popwreckoning

The exciting debut album from Manchester, England’s Delphic will for sure be in my top 2 albums of 2010. The electro / dance / rock trio is currently touring as support for the Temper Trap, and this is their first significant tour of North America to boot after just playing three gigs in America in June. It was my distinct pleasure to speak with Delphic‘s accomplished guitarist, Matt Cocksedge, before their gig at the House of Blues in Boston, the second night on a month-long tour of our continent. I have to say, he’s probably one of the most (if not the most) eloquent musician I’ve ever had the chance to interview. In part 1 of this interview, we discuss the cynical music media and why they seem intent on comparing Delphic to fellow Mancunians and hometown heroes New Order, why he thinks their tourmates the Temper Trap are actually more similar to them than you might realize, and how Radiohead is a real inspiration to them.

Mary Chang, PopWreckoning: I think every single blogger I know of wants to be different [taking a different album review approach] than Pitchfork, endeavor to not be like them. My mom doesn’t get the blogging thing, when I was explaining to her what Pitchfork was, she thought it sounded like people who were going after other people with pitchforks. That was the way she interpreted it, not knowing what it was.
Matt Cocksedge, Delphic: Yeah, makes sense.
PW: But when you’re talking about promoting music to the masses…
MC: But it seems like an accurate description of the press, doesn’t it? Hanging them out to dry. It’s difficult really.
PW: Maybe I can ask you, have you discerned a difference between the British media and the American media? Have you felt one given you a harder time than the other? Or maybe you haven’t had a lot of exposure to American media, yet.
MC: That’s the thing. I don’t know too much about American media reaction to us. All I know is that Pitchfork [when Pitchfork reviewed their debut album, Acolyte, released in June on Dangerbird Records here in America], that was out ages ago. I don’t know what else has gone with the release of the album, beyond that, I haven’t really heard [anything].
PW: To be honest, I don’t think I ever read that review. I’m sometimes scared to look…
MC: Yeah, I’m scared to look! Really nervous. [smiles]
PW: So you said that they slagged off Everything Everything? [the fellow Manchester band's debut album, Man Alive, was released in August in the UK]
MC: They did, they did. And I just can’t help but feel there’s some sort of…the Everything Everything album was critically received in the UK…
PW: Yeah, I reviewed it for another site and I really liked it.
MC: It’s a great album, with so many ideas.
PW: And very original.
MC: So original! And even it doesn’t connect with you, potentially you can still appreciate the ideas, the originality, the experimentalism. You know, they’re trying to do something new with guitar music in a band. And certainly with our review, it was more an indictment of British music than an actual review of the record.

PW: Oh you know what, I think I did read it. I think they focused on the New Order aspect…
MC: Yeah.
PW: Which is interesting, because in almost every single American article I’ve read about you guys, it’s always focused on New Order. Now, I was too young to appreciate New Order at their height of fame and you also, neither of us were there for the whole Joy Division / New Order thing. So I don’t come from it from that perspective.
MC: That’s the thing. We know New Order‘s music a bit. What I always think about the New Order thing, if “Doubt” wasn’t on the album, if you kind of take “Doubt” out of the equation of the album, and then look at it in terms of New Order, it’s very, very different. But when “Doubt” is included, I think it’s the most New Order, most obvious New Order kind of touch point on the record. I’ve always wondered about that. But people will hear what they want to hear and say what they want to say. And we’ve made this music and put it out, and then you take what you get given. It’s certainly interesting, you know, going around the world…especially places like Japan, there’s much more positive feeling, I think. There’s a lot of cynicism in the UK especially And the UK press and the UK audience. It’s because we’ve been spoilt for choice [when it comes to music], we’re just completely spoiled.

