Chatroom with a view

BLOC PARTY
On recording in Ireland
Gordon Moakes: “We were in Grouse Lodge in Westmeath, recording for a month. It was a nice place to go – quite remote. It’s quite a spooky part of the world. There was a haunted house there that I was quite keen on living in, though I don’t think it was really haunted. We were spun a story that someone’s wife had died there.
“Also, while we were there, there was quite a lot of local gossip about a guy in Moate – a small town outside Athlone – who had his hand accidentally sucked into a mincer, in the butcher’s. That was pretty much the event of our time there.
Kele Okereke: “We didn’t have hamburgers after that.”

On the pressure of recording a follow-up to Silent Alarm
Kele Okereke: “I think something we were aware of, from the offset, was that we would have to make an album better than our first, in less time, in not-very-ideal circumstances. When we were on the road, we had long soundchecks, so that we could jam ideas. So, at least when we came off the road, we had at least 20 ideas that we could sift through.
There’s been a real history in the last five or ten years, of second records being really disappointing. We wanted to make sure that at least this record would be a musical statement as impressive (as the first album). It’s hard to discern how this record is sonically different, when it’s still an extension of what we do as a band.
Matt Tong: “I think on a very basic level, the actual sound, the way it was recorded, it sounds a lot better than Silent Alarm. We didn’t have much time or equipment to hand when we did the first album.”

On the recurring themes in their second album A Weekend In The City
Kele Okereke: “I don’t think it’s a concept album, though there were certainly some themes going round my head whilst recording it. I think it’s good for a record to have themes or ideas that reverberate around. It helps it to be more focussed.
Gordon Moakes: “I like a record that has two sides to it, and we always try to make the sequence make sense. Do we mourn the LP format? For me, it’s more like tape, ‘cos I was used to tape records. Home taping is illegal? So are a lot of things.”

On the lyrics to album track ‘Hunting For Witches’
Kele Okereke: “It’s more about what I observed in the media, post the July 7th bombings. Because we travelled so much last year, whenever we came back to the UK, I was viewing things from a fresh viewpoint. I was just amazed how easy it had been to dredge up anti-Islamic sentiments in the press.”

DUKE SPECIAL
On his cover of ‘Maps’ by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“For the past five years, I’ve been trying to get somewhere with music, so to pay the bills I would have been playing in all kinds of bars around Belfast. I’d be playing other people’s songs, and if possible, trying to avoid any kind of cheese. I’d always be playing current songs that I like. A mate of mine is a real NME head, so he gave me a CD with all these different songs on it and I really liked that one. I ended up playing it live, and the gig I played it at was recorded. The label I’m with wanted to put it out as a b-side, and lo and behold it’s now on the cover of Hot PRESS!
With a cover, you’ve just gotta make it your own and believe it. You’re never gonna do it as well as the original, so just put your own mark on it.”

On playing support to Van Morrison
“It was my highlight of last year. I grew up in Downpatrick, and I remember listening to Van Morrison namechecking all these places like Ardglass and Coney Island – places that I knew. I now live just a few streets away from where he grew up, in East Belfast, and the shadow of his legacy and songwriting is huge there. It was completely amazing to get that support. We did two nights, and I got to stand where he was going to stand, and I looked behind at all his harmonicas laid out, and his little cordials. I stood at the side of the stage and watched him, and it was a masterclass. His voice was amazing; he’s got so much passion and soul. Did he have any words of wisdom for me? He doesn’t really have many words for anybody, even his band. The second night, though, he stood at the side of the stage, and later on his personal assistant said to me ‘Van would like a CD’. That was cool.”

On his unorthodox image
“I played a gig in Putney about six years ago, when I was playing in a different band, and some industry people came to hear me. My manager at the time, he was pacing up and down, and he said ‘I really have to tell you this, but I don’t know how to say it.’ I said ‘Just say it!’ He said ‘The guy who came to see you felt you could lose some weight.’ It makes me angry when people try to force you into a mould, but I’ve been really pleased that my current label seems to get what I’m doing – they’ve had crazier ideas for stuff than I have.”

THE FRAMES
On their decision to tour more outside of Ireland
Glen Hansard: “We did a batch of gigs in Vicar Street in February, where we played the songs off the new record. It was very interesting, but it scared the shit out of us. The response we got was very strange, so we decided to not play here for a while, go off, and tighten things up elsewhere. The Irish audience can raise you higher than anyone else, but they can kick the shit out of you better than anyone else, because it’s your fanbase, it’s your people. It’s an indication of the sort of band we are. We’ll either play a set where you play every song that people want to hear – where you whore yourself a bit – then there’s other nights where you play the songs you wanna play. We tend to do one or the other; we’re not very good at mixing it up.
“So, we played three nights where we played only b-sides of singles and new songs. At one point, some guy stood up and said, ‘Play a fucking Frames song!’ It really hit me, and it was like ‘Fuck you!’ It’s a strange thing to say, but it’s almost like when we released Setlist, it completely pigeonholed us. Whenever we played live, Setlist was what people expected to hear. But when we made that record, it was the end of a period, and we made it to document that period of our lives. Ironically, it knocked us back into two years of playing that set, because people wanted it. Releasing that record tied us into a live show that made us very uncomfortable, and I know I was getting very jaded by it. So, when you’re in that situation, the best thing to do is go off and do it in places where it’s not expected of you.”

