picked up a part time job for six months at a corporate recruitment company and I was the receptionist. That was bad. I was so bad at that. I was really grumpy. I was trying to be nice . . . we have this thing called the dole, I guess it’s like benefits – don’t know what you call it there. I went on unemployment benefits for four years and started the Presets. I worked every day and vowed never to have to do anything unrelated to music again. I saw it as kind of like an arts loan. You have to have meetings with these people at the dole office and explain to them what you do. It wasn’t like I was sitting at home smoking weed and watching television. I was working hard and learning about electronic music. I worked in a library for three years when I was at Uni. I worked in supermarkets – I worked at McDonald’s, that was my first job.

Q: What’s your favorite drink (alcohol-drink)?

K.M.: I’m really into vodka apple at the moment and we were in Munich the other day and this guy was telling us about the Russian way to have vodka. So you have a shot of vodka and then you have a pickle and then you have a beer. It’s so delicious. It really gives you a nice buzz.

Q: The tour with Cut Copy starts in mid- September?

K.M.: It officially starts on my birthday, the 15th of September, in Kansas City Missouri. We’ll be in Seattle on the 8th of October at the Showbox.

Q: Are you going to do any dj-ing?

K.M.: Possibly. We’re in a tour bus with Cut Copy so we’ll probably have to split after the shows to get to the next city. I think along the way I think there will be a couple little soirees.

Q: You guys are going to be on the same bus?

K.M.: Yeah, don’t rub it in. Twelve dudes. Normally when we tour there are twelve beds and six guys. Now we’ve get twelve stinking men on the bus. I think this tour will end the relationship I have with Cut Copy. We’ll all crack the States but we’ll all hate each other in the end. It will be worth it.

Brent Amaker and Mason Lowe of Brent Amaker and the Rodeo met up with me at the Cha Cha Lounge a bit ago and let me ask them all sorts of questions. I had heard they'd spent some time in a Belgian prison, well okay, played at a Belgian prison - and I was also curious about where these guys came from and what they're going to do next.

Q: This band seems very together, very focussed.

Brent Amaker: I model it after the Ramones, the Briefs -

Mason Lowe: Devo.

B.A.: Any cool band that has a very defined image and they just go for it. That's what we're about. I mean, we're cowboys – we're doing the old school cowboy thing. When the Rodeo gets onstage or we put out a record, people know exactly what they're going to get. Every time. You may like it, you may not, but you'll always know what to expect. There's going to be drinking, asskicking, songs about girls and drugs and cowboy themes –

Q: And whiskey?

B.A.: Yeah. We've got the intercontinental thing. Mason calls us intercontinental cowboys. We're going to travel anywhere who will have us – we're going to Japan next. We put Japanese on our record cover – Japan's going to love us.

Q: Why do you think the Europeans have taken so well to you?

B.A.: I think anybody outside of Seattle loves us. It's just because we're from here – Seattle's a really tough market. They're starting to get it here. We did a US tour last year and we can play to any crowd anywhere and we walk in in our cowboy outfits, do what we do and people freak out. I'm not trying to be cocky but it's so unique. There are real country fans that like us (but) on our US tour last year we played with metal bands and the metal crowds loved us. The heavy metal people totally dig it. I think it's about being well-defined.

M.L.: In Europe the cowboy image is so exotic. Our take on it is a little different.

B.A.: The real hardcore country people like us, but they're a little confused. We all came from the rock scene - we all played in rock bands. We kind of have our own take on old-time country music. When we play to rock crowds, they understand what's going on. I think there's a potential for a mainstream country market to grab onto it..

Q: I think so too.

B.A.: But it would be really weird. I want to be to country music what the White Stripes were for rock. They did the old rock thing and people really dug it. Rock music was totally going in the wrong direction and they came out and said this is what cool old rock music is about.

Q: But I have heard some Keith Urban I liked – I haven't heard all of his material.

B.A.: The director of the video for Sissy New Age Cowboy had me dressed up in a Keith Urban outfit. It was humiliating to have wardrobe come in and say I had to wear this sleeveless shirt that didn't flatter me very well. But I did it.

Q: That's a great video.

B.A.: We shot that over at Manray before they tore it down.

M.L.: We did it at Manray and at Havana.

Q: I was wondering where that part in the counter was shot.

M.L: That was like the 500th guy who had his pants pulled down at that counter. A balloon came down with 500 on it.

B.A.: We shot it about a week before it shut down. I think we immortalized it.

Q: Especially with the steak-eating.

B.A.: That was actually my idea. When we were doing the storyboards I asked, can we do a scene where I eat steak? I really want to eat steak.

Q: Being served steak by women.

B.A.: Yeah, it was kind of a dream of mine. I could do that all the time. If we ever really make it, watch out. . .

Q: What are some of the stranger things that have happened to the band?

B.A.: We have really bizarre stuff happen to us everyday when we're on tour. A weird thing for me is, we'll be in Holland playing at a club we've never played at before and we're loading our gear and someone yells, Brent Amaker – play Reno! That's myspace.

M.L.: People in Holland are on their computers all the time. They have a mouse in one hand and a bong in the other.

B.A.: Pot's legal over there and everybody acts like you're a child if you smoke pot. They're like I did that when I was twelve years old. I think they get really sick of the Americans coming over to get legal pot.

M.L.: We spent a lot of time in Belgium. Every town is like Enumclaw – it's like 90 Enumclaws held together by a network of roads. It's all farmers and factory type people. I don't know why we were there – it's just where we ended up.

B.A.: We had a house there.

M.L.: We played a lot of shows there and the people would just stare at us.

B.A.: We always had to play two sets every time we played a show in Belgium. The first set they would stare at us the whole time. The second set – they were into it and clapping. But it was always like we were warming up for ourselves – we had to be our own warm-up band, which is really hard.

Q: I kind of like that idea.

B.A.: We worked hard for that second set. They were completely sober during the first set, and then the beer started flowing. . .

Q: Have you had any hostile crowds?

B.A.: The prison got pretty scary. Half the prisoners loved us, and the other half weren't sure. There were people yelling f**k America. You weren't sure if they were happy or if they were going to riot.

Q: But they stuck around?

B.A.: They had no choice, they were in a prison.

Q: I walked right into that one.

B.A.: They were by definition a captive audience. Guards were there to make sure they stuck around. This was a maximum-security prison. We rolled in and these metal doors slammed down and the guards took our passports away. We all got this uneasy feeling – we're in a foreign country, in a maximum-security prison and this guy just took our passports away. They weren't going to give them back to us until we finished our show and left. It was a little creepy feeling.