PW: That’s the thing, I think that’s the reason why I’ve gravitated towards British music in general, because you have people like Steve Lamacq and Huw Stephens championing the little guys.
MC: Every evening there’s a new band starting out…
PW: Yeah, like clockwork every Wednesday I listen to Lammo’s “New Favourite Band” feature and while we don’t see eye to eye on every band, but it’s nice to hear different opinions.
MC: Definitely.
PW: It’s hard to hear about new [British] bands on American radio. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Delphic song played in Washington. Back in February, VV Brown played the same dance night you guys will play in DC next Friday, and one of the songs being spun that night was “Halcyon”. Me and a girlfriend, we’ve got our tickets and we’re coming up the stairs and it’s coming out of the speakers. And we went crazy because we knew the song! We were very excited. But we were the only ones in the club that knew it.
MC: That’s great! [grins]
PW: So to have you guys come to DC is really exciting. I think it’s the only date you’re doing by yourselves on this tour?
MC: Yeah, I think so. I don’t know if we’ve got one in LA…
PW: I know you guys are doing Club Nokia [in Los Angeles] with the Temper Trap…
MC: Yeah, we’re doing that…yeah, basically we’d come over here to tour with the Temper Trap. They’re lovely guys, which makes things a lot easier. Always a pleasure when you’re on tour with a band that is just nice, and good guys. Makes it a lot easier.
PW: When I saw you guys in Denmark [at Roskilde Festival], Rick [Boardman, Delphic's keyboards / synths player] already knew you were coming to America to support someone else but couldn’t tell me because he’d get in trouble. The Temper Trap never even crossed my mind…when I first saw this tour’s bill, I was kind of surprised because I think of the Temper Trap as more of a straight forward rock sound. Did you have any reservations supporting them? Not that you really had much choice as support but…did you wonder, is this going to be an issue when we play to crowds primarily there for the Temper Trap?
MC: No, not at all. We were really excited about it. We respect the Temper Trap a lot. I think what we do is very similar but we put it in different clothes. We both try and write songs and yeah, we’re songwriters…we put them in different contexts. Theirs is a more guitar-based thing and ours is a more synth-based thing. At the heart, we’re quite similar and something we share with them. I think it’s good. We’re not trying to steal fans, we’re not trying to be a better Temper Trap or trying to compete with them in that way. We’re a band on a similar tangent, but doing our own thing. They’re doing their own thing. Hopefully when people come see us, they can understand the similarities but appreciate the differences. And yeah, we’re really excited and thrilled that they asked us along. And really, really happy to be out here with them. We’ve only done the one show [at Philadelphia's Trocadero on Sunday night, 3 nights earlier], so I’ll let you know how it goes! [laughs] But at the moment, it’s been good!

PW: I have to ask, what did you think, coming back to America after 3 months since your last shows here? Did you approach that with trepidation? The last “gig” you had before that was Bestival, that was a couple weeks ago?
MC: Well, it’s certainly different than a festival. You can’t do so much jumping up and down and getting people to clap. You’ve gotta be a bit cooler! [smiles] Yeah, we’ve done the support band thing for a while, we know how it works, we’re just happy to be back out here. The crowd was good. It was a really stressful gig, to be honest with you, because it’s the first date of the tour. Backstage is always bit hectic. You hope everything works. It was really hectic, but I really enjoyed the gig myself. Great venue, the crowd was loud, yeah, I enjoyed it a lot.
PW: I have to say, as your set progressed, I could feel the audience getting behind you. I was in second row on the floor, which I was very happy about. I was surrounded by devoted Temper Trap fans and I basically explained who you guys were, and who the Hundred in the Hands were, because they’ve just put out their debut album last week.
MC: Yeah, I’ve been meaning to get it.
PW: It’s really good. I’d say that along with yours and Two Door Cinema Club‘s [Tourist History] albums, it’s up there in my top 5 albums of 2010.
MC: Oh wow, cool.
PW: And I heard smatterings of conversation after your set. One girl said, “yeah, it was kind of a slow start but after the third song with all the synth action, I really liked it!”
MC: Yeah, what was really cool were the pockets of people who were really going for it!
PW: [laughs] Yeah, that was us! We were the ones jumping up and down and pumping our fists. Expect that, I’ll get people excited for you guys tonight.
MC: Cool, I’ll keep a look out for it.