On the possibility of The Frames releasing a DVD
Glen Hansard: “There’s a lot of footage of the Frames, but none of us have been happy with it. When you play a gig, the atmosphere is all there, but when you watch it back on TV, it’s gone. The last thing we would like to do is short-change people by throwing out The Frames At The Point, because we’ve released Setlist, and Breadcrumb Trail – putting out another live thing is just a little bit embarrassing. If we put it out, we’ll put on extra footage or something to make it worthwhile – for me, the Point Depot gig alone is not worth e15 of people’s money.”

GANG OF FOUR
On being different from the norm
Jon King: “The invisible fifth member of any band is an accountant, but we have never been in that place. When Jimi Hendrix was playing ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’, he wasn’t thinking about anything except taking the music sequentially and consequentially and deliberately and emotionally onward to a great place. The music that is least inspiring is the stuff where you feel the creators are going through a formula: verse-bridge-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus-middle-eight – out! When Andy plays his sensational guitar on ‘To Hell With Poverty’ – that song has only three notes in it. We decided to write a song with no chords – we enjoyed it, and it’s good!”

On re-working their old songs on the Return The Gift album
Jon King: “It’s one of the things that is peculiarly conservative about rock music, as opposed to say, jazz for example. Jazz musicians would take a song, and play it over and over again. You might get 40 Miles Davis albums where he does the same song in a different way. Record companies don’t want you to do that, but we are and experiential kind of band. The shows are always different. But, at a certain point, you want the opportunity to go back and say, ‘No, it’s like this’.”

On sell-out accusations
Andy Gill: “It makes me laugh that people sometimes think that by going with EMI we had sold out our artistic licence. That was the last thing that happened; we were given too much artistic licence. We were told: ‘You go and make your own record, wherever you want with whoever you want – goodbye! Just hand the tapes in in 3 months time’.”

On hip-hop
Jon King: “I really like Snoop Dogg, I think he’s a fantastic writer. No-one who’s got any taste can ignore the things going on in hip-hop. What hip-hop introduced back into the white music agenda was the idea that you can talk about your life, and you don’t have to talk in clichés. Sometimes it goes too far.
It would be nice to see that whatever is going on in hip-hop is playing a part in white rock music. I don’t think the effect of hip-hop has really been embraced.”

On the possibilities of the internet
Dave Allen: “The internet will decimate the record industry. There are thousands of bands now creating their own music, and distributing it on the net. So, it’s not just about who is creating the music, it’s about how is this music being distributed. I actually think that for us guys, if we wanted to do something new, we have a fabulous moment in time to do something really different.”
Jon King: “Bands don’t need record companies anymore – the controversy about us signing to EMI need never have happened. If we were a young band, we wouldn’t have a record deal – the Arctic Monkeys have proved that you don’t need one.”

ELBOW
On being critical darlings
Guy Garvey: “I’d be lying if I said we didn’t love those plaudits. We’ve been together almost 16 years, and to get the recognition of your peers makes you very proud. Anything that leads to record sales is a good thing – especially now that most of the lads have got babies. You can blame being money-hungry on the kids now; we call it suckling the money boob.”

On not being ‘pop’
Guy Garvey: “We’ve never had a hit single, but the albums have always done really well. We also tend to be a musician’s band – I feel like I’m blagging it playing with this lot, they’re still the finest musicians I’ve ever seen. We’ve tried to write something that we know would be a radio hit, and even gotten as far as completing a recording. But, if it compromises your album too much, we find ourselves binning them.”

On the political message behind the track ‘Leaders of the Free World’
Guy Garvey: “Making it the title track of the album was just our way of holding our hand up, and saying what camp we’re in. I think it’s important – not just for musicians, but people in any line of work – when it gets to this state of emergency, to at least consider their opinion. When you see this shower of shite that’s currently trying to turn the Middle East into the Third World, it’s despicable, and it’s so in your face that it would almost be wrong not to. The American record company were nervous about the title of the record, but it had the opposite effect to a backlash. Our audience tripled in the States, without us visiting it very much. It’s very important when being anti-Bush to not be anti-American; it’s a huge country, and there’s as many wankers and beautiful, free-thinking individuals as there is in the rest of the world.”

JOSH RITTER
On his visits to Ireland
“I’ve had some amazing experiences, like getting fast food at the American-style diner in Drogheda. That was something else – I got a vegetarian sandwich, that contained mayonnaise and grapes. I remember that a lot better than I remember some shows.
“I remember riding in the back of a flat-bed pickup, freezing cold, with Mundy. We were going to someplace in West Cork – things like that are just etched in my memory. The shows are always great here, but there are other moments that are as much a part of my life as any music.”