Q: Who's the one who had his hat stolen?

B.A.: Lewis, he's not playing with us anymore. We're working on a list of howdy dos and howdy don'ts. Getting your hat stolen is a howdy don't. Girls like to take your hat at shows. They'll grab it – and we have terror alert levels and send another cowboy to get your hat back. You don't want to flatter her by trying to get the hat. We don't want to encourage the hat-taking. We're serious about our hats. In Holland we had people show up dressed like us. Like Kiss. We bought one of their hats [to replace the stolen one].

Q: Who's the most difficult to tour with?

M.L.: Sugar [bassist].

Q: You all seem like easy-going guys.

B.A.: It's the cowboy suits. I have a theory. It's like with sunglasses – no one can really see you, no one can see your eyes. The outfit is like sunglasses for your whole body.

Q: So let's talk about the label, GraveWax Records.

B.A.: It's really a perfect situation for us. One of the owners lives in Jenna, Germany and the other one lives in Texas. From what I understand they have better distribution in Europe than in the US even. They have good distribution in the US but they are hooked up with a really good distributor in Europe. Our record's going to be on the shelf everywhere in Europe. The more shit happens there, the better we'll do here.

Q: Are you going back to Europe soon?

B.A.: There's a festival in Berlin called Popkomm that we played last year – we're going to play that again in October and then do a short tour around that in Germany. Our record comes out on November 4th in the US and in November we're going to start with a three-week US tour. We're definitely going to the south.

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Brent Amaker and the Rodeo are set to play the Ellensburg Rodeo August 29th and 30th. After that they're starting a big tour, including 5 days in NYC in October.
I reviewed both of their cds earlier - I recommend them and their shows. Don't miss them.

She Wants Revenge is really sexy stuff. Their songs are curious tableaus about pain, love, lust and how it all interacts – or not. Some of my favorites are Black Liner Run, Tear You Apart, and What I Want. Made up of a duo, Justin Warfield and Adam Bravin, She Wants Revenge has released 2 cds and 3 eps. They've now produced their newest ep, Save Your Soul on their own label. Bravin, a charming talent, talked with me from Minneapolis a few days ahead of their Seattle show.

Q: I've never DJed – what's it like?

AB: Well, it's changed. I've been doing it a really long time. Back in the day you really had to be a good DJ to be able to spin at clubs and parties. Now it seems like you can be a celebrity and not know how to DJ and still DJ all the parties. As an experience, DJing for a crowd that's there to actually hear music and dance and they appreciate the types of selections that you're giving them – it can be really amazing. It's kind of like when you're performing in a band you kind of feed off the energy of the crowd and it's the same way with DJing. You get a room full of people that are really into what's going on it can be a really beautiful thing.

Q: What's one of the weirder things that's happened to you while DJing?

AB: One time I was DJing with a friend of mine who was Prince's DJ at the time – funny that we're in Minneapolis and we're talking about Prince. I went with him to DJ this little thing he was doing and he took a break and he actually fell asleep. It was at Glam Slam, a club that Prince used to own in LA. While I was DJing, Prince showed up. He was basically the only one in the room and he started dancing. I was playing all this rare late 60s early 70s funk stuff that I knew he was into. My buddy woke up and saw what was happening and kicked me off the turntables and played some kind of Prince-related song. Prince came over and said, "You're fired, you're hired." I DJed for him for awhile. I DJed at Glam Slam for a couple of years and opened up for some of his shows. He goes through DJs every couple of years. I just got lucky.

Q: He seems like a nice person. I have nothing really to base this impression on.

He is. He's very eclectic. He's a genius so there's nothing much else you can say than that.

Q: What kinds of jobs did you have, like when you were a teenager?

AB: When I was a teenager I worked at a frozen yogurt place.

Q: That sounds good. I love that.

AB: It was great. Me and my buddy used to have yogurt fights. I worked at Pier 1. They used to make me arrange the basket area all the time, which I dreaded. My boss had it in for me for some reason – I guess it was because I never really wanted to work. I used to work at a restaurant in LA – it was like a 50s dinner where you could kind of be a jerk to people and it was okay.

Q: That must have been fun.

AB: It was.

Q: You grew up in the San Fernando Valley – what is it like there?

AB: Some of my favorite places to eat are still in the Valley so sometimes Justin and I will make a special trip to Henry's Tacos and get some of our favorite tacos. It's where the original Valley Boys and Valley Girls came from. We were in the middle of it when all of that was happening – Justin and I have known each other since we were kids. It's like anywhere else – it's definitely not Hollywood – it's kind of suburbia.

Q: Why do you think British music was so popular there?

AB: There was so much good music coming out at that time. Especially dance music – there wasn't a lot of that coming from the States. KROQ would play all the music that would come to inspire us as musicians – and you didn't hear the same ten songs all day long. They'd play the Cure, New Order, Kraftwerk . . .

Q: Have you thought about doing soundtracks/scores for movies?

AB: Absolutely. I am going to do that – actually we both are when we get home. Our manager is setting up some stuff for us to do. We're supposed to score a series that a friend of mine is hooking me up with. When I don't do the band stuff it's all pretty soundtrack-y, I guess you could say. I'm a huge fan of late 70s early 80s soundtracks. It's kind of one of the only things I listen to on the road. A lot of Giorgio Moroder – Midnight Express, Cat People. Bladerunner [by Vangelis]. I listen to classical and pretty much strictly electronica soundtracks when we're on the bus. We're going to start producing music for other people and slowly work on our next record. We've both started writing screenplays and I think we're going to concentrate on that as well.

Q: On the tour how are the cds represented?

AB: We've been playing about five or six songs from the first record and about four or five from the second record and we've been playing two off the ep. We just started playing a third (song off the ep). It's a little bit of everything.

Q: I found something on IMDB about you being on show – something called Love Monkey?

AB: Our friend, Nic Harcourt, who works at KCRW in LA was music supervisor for this show – I don't even think it was a whole season. We happened to be in New York when they were shooting it and he asked us if we wanted to appear playing in a bar. So it's just us pretending to play in a bar.

Q: You seem to have a lot of hats. What's your favorite kind?

AB: I can always rock a fedora.

Q: Those are nice – they're versatile. How many hats do you think you have?

AB: Maybe 40 or 50. I think most of them are fedoras.