PW: Going back to the album, having heard what people have said about the album, one thing that I found very interesting was that people were comparing my favorite song, “Submission,” to Duran Duran.
MC: Really.
PW: What would say about that?
MC: Uh…I’d be quite speechless! [laugh]
PW: Me too, and that’s because I’m a Duranie.
MC: I’d never have saw that coming! Yeah, I dunno…I’m not offended by it at all. Certainly didn’t see that one coming. I dunno, it’s one of those things, you make music to put it out there and people will read into it what they want. “So this bit is like this…” and we would’ve never even heard of that band! And then sometimes they’ll write, “so this bit is like this…” and yeah, we did just rip it off a bit. [grins] Yeah, I don’t know if it was Duran Duran influenced, but I can honestly say I didn’t think anyone would say that.
PW: It reminds me of what people said about We Are Scientists‘s second album [Brain Thrust Mastery]. I liked it better than their first because it was more polished and had the synths. People said it sounded like Duran Duran because it had synths. Just because they have synths doesn’t mean they were influenced by Duran Duran. Similarly, some people think anything with synths can be classified as ’80s new wave.

PW: “Submission” has the right balance of synths, guitars, beats, and everything is so clean. The echoes are absolutely perfect to me. It’s the perfect song. I can put on my headphones and go into my own little world listening to it. Do you remember how the song came about? How do your songs usually start, does it start with someone’s lyric, “hey, I have an idea“, or “hey, I got this great guitar riff, let’s work off of this…”
MC: I think with “Submission”, I really think it came about from the beat, you know? We wanted a more down-tempo number. It’s still quite quick, but it feels a lot slower than a lot of the record. We really wanted a bit darker of a tune, more of… that kind of feeling, and it came from [Matt starts tapping the table with his hands in time to the killer main rhythm of "Submission"]…
PW: I think that’s why I like it, it’s so funky.
MC: Yeah, we’ve got the guitar riff at the end, that came quite early as well. Yeah, all the songs, they all come from different places, there’s no set way of doing it, at least in terms of the initial idea. When we have an idea, and we’re developing it, then you kind of have your way of working on it, trying to flesh it out and make that transition from idea to song. And that’s difficult, because not all of them make it through. Sometimes you have a great idea but you can’t fit it in the right context. That can be difficult. But that came from a beat. Other tune came from a sound on the synth, or a chord sequence, and there’s no rules with this sort of thing, is there? We have strong instincts with these things. We try to work within a concept or the framework of an album for the set of songs we want to write. And once you have that framework established, it’s constrictive yet freeing because you can explore all areas in a certain kind of musical world, in a way. That definitely how it happened with the first record. We knew the kind of record we wanted to make in terms of sound and what we were talking about, and really then it was seeing what worked within it and what didn’t work, and how best make an album flow and what we needed to do to give it more depth. There is no real right or wrong, it’s whether you get that feeling. James [Cook, Delphic's lead vocalist and bassist] might play me something. So do I get it, do I feel it in my gut? Does it give me that kind of emotion? If the answer is no, let’s write another one. And if the answer is yes, okay, let’s take it to the next stage, let’s develop it and put an arrangement around it, put words to it. Are there any words that fit that we have already? You know, so you build it from there. But the initial idea is always the most important thing. It’s whether you get a buzz off of it…
PW: Like a spark of inspiration.
MC: Yeah, definitely. Sometimes…we’re writing ideas for the second album now, and there are some things…James played me something he’d written the other day, and sometimes you can just hear immediately, “that’s a finished song,” even if it’s just something on the piano with a bit of melody. I just know what that’s going to be. And that’s the most exciting thing. That’s when you know at the heart, there is something really special. It doesn’t happen all the time, but then it’s something you really need to grab onto and protect, in a way. You want to keep it true and make something real out of it.