On collapsing onstage in Letterkenny
“There was some sort of weird sickness going around, and I got it. I’d been working really, really hard up to that point. It just caught me, so I went to the Letterkenny General Hospital. It was exciting; I had to go in the car, and there were nurses, which is cool! They put this mask on me, and turned on the oxygen, but then they kept asking me questions about music. I had to keep on taking the mask off to talk, so then I just pretended to fall asleep at one point. It was great; not an experience I would want to have every day, but a new one!”

On his weirdest ever fan
“When I was over here earlier on, me and Mark Geary were playing a show, and I was wearing this really old brown suit. It was starting to tear around the shoulder, so at the end of the night I just ripped the suit up onstage. About six months later at Vicar Street, this girl got up onstage, and she’d sewn the suit back together. The shoulder was done with her hair! I’ll never forget that.”

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE
On Canada’s booming music scene
Kevin Drew: “The whole Canadian music thing – it happened, so now it’s just about trying to maintain it. All the bands are just continuing to try to make good work, and trying to expose other bands a little more. There’s a lot of support from the government too – funding and grants and stuff. We don’t get them anymore, because we’re doing well! The success of The Arcade Fire has been an incredible help to all the bands without a doubt. It’s an incredible record.”
Charles Spearin: “There is a community in Canada, and maybe it makes it easier for bands to get noticed, because everyone is friends. But, it’s not like there isn’t great music from all around the world.”

THE RAPTURE
On touring with The Cure
Luke Jenner: “For me it was like a dream come true. Growing up in San Diego, that’s where The Cure, Depeche Mode and New Order have their biggest audience in Southern California, which doesn’t really make that much sense. When I was 10 years old, I listened to Robert Smith. It was wonderful to be able to hang out with him for a month, and chat to him about ice cream, or whatever!”

On cowbells
Gabriel Andruzzi: “Matty’s family have been playing cowbells for generations and generations. He brought the cowbell into the band. It’s a tradition for him; I just took the cowbell and ran with it. But I can’t remember my first cowbell – it was so long ago.”

NEW ORDER
On U2
Bernard Sumner: “Anton Corbijn did a very famous photo session with Joy Division, and he did a few sessions with us, before he went off to work with those bunch of losers U2.”
Peter Hook: “Bono said he loved Joy Division? He loved them too much; loving is one thing, copying is another! Their last one sounded just like ‘Isolation’, I thought.”

On touring sicknesses
Bernard Sumner: “I actually woke up with projectile vomiting at about 3 o’clock this morning, so I’m not having much fun. I’m just holding it back because I can see a nice young lady at the front there. When was the last time we cancelled a gig? That was projectile vomiting again, in Detroit. The rest of the band very kindly left me hospital, and went on to a party with Derrick May.”

On Hooky’s proposed book about the Hacienda, How Not To Run A Club
Peter Hook: “I’m gonna have a go at it, but I don’t know what it’s gonna be like. I just thought that I’d bored everyone else with it for so long that I may as well write it down. How many words have I written so far? Three.”
Bernard Sumner: “I’ve got a Hacienda story. I was blagging what I thought were free drinks at the back of the bar, one Friday night, towards the end of an evening. A bouncer came in, and said, ‘Have you got a pair of rubber gloves, and a rubber apron?’ I said, ‘Why, what’s up?’ He said, ‘There’s a guy in the toilets, he’s fallen asleep, shit himself, slipped off the seat, and then thrown up all over himself.’ That’s why Hooky doesn’t drink anymore.”

On picking up an Ivor Novello
Bernard Sumner: “In the early days of Factory, we didn’t get many awards, because we weren’t members of the various societies that you have to be members of. We weren’t legit! So, it’s nice to get them now, yes.
Peter Hook: “We met Chico in the toilets. He came up to me, and went, ‘I like your music very much’ – and I was like ‘Where do I know this bastard from?’ James Blunt came up too, but I didn’t fucking recognise him!”

On their first visit to Ireland
Bernard Sumner: “We remember it, yeah! It rained. We did a small tour with our promoter who’s called Dennis Desmond – a good friend of ours, actually. We did alright everywhere except Kilkenny. It was a bit like playing at someone’s wedding.”
Peter Hook: “That was a memorable gig in Kilkenny. They were all spitting, weren’t they? We got a Paul Manson wine bottle, which we all pissed in, and we poured it at someone when we saw him spitting. Because he thought it was wine, he came to the front of the stage, so we got to pour it on him!”

On supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Bernard Sumner: “I think it’s quite a different audience; ours is a bit more intellectual, and theirs is a bit more of a physical thing! Though, if you were to meet us backstage, you would think it was the other way around. The Chili Peppers are great by the way, they’re great friends of ours.
Peter Hook: “It wasn’t as tough as supporting Robbie Williams – fucking hell, they were laughing at us!
Bernard Sumner: “We like a challenge, let’s put it that way.”