Q: I came across a love advice column by you: Go ask Adam.

AB: I don't remember what I said. I wasn't enjoying it – I think we were in Detroit, and I want to say we were in some kind of weird Mall looking for the food court when I got the call. I remember being really hungry. I don't think I gave the best advice on love due to the fact that I was starving – probably starving for love as well as food. I remember I had to stop and ask the interviewer what I had just said.

Q: What do you like to read?

AB: I'm reading a book called Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis.

Q: That's a creepy book – I've read that.

AB: Yeah, he's one of my favorite writers.

Q: Have you read American Psycho?

AB: Of course, and Less Than Zero. I'm reading a book called White Noise by Don Delillo. I just started that. It was recommended to me by Justin, who has really good taste in books. And I just finished re-reading the Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein. I'm a huge fan of math and physics. It's kind of hard having any discussions on the road about physics. It never tends to go in that direction. If I can't talk about it I'll read it. It's interesting to dive into the mind of somebody who was such a forward thinker. The way that he describes things is easy enough for some people to understand that don't really get math or physics. His examples are always about a bridge, or someone walking, or a train. He's a smart cookie – this Einstein guy. We have the same birthday.

Q: When is your birthday?

AB: December 30th.

Q: What about movies? What are some of your favorites?

AB: Bladerunner. I'm obsessed with that movie.

Q: Have you seen the anniversary dvd?

AB: Yeah, I got the super deluxe box set – actually Justin gave it to me for my birthday. It's got like five different versions and it comes with these postcards and this little figurine. It comes in briefcase. When we made our second record I was so obsessed with that movie that there's a song on the record called Rachael, which is inspired by the lead, Sean Young. Then there's a little instrumental piece on the second record called All Those Moments which is inspired by the soundtrack. The title is actually a quote from the movie.

What else . . . I love Fellini. 8 ½ is one of my favorites. Have you seen it?

Q: A long time ago. Is that the one with the fountain scene in it, where she's dancing?

AB: Yes. That's a good one.

Q: Italian movies are good.

AB: Especially the new wave, late 60s – amazing stuff going on in that country as far as films were concerned.

On the bus, when I have time, I've been having an 80s fantasy movie mini-marathon in my bunk.

Q: So. . . Labyrinth?

AB: I watched Labyrinth, I watched Dark Crystal. . . I watched Dark Crystal all the time when I was little, and I hadn't watched it in years – and I watched it and the little girl Gelfling in it . . . the reason I am attracted to a certain type of girl is because of the Gelfling in Dark Crystal. I was like, wait a minute, she's hot and she's a puppet. She kind of looks like all of my ex girlfriends.

I watched Legend. Tim Curry is amazing as the devil. Tom Cruise in a little teeny outfit – awesome.

Q: Tom Cruise looks good in that movie.

AB: I'm always down to watch Time Bandits. But I can't watch it when Justin's around – he doesn't like it. He just wasn't a Monty Python fan. I think you are either one or not.

Q: Are you still planning on producing a cd with all female singers?

AB: Absolutely. It's hard to do when everybody has their own schedules and they all live in different places and they're touring. That's going to be one of the first things that we put out on our label. I have most of them confirmed to do it - it's just a matter of having time.

Q: This will be part of the new label, Perfect Kiss?

AB: When we got our deal with Geffen we started an imprint called Perfect Kiss – it just got slapped onto whatever we did. When we left Geffen we already had the name. We're actually going to do something with it now.

Q: How did you get Shirley Manson in your video for These Things?

AB: We had one day off in New York and we had spoken to Sophie Muller about directing a video for us. We kept asking her what are we going to do, what's your idea? She said, "I can tell you the treatment right now. All I really know at this point is that Shirley Manson is going to kidnap you." We were like, wait – are you serious? She said, "I have this idea about Shirley kidnapping you and torturing you." She sent Shirley the song and asked her if she'd like to be in the video. I guess Shirley liked the song. They found this old theater and basically we kind of winged it. She invited this guy down, this friend of hers, who's kind of her accomplice in the video. She basically called him up and said I'm doing this video want to come kidnap these guys with me?

Q: It turned out great.

AB: It was like this is where she kidnaps you, this where she tortures you and this where she kicks you in the back for an hour. I got a nice stiletto in the lower back for about an hour while I played piano. A lot of people say that must have really hurt, and it did, but in a really amazing way. Shirley can kick me in the back with a heel anytime.

We may be working on something with her for her solo record. We were trying to hook up with her before we left for tour but she had a very busy schedule at the time. She really is one of the coolest people that we've met and she really acted like a music industry big sister. She's a really amazing woman.

I saw Your Vegas open for the Bravery in January. Right away I loved their sound and as a photographer it really is great to see this band - they are all stunners. Fortunately they actually sound great too - their debut cd, A Town and Two Cities is a brilliant mix of instantly gratifying tunes and elegant songwriting. I talked with singer and lyricist Coyle Girelli last week. Though he lives in New York, I can tell Girelli has a love of his hometown. He's also got a fascination with sharks - I would say probably because he's cool like one.

Q: You're originally from Otley?

CG: Yeah, that's right - outside Leeds in the Yorkshire Dales.

Q: They shoot Emmerdale there?

CG: Yeah - you did some research. They shoot Emmerdale and another program called Heartbeat there as well.

Q: I've seen a little bit of both of those shows.

CG: You can sort of get the vibe from them.

Q: So it's pretty small?

CG: It's pretty small - a lot of sheep, a lot of hills - not very much else.

Q: Sheep are cool.

CG: Sheep are cool - chilled out.

Q: Are you aware that there are a lot morris dance teams in Otley?

CG: Yeah, definitely. Whenever there's a festival they put the maypoles up and the Morris dancers come out with their faces painted and bells around their ankles.

Q: They're pretty incredible.

CG: They're pretty incredible. They're scary to be honest - some of their face paint is scary, really freaky. There's also a day called Victorian Day, which is in the second week of December every year. It's a day where the entire town, for whatever reason, dresses in Victorian clothes - including the police, hospital staff and everybody. The children put fake coal dust on their faces and wear shorts and little caps. Very strange. It's a strange town - something in the water's not quite right.

Q: Kind of like League of Gentlemen?

CG: Exactly. You don't know what's in the meat in the butcher's.

Q: You've written children's books?

CG: Yeah, I am actually talking to a few publishers about them. I think I'll use another name. They're very strange, about flying lips. Very trippy. They're quite cool for kids. I have a little sister, who's four now - that's where that came from.