PW: I think it is a gift when you’re able to create a timeless melody. A lot of music today, say hip hop, doesn’t necessarily have a great, underlying melody. It’s just not there. Or even some harder rock stuff. I saw Biffy Clyro 2 weeks ago at their first headlining gig of America, in Washington. They couldn’t even sell out DC9, and that’s a 200-capacity venue.
MC: Really? That’s madness. They’re really big in the UK now. [Biffy Clyro regularly sells out stadiums there.]
PW: I’m not a huge fan of theirs but I wanted to see history in the making. I consider Biffy kind of thrash metal, and my issue with thrash metal is that there isn’t a melody running through the whole thing, a melody that really grabs me. I’m not going to remember that song next week. Before or while you were in a band, were there any other bands that you looked to as idols?
MC: Hmmm…Radiohead really, for me personally. They’re the bosses, aren’t they? The big kids in the class. I just think…they don’t put a foot wrong. They’re the band that I think always…I remember when we were working on parts of the first album, “what would Thom Yorke do?” kind of, that we said to each other kind of jokingly, but with a serious tone. They don’t seem to make missteps. And I think as a band they’ve always been so inspirational, because they’ve always done their own thing. Believed in what they do. Writing OK Computer and then bringing out Kid A, the most incredible movement in modern music, right? I think they’re certainly a band we have immense, immense respect for. And a band whose career path we look to and we’re like, if we have a career anywhere near that, we’d be happy. As a band who’s just released a first record, you’re very much at the whim at the reviews and the whim of word of mouth. And people are very open to speculation on things. And open to New Order comparisons! [laughs] But I think as we release more records and release more, people see what we’re actually about. I think looking at a band like Radiohead, at Pablo Honey or even The Bends, and seeing how they were labeled as, like, Pixies‘s wannabes, and all that kind of thing. Then they kind of emerged and blossomed into their own thing. I think we’re really eager to kind of move on and keep developing, and show people…we’ve still got a lot to prove, I think, and we’ve still got a long way to go, and a long way to improve. We’ve got a lot to prove to ourselves and everyone else as well. And who we are. And we’re just excited to be given the chance to do that. Some people [in bands] do that to them [finger gesture], and some people, “thanks for believing in us, we want to pay you back.” You know? I think that’s the Manchester spirit a little bit, that bit is anyway. Sorry, I hope I didn’t offend you doing that!
PW: Haha, no worries. Was that a bit of anti-Southerner kind of thing?
MC: [laughs] Oh, no no! It’s just that kind of gang mentality in Manchester.
PW: “All for one, and one for all” kind of a thing?
MC: Yeah, it’s a band thing as well, but we don’t feel like part of London. We’re a Manchester band and proudly so, but we don’t feel like we’re a part of any scene in Manchester. There are three or four of us versus the world as it were. You’ve only got your mates to rely on, they’re the ones you want to see it through with. And so to kind of prove ourselves is a massive, massive thing. And it’s something we are working on and will hopefully achieve.

Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon…

Tour Dates
Oct 05 – Phoenix / Toronto*
Oct 07 – Newport Music Hall / Columbus*
Oct 08 – DC9 / Washington, DC^
Oct 11 – St. Andrews / Detroit*
Oct 12 – Metro / Chicago*
Oct 13 – Turner Hall / Milwaukee*
Oct 14 – First Avenue / Minneapolis*
Oct 21 – Popscene / San Francisco&
Oct 22 – Fox / Pomona, CA*
Oct 23 – Club Nokia / Los Angeles*
^ Delphic only
* supporting the Temper Trap
& with the Hundred in the Hands

Delphic: website | myspace | American Release Details of Delphic EP | Delphic’s Debut Album Streaming on Their MySpace | @ Trocadero, Philadelphia

Australian singer/songwriter Elizabeth Morris is the frontwoman for Allo Darlin’, a London-based folk pop band that has already gotten mad props from BBC 6music DJs like Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne. Morris’s band have just announced plans for a club tour of America in October to occur before and after appearances at CMJ. Their first scheduled date in America is with Philadelphia band Brown Recluse on October 16.

Allo Darlin’ is signed in the UK to Fortuna Pop!, the same label as the Pains of Being at Heart. Their debut album, also called Allo Darlin’, is set to be released on October 5 in America.

