Where the Wild Things Are

Wild Beasts’ set at Oxegen is like no other festival gig I’ve been to. I do a speedy head count around an almost empty tent and yep, there are actually more rock stars here than punters. Ed from Friendly Fires tells me ‘The Devil’s Crayon’ is one of his favourite songs. Yannis from Foals is stalking about side of stage, still dripping from a sweaty performance on the other side of the site. These lot are convinced. So what’s the rest of the world waiting for?

Drenched in carnal imagery, the Kendal foursome’s debut album Limbo, Panto flew bravely in the face of prevailing musical fashions. On follow up Two Dancers, the sexual subtexts are even harder to miss.
‘Throw out your shoes/’Cause baby you won’t need them where you’ll be’ groans Fleming in a Brett Anderson-esque alpha-male drawl.
How come their music is so unapologetically sex-hungry?
“I suppose sex is kind of a metaphor for everything,” Fleming proffers. “Because we’re northern Englishmen, we’re supposed to be emotionally repressed and masculine. In fact, we’re very into female musicians and that feminine branch of music. We’re all about that kind of tension.”
His co-vocalist Hayden Thorpe adds: “Pop music in general has that fascination with the boy/girl relationship and the whole dynamic of it. Some of our favourite artists chose to follow that route. Marvin Gaye always has that underlying sexual aggression, and Kate Bush for me is a big one. She’s always very sensual.
“It’s not only music, which is fascinated by that dynamic. I’d say 75% of literature and paintings are about lust. We’re not really alone with that.”
With reviews of Two Dancers peppered with such adjectives such as “divine”, “amazing” and “enthralling”, a lot’s changed since last year’s debut.
“The first record taught us what we were and we ran with it. We learned what we were capable of. This one is braver and also more focused. We no longer had to make the point of ‘Here we are! Look at us!’
But what of the infamous difficult second album syndrome?
“I’d say it was an easy second album!” Thorpe insists. “I don’t want to jinx the third, but it was easy! We knew what we wanted to do.”
What is it about all this savage imagery that attracts the young Brits?
“‘Wild Beasts’ has that really crude impact. People see our name in a line-up and presume that we’re some sort of weird...”
“...AC/DC covers band!” Fleming finishes his sentence. “Freudian dream interpretation talks about wild beasts, and there’s also a business concept called The Theory Of Wild Beasts, which is about competition and devouring the weak.”
“You grow into your name as well,” Thorpe concludes. “I think bands get better at being the band. We’re getting better at being the Wild Beasts.”
With of 2009’s most exciting albums upon us, hopefully we’ll get better at being the audience.

Two Dancers is out now on Domino Records.