Q: What do you like listening to?

CG:. Springsteen, Dylan, Tom Petty, U2 and Jackson Browne - Simple Minds and Depeche Mode. There are phases, I guess. I went to Graceland in Memphis so I think I'm about to start an Elvis phase.

Q: I haven't been to Graceland.

CG: It was amazing actually. You imagine someone like Elvis living in a palace, but it really wasn't - it was just a house. It feels really lived in - it's not too big. It still looks as it did. You can feel Elvis in the building. You can't go to Memphis without seeing Graceland.

Q: You're finishing up your second leg of the tour with the Bravery?

CG: Yeah, we finished in February and they took us out with them again, which was quite nice. We've been on the road with them for like four months. We've been everywhere - amazing scenery. Very cool first tour of America, great crowds as well.

Q: I saw you guys at Neumos in Seattle.

CG: That was our very first gig of our very first (American) tour. We were all really nervous.

Q: It was an amazing show though. I saw some history.

CG: Thank you very much. We got very lucky with the weather in Seattle. We were there for two days and it was gorgeous sun the whole time.

Q: We just tell people the weather's bad.

CG: To scare people away?

Q: Yeah.

Q: Where'd you come up with the line Like Cats Lying in the Sun?

CG: I was brought up with five cats so . . . there are a couple songs with cats actually. I've had cats all my life so I'm used to seeing cats lounging around. I'm a cat person.

Q: Good! Do you have a cat now?

CG: My mum has three of the cats left that I grew up with. Long distance cats. I have a long distance relationship with my cats.

Q: Speaking of long distance - why did you move to New York and not, say London?

CG: We were at crossroads in the UK. We needed a label to release our record. We were on an indie and it didn't have the backing to properly release our record. I popped over (to NY) with an acoustic guitar and a load of demos and that was it. It happened pretty quickly - I bumped into a couple people who became our lawyers and that was it. It was pretty much done after that.

Q: Wow.

CG: The rest of the guys came over and we got an apartment. We've been there ever since.

Q: What's been one of your favorite shows so far?

CG: We had a really great one in Ventura the other night. We've really started to have a lot of people in the crowd that are there to see us. People sing along to the songs.

Q: I saw the video of In My Head that just came out. How did that come about?

CG: It's our very first proper video and we wanted it to be almost an introduction to the band. So people can see what everybody does and see what we're about. We wanted to keep it quite simple and quite basic - to give it a classic feel with the black and white imagery - a Beatles Help type vibe. We're not trying to be weird with our videos.

Q: It's very crisp.

CG: Thank you.

Q: Is the US how you pictured it being?

CG: We've been very warmly received. Americans like our accents, which is nice. Who would have thought?

Q: It's true. We love British accents.

CG: New York's an amazing place - I could walk around there for hours and feel very at ease and at home. The country is unbelievable - the scenery we've seen, it's ridiculous. The last drive from LA to Colorado (was) like being on Mars in some places. Canyons.

Q: Have you seen any sandstorms?

CG: No, we've seen the odd tornado - not massive ones.

Q: What's your favorite drink?

CG: As in alcoholic drink? My liquor of choice is tequila. I quite like red wine. Whiskey makes me feel sick but I am starting to drink whiskey - which is worrying. I like Vodka. Everything is the answer to that. I usually order a beer but then I get full. Vodka and cranberry juice? I know it's quite girly.

Q: That's good. I think Vodka and Cranberry is actually good for you, too.

CG: Might as well balance it out with a little vitamin c.

Q: What's an item of clothing you have to have with you?

CG: My black leather jacket. I haven't played a show yet in America without it on. I guess that. I'm scared now - I'm superstitious so I'm probably going to be wearing it for the rest of my life.

Q: I read you like watching documentaries - nature shows, shark week?

CG: I'm obsessed pretty much. The History Channel and the Discovery Channel are the most watched channels in the hotel room. I have a shark obsession. I think I was either killed by one in a previous life or will be killed by one in this one. It's a weird obsession I have with sharks. It's a primeval thing.

Q: They are amazing. They keep moving don't they?

CG: They're the perfect predator. My fear of them is quite irrational - in fact it's completely irrational. A gym I used to go to had a pool with metal bars (inside it). A few times I had to get out of the pool because I'd gotten it into my head that the bars would lift up and a shark was going to come out - like a James Bond thing.

Q: You never know.

CG: I can't go into the sea because of it. I also watch every program there is with sharks in it. I love the Great White. Then there's the mako shark - a nasty piece of work.

Q: They're the ones that attack for no reason?

CG: Yeah, they're crazy. Bull sharks are pretty crazy as well. They can swim up river. Their gills can take in salt water and fresh water. I think that's where Jaws comes from - a story about a Bull shark that swam upriver and ate people in the early 1900s.

Q: That's one the best movies ever.

CG: I mean the shark looks ridiculous but if you can get beyond that . . . It's pretty awesome. When I was a little kid I used to have a toy shark and I'd put a red (felt tip) in the tub so the water would go red. Kids are weird aren't they?

Q: Your parents must have been worried.

CG: Yeah, I was a weird kid.

Q: Have you seen Survivorman?

CG: Is that the guy that they drop in the middle of nowhere and he has to find his way out?

Q: Yeah.

CG: He's awesome. There's an English guy but he's got a camera crew - that's cheating. I prefer the American one - he's hardcore.

Q: Your worst-case scenario would be being left out in the water?

CG: With sharks. Have you seen the film Open Water? It's a low budget film - a true story actually. They go scuba diving in the Caribbean but the boat leaves a couple behind. They both get eaten by sharks. They were really unlikeable characters so you weren't that fussed when they get eaten. They were just arguing and bickering. They weren't very nice. We played a couple dates with a band called Civil Twilight, from Cape Town. Obviously my first question was Cape Town? Shark Alley? And they were like we used to go surfing out there. You're crazy, there are great white sharks eating seals - and they were like yeah my friend got killed by a shark . . .

Q: And they'd still go out there?

CG: Yeah, the thing is it's not the shark's fault. He thinks it's a seal. If you make yourself up to look like a seal . . . It's like people with pet tigers and they get attacked. Same sort of thing. I have no sympathy.

Q: And then they go and kill the animal for doing it.

CG: It's not the shark's fault. Shark Week - I'm just gone. You don't see me for a week. We were mixing our record during Shark Week.

