Talking Pictures

Talk about obliging – jet-setting electro rockers Two Door Cinema Club took an 8am ferry this morning to come and spend some time with Hot Press. I feel all special, until I learn that (thanks to a shiny new tour bus) they slept all the way from Liverpool to Dublin.

“If the ship sinks we’re screwed!” bassist Kevin Baird exclaims. “We’re in the hull of the boat asleep! I can think of better ways to die!”
The boys from Bangor and Donaghadee seem pretty well rested as Hot Press snapper Ruth Medjber orders them about their dressing-room, cracking jokes about how quiet they are in front of the camera. She’s got a point – aside from the sound of guitarist Sam Halliday whistling ‘Goose’ by The Cast Of Cheers, there’s not a peep out of them.
It was in this very room that I first met Trimble, Baird and Halliday (calls to mind a hipster solicitor firm, don’t it?) back in March, minutes before they went on stage at Dublin’s Academy. Today, they’re more groomed than I remember them, and have a little bit more shine on their shoes.
They’re looking pretty snappy for three guys who’ve been on tour quite literally non-stop for six months, in which time they’ve been around Europe, the US, Australia, Japan, China and South Korea, averaging about six shows a week (oh yeah? Well, I’ve moved apartment and switched to bill pay…)
Now that touring has become more normal than normality itself, how do they stop cabin fever from creeping in?
“A lot of drinking,” front lad Alex Trimble admits. “Blowing off some steam is important.”
Ah, this is what I like to hear – three impressionable young things hardened by the harsh realities of the gravy train.
Baird interrupts my fantasy just as the trio are checking themselves into the Paula Abdul ward of the Betty Ford clinic; “…and Berocca! We take loads of vitamins!”
I bring up their recent stint in London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire and the usually aloof Trimble becomes suddenly animated.
“It was incredible,” he gushes, “Just unbelievable! When we were first asked to play we said ‘no’ because we didn’t think many people would buy tickets. (Note: they managed to shift all 4,000 stubs in a couple of days.) They just ended up being two of the most amazing shows I’ve ever played.”
I assume this kind of superhuman elation doesn’t come without a colossal amount of pressure.
“It’s our show,” Trimble stresses, “people were paying money to see us. It’s the whole night, it’s picking the right support bands and crowd interaction and getting everything right.”
These days getting it right includes two kickass confetti canons – that’s some big boy shit right there.
“It was big boy shit,” Baird nods, “definitely!”
Some familiar faces graced the stage in London with TDCC – Hot Press’ favourite spazz bandits The Cast Of Cheers.
“They’re all such amazing musicians,” Trimble gushes, “I can’t get over it. And the album’s phenomenal!”
Baird: “Since we got it, we’ve pretty much just listened to it on repeat. We’d never even seen them live but we decided that we had to play with these guys.”
Along with Belfast rockers Not Squares, The Cast Of Cheers will also be joining Two Door for three Irish dates in December.
“That was always our favourite thing about playing shows in Ireland,” Trimble recalls, “genre was never an issue. You’d have us, Panama Kings and ASIWYFA – spanning this massive spectrum! I love the fact that there’s no regard for genre when you’re discussing a line-up here.”
Now that they mention it, this genre-hopping approach is probably a vital chink in Ireland’s musical armoury. They’re quite perceptive pups, really, but I’m forgetting that there’s been another monumental shift in camp TDCC over the last six months. Halliday turned 21, then Baird, and Trimble comes of age in a couple of days.
I demand to hear all about these supersized 21sts.
“Ha!” Halliday exclaims. “I was on a plane to Australia for my birthday. We thought we’d try and blag First Class but there was none of that going so Kevin told the air hostess to announce it on the intercom. I was sitting on my own too, those guys were all together in a row but I was sitting beside some random girl. They announced it over the intercom with my seat number and I was sitting there reading my book, not looking up. Then the air hostess came down with two glasses of champagne and she thought me and this girl were together! It was just so awkward. We just drank the champagne and didn’t speak again.”
“The funny thing is that everyone around him must have thought that he had told the air hostess it was his birthday!” Baird laughs.
“Well, your birthday was great!” Halliday jeers, clearly still flinching a little at the memory of 20 hours of dead air.
“Yeah, my birthday was wicked!” Baird beams. “We hired a bar in Sydney and Mumford & Sons came down and a couple of the guys from Laura Marling’s band and we invited everyone who came to our show that night. Mumford & Sons are massive in Australia, so once we told the bar they were coming to this after party they said, ‘Okay, you can have loads of free drinks!’ They gave us something like like $4,000 dollars worth of drink!”
“We had like three bar tabs open,” Trimble adds, “It was amazing. Bottle of champagne after bottle of champagne.”
Just when I thought this tale couldn’t get any more extravagant, they tell me that Baird said “goodbye” to his 20th year by delivering a toast atop the bar and diving into a crowd of friends and well-wishers. Sorry, Halliday. You lose. Still, this kind of rowdy behaviour is nothing you won’t see at the average TDCC gig.