Tour Dates
Oct 16 – Venue TBA / Philadelphia*
Oct 17 – Velvet Lounge / Washington, DC
Oct 18 – P.A.’s Lounge / – Boston, MA
Oct 19 – House Show – New Brunswick, NJ
Oct 20-21 – CMJ – New York, NY
Oct 25 – Spaceland / Los Angeles
Oct 27 – Rickshaw Stop / San Francisco
Oct 28 – Venue TBA / Portland
Oct 29 – Rendezvous / Seattle
Oct 30 – Mondo-ween at the Rock Shop / Brooklyn
* with Brown Recluse

Allo Darlin’: website | myspace

I recently had a chat with guitarist Sam Halliday of up-and-coming Irish indie rock/pop band Two Door Cinema Club. The band was in New York City to do requisite press before getting ready for two shows in the city. Sam tells me about how much they enjoyed Austin (and their tasty food in large quantities) and the music festival experience, and we talk about their debut album Tourist History and their promo videos. Read on.

Mary Chang, PopWreckoning: Hello Sam. So how are you guys, where are you guys at the moment? And what are you doing?
Sam Halliday, Two Door Cinema Club: Yeah, we’re good. We’re presently in New York City at our hotel in Manhattan. We have a bit of promo today, then we have a show in Brooklyn tomorrow and at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday.
MC: So how are you enjoying New York? Is it your first time there?
SH: No, it’s my third time. But the other guys [guitarist/lead singer Alex Trimble and bassist Kev Baird], it’s their first time. We arrived at about 2 a.m…
MC: Oh wow…!
SH: Yeah, and we went straight out to, sort of, go see Times Square. They’d never been here before so…
MC: Excellent. So I guess you’re the globetrotter of the group then?
SH: Yes, I guess, yeah! (laughs)

MC: So let’s talk about your debut album, Tourist History. I’ve been playing it a lot since it came out. It’s really fantastic. If you had to explain what you sounded like to an American who’d never hear any of your songs, how would you describe it?
SH: Um, I think it’s not quite rock music; it’s not quite indie music; it’s not quite electro music. I think if you’re open to any type of music I think you might like it. It’s very accessible. You know, it’s a lot of upbeat [sound]. And you know, I mean, we love it, we think it’s a great album. We think it’s for everybody. We loved bands like Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse and Bloc Party; they’re kind of the bands that we agreed on early. We love all types of music but those were the bands we bond over most.

MC: So your name…back in February I sat in on an interactive chat with the Gigwise folks the three of you did in London…
SH: Yes!
MC: …during which you replied to an English fan that it came from the Tudor Cinema near where you lived in Ireland.
SH: Yes…
MC: I’m sure everyone’s asking you about the band name on this tour and where it comes from. (Sam laughs) Have you been back since to tell the proprietor of the Tudor Cinema that his theatre is now famous?
SH: We went back [to Ireland] before we kinda became a bit big, we went back and recorded like a music video, for “Something Good Can Work.” This was a couple years ago. Just a friend did it with us recorded it over there. We moved off to doing different things and we can’t see him anymore, sadly. And then we kind of did the official one. Yeah, we haven’t been back as a band. Yeah, it would be good to go back, I think.

MC: The three of you are from Bangor, in Northern Ireland, right?
SH: Yes.
MC: But I’ve heard that you now call London home.
SH: Ohhh…I wouldn’t personally call London home.
MC: Okay, so it’s a temporary home then?
SH: It’s more of a base. I call it a base. We have a band flat there. You know, it’s great because it’s easy to get flights from Heathrow [Airport] and things, it’s just very handy that way. And honestly, we have our management there, and there’s lots of press people in London. So it’s a good place to have a base. But you go home and have friends and family in Bangor.
MC: What has been your family and friends’ reaction to all that’s happened to you guys so far?
SH: They’re very supportive and very happy, yeah. In my experience, my mum would always be on our Facebook page and our Twitter page, paying attention and telling me before I read it what people are saying on things, read reviews. It’s very exciting [for her] I think.