Your Vegas will start their tour in support of Duran Duran April 29th in Vancouver, Canada. Until then you can see them with the Bravery. And here is the video for In My Headand I got a few pix of them last time round - more on their way:Your Vegas at Neumos
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-This review originally appeared on my Seattle PI Blog, Beat Back.-

-This review originally appeared on my Seattle PI Blog, Beat Back.-

Wanderlust, Gavin Rossdale's first solo album, has just hit stores. This is good news for all Bush fans - I really think if you like Bush you will love this cd. And if you don't like Bush perhaps there is no hope for you - but you just might like this cd instead.

Rossdale took some time to talk with me before his show in Seattle. He played a show as part of Samsung Summer Krush and it was a great runup to a planned fall tour. I was struck by how intelligent and modest he is. He's never taken a break from music since Bush began and has ventured into acting as well. He's a very busy man.
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Q: Are you interested in doing more acting at some point?

Gavin Rossdale: I don't know. Everything is so great with the record that you've got to enjoy doing the record and playing and concentrating on the music. It's kind of sod's law that it probably will mean that because I am so busy with music that something will come along that's interesting.

Q: Did you feel like had more control on the solo album?

G.R.: I don't want to say this in the wrong way but, no. When you come from bands, especially if you write the songs in the band. We had a rule in Bush, if you loved something it would win out, you could even convince the other three. Since I'm such an emotional person I could often win out. A bit of a cheeky democracy really. It worked the other way too, if someone really felt something, we'd all go, okay. We'd choose our battles. All that kind of electronic stuff - the band hated all of that. I was always interested in trying to progress it. My biggest mistake throughout my career was trying to move forward. I think if you have something successful you should repeat it, just do the same songs in a different order. It's always been my downfall and maybe if I reflect on it sometimes you don't understand what the nature of your success is. With rock music I was always more interested in being a band on Touch and Go rather than being on a major label, which is ironic. When that went a bit belly up (signing to Atlantic) it was like . . . I'm not signed to Matador.

Q: What's some of your favorite work from Bush?

G.R.: I think every album would have a few songs that I would love to have another go at, that I could improve. Every record has certain moments that I think I are really interesting and I'm really proud of. It just depends. It depends on how you view music and how you view things you make. If you view things you make based upon their success then maybe you'd look at your hit singles and say that's the best thing I ever did. But for me it was what I felt most excited about driving away from the studio and listening to. There's one song, Communicator, which is on Razorblade Suitcase, which the band really never liked so they would never play it live. I always loved it. I was so happy with the riff - I just thought it was really underrated. Science of Things was a record I really liked - there's a song called Land of the Living, off Golden State . . . there are songs everywhere . . . English Fire, which I did on Science of Things. We played it one time in London. It's not really complex but it's a quite demanding song, and I remember our manager saying to me afterwards - we were playing a few nights in London, because we were very successful there, contrary to popular folklore - and he goes, English Fire, maybe don't play that one tomorrow night. Give the audience a break. And I was like, I fucking love that track. I don't choose the singles - I get everything wrong. I played that song for Tom Morello one time and he said if he ran (the) label that would be the single. I was like, yeah! On this record I really felt like every where my voice should go in, it went . . . I felt really connected to the songs and there are certain songs where I've felt like that throughout my career. There are other songs I play where I'm like, why didn't I rework that lyric? It's annoying. . . . I heard that Kerouac said something about first thought, best thought. I'm sure it worked for him. I never used to be into that. I do go through the words quite a bit. There are certain songs throughout my career where I know I could do a better lyric if I'd had a bit of more time with it, but I was into that whole stream of consciousness stuff so I didn't want to betray that redundant idea.

Q: I've always liked your lyrics.

G.R.: Thank you.

Q: You started writing on a bass guitar?

G.R.: Yeah, it was the first instrument that I played. My sister's boyfriend gave me a bass. I didn't have an amp or anything, it was just kind of fun because growing up I thought Sid Vicious was cool. My Way. . . stab your girlfriend . . . die of a heroin overdose, it's cool. Firework life.

Q: Was that some of the first music you listened to?

G.R.: In my house my mum had about four records: Queen, Roberta Flack, Abba, and Carole King - on permanent rotation.

Q: That's an interesting mix.

G.R.: Yeah it was really nice. Roberta Flack - those records had some of the best musicians ever, the smoothest musicians. And Abba - fantastic pop music. Queen, you know, great drama - and Carole King, sort of introspective. So it was a really weird four pieces. I probably know their music pretty good without realizing that I do. If you put it on I could probably start singing it, like an out of body experience. And of course the whole punk thing was really exciting. It was the clearest defining era of antiestablishment, anti-authority, anti-parent . . . that was the perfect music for youth.

Q: How did your father select the name Rossdale?

G.R.: I think it was originally Rosenthal - it was Russian/Jew. My family is Russian/Jewish on my father's side and my mother's side is Scottish. And it's weird because the Scottish really don't like the English - I'm half English and half Scottish. I'm such a mass of contradictions, it's no wonder that I slightly overthink things and I'm slightly paranoid.

Q: Some paranoia is good.

G.R.: It keeps you nimble, keeps you looking over your shoulder. You rarely get self-satisfied, that's for sure. Every time I think anything positive, something in me tells me something else. I don't even know what the word is - self-cynical? For every action there's a reaction.

Q: Do you ever think about studying Judaism?

G.R.: No, I have an entirely different mindset. There are so many books that I want to read and so many films that I want to see . . . there's so much to learn and so much to think about without going into a study of faith. I'd rather read Richard Dawkins. I like Buddhism. I like lifestyle systems more than faith-based systems. I do love the theater of faith. I think places of worship are beautiful, absolutely.

Q: What do you remember about making the video for Glycerine? It's such a beautiful video.

G.R.: It was strange because I didn't know much about doing videos. All I remember about doing that video - which was the same when recording the song - was no drums - it's so weird. So doing the video it was kind of like the band sat in the trailer for most of the day. It was the first taste of the separation between us because they're not strictly on it. There's guitar from Nigel[Pulsford] but that's about it. I love that song. I remember playing it for them for the first time in London actually and I remember them talking over it and I was like, I think this song's got something. For me it was a great song for us. I always remember it as their beer and cigarettes time. As soon as I'd start singing there'd be plumes of smoke from the stacks. Time off. Do Glycerine, play it twice. English people are very cynical. I was in a very funny band - funny for humor.