“A girl got her tooth knocked out in Manchester!” Baird recalls.
“A girl vomited over the barrier last night!” Halliday laughs, “It was so hot!”
“Kids love to throw shit!” Trimble says, “and you know, it really pisses me off. I know they’re not trying to offend you but Shepherd’s Bush, right – I got a pint in the face! And it was the first song! And my parents were there! I don’t mind getting a bit wet but it goes all over my gear.”
That Mumford bar tab story ain’t fooling no-one. These boys have their eyes far too fixed on the prize to be total pissheads. Maybe a recap of the summer’s festival highlights will scare up some genuine rock ‘n’ roll folklore?
“I thought the Electric Picnic was rubbish this year,” Baird admits, “it felt really empty.”
“It felt like we weren’t allowed to have fun at the Picnic,” Trimble adds, “we got told off for playing Frisbee!”
“This guy was like a schoolteacher!” Baird laughs. “He was like, ‘I’m only gonna say this once’ … then he came out again and two four-year-olds had stolen our Frisbee and were throwing it about. He didn’t know what to do!”
Their run in with the law at Stradbally was nothing compared to the surreality of having Blur’s Alex James formally introduce them to Prince Charles on their first morning at Glastonbury.
“Apparently he’s trying to get milk from Prince Charles’ cows,” Trimble says of James. “He loves to make cheese and he wants to make it from the royal cows, so he’s in there with Prince Charles at the minute!”
Baird begins the story, “Prince Charles wanted to meet a ‘common, hardworking band’ and Glastonbury chose us.”
This was before Frisbeegate, naturally.
“But they added extra security because we’re from Northern Ireland! There was this whole political thing going on! He thought we were from Wales so I said, ‘No, we’re from Northern Ireland,’ and he gave this look over at his Head Of Security. The security guard was like, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ as if to say ‘They’re alright!’”
“He also had a stain on his crotch that I could not keep my eyes off!” Trimble laughs.
“And then Camilla and everything just came into my head,” Baird squeals, “Oh, it was awful! But I guess that’s his job. Not to have sex with Camilla – although I suppose someone has to – but he’s a pro small talker.”
Sounds like The C-Man missed his chance to appear on the band’s second album, which the lads start work on in the New Year.
“We don’t have a plan,” Baird notes. “We’re gonna do what we did before which is not decide what it’s gonna sound like before we write it.”
“After April we’re gonna hit it hard,” Trimble says, “We’re gonna take some proper time off and get writing.”
If my highly unreliable web sources are correct, they’ve already started. I spied one grainy setlist snap online bearing the words ‘La Nouvelle Chanson.’
“It’s definitely a progression,” Baird says of the new track, which has already gotten a handful of live outings. “I think it’s maybe a bit darker, but it’s definitely still recognisable as us – every night we write it in a different language!”
That said, hit factory Tourist History won’t be forgotten in a hurry. Baird loosens a few buttons on his shirt to reveal a tattoo of the cat eyes from the album cover. A deluxe version of the album has even been pimped out with remixes and bonus material, including a 60-minute documentary and early track ‘Kids’.
“It’s a song about songwriting,” Trimble explains. “You have a connection with the songs that you write, almost like the feeling of having a child. It was written shortly before we went in to make the record and we were a bit apprehensive about people twisting our songs.”
Not about illegitimate sprogs, then?
“I’m fairly certain I don’t have a child somewhere,” Trimble muses. “Some day I may like a child… no, I will, I will like a child some day.
“Alex wants a wife and kids!” Baird teases.
We’re clearly getting a little ahead of ourselves now, so rather than use up all my questions for the next six months, I’ll be on my way. First, an aside; when are US tour buddies Phoenix going to get around to doing an Irish show?
“Apparently they hated it when they played Oxegen,” Baird dismays, “and they don’t wanna play here again!”
Sad faces all round. A couple of days after our interview, Two Door Cinema Club are off to the States again, this time without their French cohorts. America’s always been good to them – they count Kanye West and Wayne Coyne among their fans – but I don’t think anyone expected them to sell out a five-week run, including a couple of 1,300 capacity shows in New York and LA.
Is that it, then? The secret is that there is no secret? The stargazing trio has worked hard, played hard (ish) and all but waved goodbye to their personal lives, and now they’re reaping the rewards?
I’m not in the habit of defining a band with their own lyrics but these boys are so darn efficient, it’s just too perfect a fit to pass up. So here goes; at a time when it can seem impossible to earn your keep in this business, something good can work – but the work part’s up to you.

The deluxe edition of Tourist History is out now on Kitsuné. Two Door Cinema Club play Mandela Hall, Belfast (December 7); Tripod, Dublin (8); and The Black Box, Galway (9) with support from Not Squares and The Cast Of Cheers. They return to Ireland to play the Olympia, Dublin on March 18 and 19, 2011.