MC: So it sounds like you’ve barely been able to take a breath with all the relentless touring. You’ve been around Europe and then America with Phoenix, and now are in the middle of your first headlining tour of North America. From what I hear, your shows have been going down great with the locals and you’re selling out most everywhere, so congratulations on that.
SH: Thanks.
MC: What’s been your most memorable show so far this year?
SH: (whistles) Well, it was only last week, but I think one of the real highlights was when we played in L.A. last week. You know, the Troubadour show? It’s just crazy, because it’s kind of our first headline show of America. Having been from somewhere small and having never played here, and we’ve never come here before. It’s crazy that how well we were received! It’s just amazing, feeling like we’ve “gone” somewhere! It was cool. Other than that, since the album has been released, all the shows, you know, have kind of stepped up in attendance and it’s really been amazing, because people know more of the songs and they sing a bit more, because they enjoy the album. The [album] launches were great in Belfast, in London, and in Paris.

MC: Great. Do you have a worst moment? Or any funny tour stories you care to share?
SH: Ooh…um… (laughs) oh boy…you know, everything’s been great, really. It really has. Touring with Phoenix was a great experience, they’re lovely, lovely guys. It was so great to tour with a band that was much better and more experienced. You learn so much, in terms how they act, how they play their sets. I can’t think of any stories off the top of my head…I dunno! (laughs)

MC: Before coming over to North America, how did you prepare for your first-ever shows on this side of the pond?
SH: Oh, I dunno, I guess we’ve been so busy! Over the past year touring all over Europe. So we were really excited to go somewhere new. It’s always really great to go somewhere new. It’s great to go to places you’ve played before, but it’s somewhere new. It’s just real exciting. I think we’ve been playing together for long enough that we’re confident in our live show – well, I am. So we weren’t too nervous about the show, we were more excited to play to new people.
MC: I think it was Fearne Cotton’s Radio1 programme in February when you guys did a set and a short interview…she asked you what you were looking forward to, and this was far, far in advance of you guys coming over here. And one of you said visiting Texas. I know you guys have been to Texas now, and you were in Austin. I read on your Twitter that when you were in Austin, Kev got a tattoo and you bought a guitar…?
SH: Haha, yeah, that’s right.
MC: So what did you think of Texas? Did it live up to everything you thought it was going to be?
SH: Yeah, it was brilliant. It’s just so different. Everywhere in America is so different between cities and states. But Texas was really cool. We got to spend a couple days in Austin in particular. Great weather, being able to sit in our dressing room, outside, in the late hours of the night. Just kind of laid-back atmosphere sort of a city. Yeah, um, obviously Kevin got a tattoo…(I laugh)…of the cat’s eyes from our album [cover]. And then we went to a pawn shop. We wanted to do a kind of typical American thing and so we would go around to pawn shops and picked around. And we went and found this amazing old guitar. I really wanted to get a guitar from this tour, to kind of have something to remember it by, so it was a great find.
MC: That’s cool.
SH: And we had some great Texas barbecue.
MC: How does it compare to the food at home?
SH: Oh, there’s a lot more of it here!
MC: (laughs) That’s what most people [from outside America] tell me!
SH: The portions are, very, uh, large.
MC: Yeah, sometimes they last for days, usually.
SH: Yeah! We actually have a competition, it’s quite sad. We have a competition, because we knew your American food was very tasty and very big. So we have a competition to see…we’ve documented each other’s weights, so we’re having a competition to see who put on the most [weight from the tour]. Whoever puts on the most has to take the person who puts on the least out to dinner.
MC: Oh, okay.
SH: I know, not very rock ‘n’ roll. (both laugh)

MC: So I’ve had a look at your very busy summer schedule. You’ve confirmed festival appearances at Glasto[nbury] (England), Hove (Norway), Benicassim (Spain), Summersonic (Japan), and Reading/Leeds (England) among many others. You played Glastonbury for the first time last year…what are your feelings on the summer festival circuit?
SH: Ah, they’re so much fun, it’s kind of great, because you see so many bands. Like, being on tour all the time, you don’t get to see that many, unless you they ask you to tour with them. But being at festivals is amazing because…especially at Glastonbury, we’re spending the whole weekend there, so we’ll get to see loads of bands, which will be cool. We’re real excited to be doing all the European ones this year, and Australia and Japan, because you know, last year we only did one outside the UK. It was amazing, it was our favorite last year. It’s called Riga in Latvia. It’s a totally different kind of vibe than the European ones. So it’ll be great to experience all those.