Q: I read that you like to cook. What do you cook?

G.R.: Probably a combination of English and Italian. I'm all about the ingredients. I seem to have a knack for it. Miles Davis said every musician should be able to cook because it's a combination of things. I don't do that much outside of music and hanging out with people I like and I think eating together is really convivial. Whenever I made records I would always make everyone eat together. You break bread and you drink wine together, it's a very unifying process. From a really young age, when I started living on my own in flats with lots of friends, I'd always have loads of people over for dinner before you go out. It's a really good way of starting the night. It's got kind of a bourgeois idea to it but it's cool when you break bread and drink wine - it takes the bourgeois out of it.

Q: What do you see of yourself in your son, Kingston?

G.R.: Individuality. He doesn't want that much help - he'll tell you when he wants help. You can't interrupt him. If he's in a process or if he's on his way somewhere he doesn't want you to crowd him, which I totally relate to. He likes people, he really enjoys it when people come around. He's very social. He likes girls. One of my favorite things is him coming to the shows. I never thought about being at a show with him. It's just such a shock, even two years in, to have a child and be responsible for him. He came to Del Mar - I played at this sort of racetrack - he'd seen the show in LA and he got really upset when he saw me onstage. He couldn't understand why he couldn't come on the stage. He was running around while I was doing soundcheck and he came on the stage so I could hold him. Then when I played the show he was on the side of the stage, and his foot was going in time to the music. It's shocking, he's got really good rhythm. He was in a group of about 20 people on the side of the stage and every time a song would end (there were like 10,000 people there) he would bow.

Q: That is so cute.

G.R.: No one taught him that. It's been really great playing again. I am so looking forward to coming to Seattle again. Obviously there's clear history for me, the whole connection of rock music from Seattle and when I first played there, I think it was Mo's or something, and it felt (like I was) in the backyard of where the music was at. When I first played there I thought is this going to be really difficult? It was amazing. I remember the show. I remember getting super trashed the night before. I was taken out by the label and for the first time I drank - and I think the last time - 50-year-old whiskey. I couldn't even see straight. I was so done in and I was trying to play this show, and I was trying to be good and was so nervous but I got a really warm welcome. Then I did some recording up there in Seattle at Robert Lang Studios. He's got a regular house - this was when it was being built so Lord knows what it's like now - but he had trucks of dirt at his house and he built down into the mountains. He was like Dr. No.
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Click here to read my review of Rossdale's show and here for photos.

Did you have a musical family?
Both my parents are still singing (in the church choir) My dad’s a pretty proficient piano player and a pretty good guitar player as well.

What are the differences between your albums?
Some things are different but we always try to challenge ourselves and do new things. I hope that each of our records sounds new like something we’ve never done before but also like us.

Who designed the new cover? I love it.
Josh. He designs a lot of t shirts and stuff – he’s a great artist. Watercolours and drawings.

How was touring with Keane? Is that the largest band you’ve toured with?
Now they’re really big, but that tour wasn’t so crazy. We were still playing Berbati’s in Portland – Irving Plaza in NY. It’s not like it was Madison Square Garden. We’ve gone on mini tours opening for bands at that level. In terms of world domination I guess they’re bigger than any band . . .

That was the first tour I had heard about you guys.
It was a great tour to for us to have done because I think a lot of people saw us – it’s a different demographic entirely than we’re used to playing. It was not necessarily all the hipster kids – it was more different kinds of people. It’s cool, I like playing in front of different kinds of people not just straight up rock & roll fans – although I love obviously playing for those people too. They [Keane] have a different audience and it’s working out well for them.


What do you like about playing live music?
I like playing music, period. There’s that (we laugh). You’d be surprised being in a band. You practice a lot. You drive a lot. And you do a lot of peripheral stuff. But playing – the sound check you just saw – usually it’s not nearly that long, then you play the show is not even that long. Sound check is usually about an hour, if you’re lucky and the show is 45 minutes. So in a day of tour we drive like seven hours, we talk on the phone and do business and emails for many other hours and then you play music for an hour and 45 minutes if you’re lucky. By that break down we’re so happy to be playing , which is really what we’re supposed to be doing . . . so I like that and I love being in a room with a crowd and getting a vibe going in a room. Playing and singing, there’s nothing like it – or people wouldn’t starve to death and drive around in vans and go crazy. I do think it’s the hardest thing – it’s one of the hardest things people can do. People think, you’re in a rock band cause you can’t get a real job. But I think this is so much harder than any other real job – and I’ve had some hard jobs.

What other kind of jobs have you had?
I’ve worked in kitchens – really hard. I’ve worked as a teacher, which is maybe the only thing I would put next to this as as hard. I’ve been a landscaper . . . I gravitate towards these things for some reason.

Teaching and this work – I can see how you’d compare it.
It’s like a 24 hour – you have to be all there all the time or you can’t do it. You make no money. Teachers really don’t make any money. The joke is we don’t make any money – rock people- cause obviously some rock people make more money than God. No matter how good a teacher you are you’re not going to make any money. But you get rewards that most people don’t even know about (as a teacher).

What did you teach?
Music. A school in Jersey city – a Catholic school – two Catholic schools actually. The other teachers were Haitian nuns.

Were the kids well-behaved?
No, they were horribly behaved, but they were wonderful.

Music was probably one of their favorite subjects.
They liked me. But it was hard – I mean forty kids in a class in an inner city school.
I don’t believe I’ve ever said anything about that before in an interview – that’s an exclusive. In professions like acting, music and teaching you have to engage people.Except in teaching it’s for them and everything else is for you. Although there’s a gray area there too. Teachers, especially at the college level where they like to hear themselves talk, they like to be adored, they like to inspire awe and girls to have crushes on them and stuff. I am sure you could find a lot of teachers who have weird motivations - I claim to not be one of them.

You studied at Oberlin – is that where you got your music degree?
I don’t have a music degree. I was completely unqualified for my teaching job. For this type of job I feel qualified – for my teaching job, at least on paper anyway, I was completely unqualified. They didn’t have a music teacher at all at the school.

How was working with Haitian nuns?
They’re great - they were crazy. Wanna take about making no money, they really made no money. Nuns make no money.

Were they fun?
They were great.

I guess I wouldn’t go into the nunnery to make money.
I would advise against it.

What happened to the column on French Kicks’ site, What Would French Kicks Do?
It’s gone.

Did you get tired of it?
What Did French Kicks Do? We just got lazy. For a while we were just lazy – we’d be in the car and somebody would be like, we really should do some of those. We should of done a lot more of them, but it’s the kind of thing that’s really fun for a while and then as soon as it starts to feel like a chore we’ll quickly be like, no sorry. In theory anyway there will be some enticing new content on there [the French Kicks’ web site]. It was fun to do that. I think our new idea is to have a gallery – a page where people send their art submissions in the and we critique the art submissions where we do a psychological evaluation based on the art.

I was afraid you were going to critique the art.
We’re going to do that, too. It’s like a critique of the art that gets into a more psychological profile. Whether we actually do it or not I can’t tell you. It’s in the works.

You’ve been touring continually since 2001.
Well not exactly. We’ve had sort of seasons of heavy touring. This is the first tour we’ve done in a really long time – a year.

Do you have a driver?
No, we drive. It’s something to do. It’s different when you’re driving – it’s a little better – you have to pay attention.

You’re not just staring out the window.
You kid yourself into thinking that you’re doing something worthwhile. Although sitting and staring out the window is great, too. I have no problem with that. I don’t mind it at all. It’s just that after a while, living on top of each other . . .

Who’s the first one to start picking a fight?
I pick fights all of the time. No, we’re a bunch of perfect gentlemen. We are, it’s true. A very gentlemanly band. Very nice to eachother.

No shut ups or we’re going to leave you in Fargo?
No. I mean you this about bands, I mean people get into real fights on tours all the time. Real bad fights, but we’ve been pretty good.

You played drums in the band earlier on – why stop?
Just for live purposes, it was a little limiting. We couldn’t play fast songs – we could do maybe one if we were lucky because I would be so out of breath.

They’d find you collapsed –
I used to literally see spots – almost be about to pass out after every show. I don’t have a problem with that necessarily – just I couldn’t do more than one fast song per show. I could only do so much intricate stuff. And also now I play keyboards here and there. It just basically opens up opportunities to do other stuff.

You don’t like to refer to influences – you think it’s misleading?
I just don’t like to mention them. There’s so many . . . the way we’re influenced by them is so different – it’s like little details as opposed to broader things. [He’s the same on films and literature, too] I think everything you see or read will listen to you in some way.

I’m intrigued by the title of the one about-

England? It’s the only one –

Do you get a lot of questions about it?

I’m psychic.

I know.

It’s about a time we were over there at the end of a long tour. We were out for five weeks in the States and then immediately went over there and it was sort of a kick some one when they’re down scenario. We were so exhausted and everything was fucked up. [The song] is obviously a tongue in cheek thing. It’s something that’s fun to complain about – we’re champion complainers.

How did you get involved with Poptones?

We did one record. Alan McGee – there’s this party that he puts on, it’s mostly in London with Radio 4. He was doing it in NY when the whole New York thing was happening, seeing what would stick. What stuck was the Hives.

Do you think that you are now able to get out of being labeled a New York band?

I hope so. I mean, here we are talking about it. But I hope so.

None of them sounded much like each other.

They never did.

You have a new guitar player?

For about two months. He’s great – he’s an old friend, a D.C. guy.

What’s D.C. like?
It’s much more fun as a native than as a visitor. It’s a great to be fifteen or sixteen years old – I think that’s what it’s best for. It’s sort of halfway been a small town and a big town, in a great way for teenagers. There’s a really good music scene, especially when we were in high school. But then you can also sit outside in the park and get drunk, the kind of things you can do in smaller towns. It’s a great place to grow up.

You moved to NY for more opportunities?
I think for the same reasons most people move to NY. There’s more going on.

What kind of music did you play in your teenage years?

It was pretty terrible, high school music band music. We did a lot different stuff.

Do you get to get out see things while on tour?

Every once in a while we have a day off and can go walk around. Usually it’s just drive in for sound check, do the show. In our naiive early days we used to book our own tours and book all these days off everywhere to see the sights – it ends up being sort of depressing. If you don’t - first of all if you don’t have any money –but second of all if you don’t have a home base in a foreign town it just gets depressing to be there really quick. You don’t have anything to do. If you have a friend there, anything, where you can feel a little more at home then it’s fine. We learned very quickly that it’s better not to have too much time off.

Who are some of the bands you’d like to tour with?

It’s always fun to go on tour with the Walkmen, we grew up together. It’s like touring with your old gang from high school. Dios, the Joggers – a Portland band who I think are really great.

Are there any kinds of music you can’t stand?

Like whole types of music? No, I don’t think so. I think you can find good examples of pretty much anything. There’s got to be something redeeming about everything, or it wouldn’t be anything. Somebody had to like it. Somebody in that category had to like it, for a good reason, or it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. It’s like populist theory.

French Kicks is a handsome band and I see that mentioned in every arcticle. Does that weird you out?

No. If you think about that sort of thing you’re doomed, so I try not to think about it. What we’re doing is try to be good at music. That’s the most important thing to us. That people are listening and like the songs. We work hard at it. I like to be listened to a lot more than looked at. In fact I hate being looked at, I do. I’m not a natural hey look at me kind of guy. But I love to play, I love to be on stage so I can play.
[Though I do point out it’s better to be thought attractive than unattractive] It’s too bad.
I think there’s been times, not so long ago, where [appearance] wasn’t so much a parameter by which people were judged so much. In the 70s I don’t think you had to be so attractive necessarily. Everybody has to be a pop star now, rockers have to be pop stars. Any kind of music has to be a pop record. It’s so boring. It used to be you could look shit but if it [the music] sounded good people would listen to it. People were paid attention to for the right reasons. Even beyond looking like shit because that’s your thing but because you just don’t care. Maybe I’m kidding myself. I like to think that that’s possible again. Not having looks be a criteria for being recorded in the first place.


Do you have to force yourself to write?

I think there have been times where we’ve done that, where we’ve said we’re going to write now. Sometimes good things happen. But mostly – the beginning of song has to be something that just happens very naturally and relaxed way for fun just so you want to entertain yourself. Feel it. It will sound like you felt like it, which is the best thing. It’s a mind game, for us anyway. You take the good things that happen by accident and then you make them into things that are listenable. And you have to be around the instruments so things can happen in the first place. Sometimes that will take a little bit of discipline.
It’s sort of a balancing act.

Britain’s White Rose Movement is one of the top British bands to have visited the States this decade. Two members of the five-piece, guitarist Jasper Milton and singer/guitarist Finn Vine, talked with me before their show in Seattle in early May.
Q: Do you like making videos of your songs? Is it fun?
Finn: In a way it is - in another way it’s always a bit of a risk -
(there’s an interruption as the band learns they will get to their next show date in Chicago)
Finn: Someone brings you a treatment and it’s really hard when you read the treatment and not to look at it and think this looks really corny or, . . . we really enjoyed doing the Alsation video (or I did personally).
Jasper: Yeah it seemed like there was more a structural idea of what was going on.
Q: How did you pick Paul Epworth as your producer?
Finn: He did sound for us at a club night that he was kind of affiliated with - that was three years before he started producing. He did sound for us and the gig went really, like, tits up and everything went wrong and he ended having a fighting match.
Jasper: Not with you.
Finn: No.
Jasper: With the promoter.
Finn: He saw something in it [the show] and said he’d like to make a point of coming up to us afterwards. I thought that was really special.
Jasper: And then we didn’t see him for two years. We tried recording with a couple of producers and it wasn’t working out. We were in the studio with a producer and it was all going horribly wrong and we bumped into him - he was working downstairs with a band called Maximo Park. I hadn’t realized he had become a producer. I gave him a cd of what were doing and we did one track with him which was Love Is A Number and from then on in it just clicked really, just jelled.
Q: It’s a question you probably hate and difficult to answer - describe your sound - it has so many elements of music that I love, like disco and 80s music.
Jasper: It’s got an element of 80s and some of the beats are quite disco but it’s also got some of the bands we love from the 90s like My Bloody Valentine and stuff like that going on in it. I think it’s quite diverse it’s not just sort of influenced by the 80s - I think it’s influenced by the 90s - it’s a 21st century record. It’s a mixture of a lot of different things. But yeah, like you said, it’s really hard to ask a band to describe its sound (Jasper laughs and I agree). Invariably we get 80s references and lazy journalists say we sound like A Flock of Seagulls but I don’t see the reference myself.
Finn: It’s just not true.
Q: Who writes the music and lyrics?
Finn: Me and Jasper write the lyrics and we usually write the beginning sparks of a song as well but more and more we’re doing stuff in a rehearse room situation and working on grooves and it can start from anything like a circular phrase or a riff -
Jasper: Or it can start from a bass line. . . every one’s writing music to a certain extent but me and Finn are the major song writers in the band.
Q: Reports are the entire band besides keyboardist Taxxi grew up together in Norfolk in what has been called a commune. Is this true?
Finn: It wasn’t really a commune. It was just like -
Jasper: it wasn’t really a commune by the time we were living there really. It did start out as a commune. It was a broken idea(l) of a commune. I don’t know, by the time it had hit the 80s a lot of the people who had moved out there in the 60s and 70s had fallen out and fences had gone up -
Finn: It wasn’t idealist in that way. It was just lots of young waifs and strays living there and getting blitzed and playing music and stuff, and doing bits of art and photography.
Jasper: I think as kids you had a free run, that was thing - the kids were kind out of control, which is great for kids - just do what you want -
Finn: there was no discipline.
Q: So you were able to take up music?
Jasper: Yeah, no sound restrictions or anything like that.
Q: What’s the story behind your song Deborah Carne?
Jasper: It was about something I read in the papers in England that happened a while back. It was basically a school kid - her boyfriend had a one night stand with another girl and she decided to get revenge [with her mates] and took her out and set her on fire. It was pretty nasty. Just one of those stories you read and you’re just absolutely fucking horrified, you know, that somehow children . . . barely teenagers could do that to each other. It kind of touched on that whole . . . way people seemed to have become, especially with computer games - separated from the reality of the harm that you can inflict on each other and they’re playing these games where they go around and blast each other and it’s not real. I suppose it’s kind of like -
Finn: the social repercussions of having a Prime Minister who’s up for going to war and is a real war monger and his policies -
Jasper: I guess to a certain extent if he’s at the top of the ladder . . . he’s setting the example at the top . . . and blasting away innocent people, then that kind of thing just goes down. I don’t know, I just found it a horrific scenario. It’s a touchy subject - writing about something that’s obviously personal and painful to that family.
Q: Finn, how did you start singing? It’s a very flexible voice.
Finn: I’ve always sung - not in a professional way or in a vocational way. I just always loved singing, even as a kid.
Jasper: I think there’s a whole bit to his voice that’s not even on this record yet that’s really good as well. Maybe you hear it on the secret track on the album. It’s called Luna Park.
Q: How about Pig Heil Jam?
Jasper: I can’t believe how many people have referred to that as a yelp.
Finn: I associate yelps with puppies. I don’t know how I feel about being called a puppy. Puppies are nice, soft and cuddly. And open to abuse.
Q: How’s America? Is this your first trip here?
Finn: Second. This is more extensive than the first one - we only did like four or five shows the first time we came over. We love it.
Jasper: It’s been great, we love it.
Finn: Especially at the moment because it’s not like we’re going everywhere in the States - it’s not that extensive - it’s quite leisurely, the pace we’re doing it. It’s more like a kind of holiday really. Going to lots of different places.
Jasper: Like a holiday but there’s some really long drives in between. It’s not all like a holiday but -
Finn: for me it is. It’s nice looking out the window and seeing different sights.
Jasper: Yeah it’s a beautiful country. It’s a fucked up beautiful country but . . . From day one we’ve always wanted to get out here. A lot of our heroes in music are from here and it’s great to be here. Coachella was amazing.
Finn: Amazing. Two to three thousand people, and they’re all packed into this tent - people who had turned up to see us and it was really encouraging.
Jasper: And that’s pretty much myspace really because we’ve got nothing out over here at all. People seemed to know our songs in the audience.
Q: What’s the strangest thing on your rider?
Finn: It’s pretty thin over here. We’re lucky if we get a bit of fruit. We usually get some piss water beer and that’s about it.
Jasper: There’s nothing unusual on our rider. We just try to get some vodka and red bull. Especially if you’ve had a long trip you need something to pep you up a bit. Nothing that exciting. We’re on a shoe-string [budget]. We haven’t got a record out here at the moment.
Q: When does the cd come out here?
Jasper: We’re negotiating with [American] labels cause we’re signed to an independent in England. Everything that we do, and all the gigs that we do are purely by word of mouth. [Through myspace] we’ve picked up a lot of American fans. We came out here and did SXSW and the Troubador in L.A., which was full. They told us no one dances at the Troubador, and then they all started dancing.