MC: So you have signed to the French label Kitsune Maison for your European releases and Glassnote Records here in America. How did the Kitsune people find you?
SH: They were trying to put another one of their parties in Paris, and they were trying to find an up-and-coming UK band to bring over. And so a promoter in France told them about us, and then whenever they listened to us, I think they liked us a lot more than they thought they would, and [they] wanted to put out our single. And then our relationship just grew from there. And then they released our single and finally our album. It’s great. It all felt really natural.
MC: What is it like being Irish on a French label? Did it seem weird that a British label didn’t come to you first, or another European one?
SH: I mean, yeah, maybe it sounds a little weird. But for us, being from Bangor, we weren’t really connected to the London music scene all that much. We’d only played in London a couple times before we signed the record deal, and it’s just…it’s don’t really have a connection with that sort of scene. For us, we feel apart from that, just as much as we feel part from the Paris music scene. And they seemed like the right label for us, we didn’t want to go with a major label, and they were really passionate about working with us.
MC: Have you been able to hang out with the other UK bands they’ve signed like Delphic and La Roux?
SH: Well, we got a chance to tour with Delphic back in October in the UK. Yeah, we really hit it off with them, they were really great guys, into the same, similar stuff. So we formed a little friendship with them. We’ve seen them a few times since, they’re fun. Can’t really think of any other people…Kitsune is really good with DJs and things, some great people have remixed our stuff through Kitsune. That sort of thing.

MC: Going back to your debut album, Tourist History, is definitely one of my fave releases of 2010 so far, I really love the album. Loads of fun, poppy, peppy, and brilliant. How long did it take to record everything and put together?
SH: The one thing we do, once we write a song, we would demo it ourselves, and kind of get it to the point where it’s not the best recording, but we know where all the parts are, of what we’d want to be in the song. So we had this whole album demoed ourselves, and then it was about getting to a studio and doing it professionally, you know, getting a producer’s point of view and things, and trying different things like. So then we went to the end of June then we finished tracking by the end of July, and it took a month to mix the album. Once that was finished, we had some further mixing done with Philippe Zadr [the producer of Phoenix's albums United and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and a member of French house duo Cassius] in his studio in Paris, and for the songs that might be singles. It was great getting people’s different perspectives on our music and we respect their work, so it was amazing.

MC: Your promo videos. The “I Can Talk” video was actually the first videos of yours I ever saw. It was so frenetic, Alex’s head was coming off, clothes were flying around…whose idea was that?
SH: That was a French team called Megaforce, that was from a suggestion of Kitsune’s. They came out with that.
MC: It’s a real cool-looking video!
SH: Yeah, it was the first proper video. And we shot it in a really crammed chateau in Paris.
MC: Yeah, I was wondering about that. Because it has a very old-fashioned dollhouse kind of feeling, almost.
SH: Yeah, you don’t really see a lot of it in the video.

MC: A while ago you guys released a newish video for “Something Good Can Work” [watch video here]. In this new one, you guys are at a fancy resort, the forest, the desert, an amusement park. Where did you go to film all the scenes for it?
SH: We got to go to Gran Canaria [the second most populous island of the Canary Islands], and everything was shot there. Yeah, they’ve got a little different kind of scenes there, they have forest, and mountains, and nice beaches and sand dunes and things.
MC: Hopefully you got some vacation time in then?
SH: No, unfortunately we were only there for 2 days.
MC: Only 2 days? Golly. Well I hope you get to spend some time there in the future, because it looked so beautiful on screen. When I first saw it in March, I was thinking, “this is the perfect summer song.”
SH: We wanted to capture that kind of sunshine, the summery feel with it.

MC: I have Steve Lamacq to thank for playing “Something Good Can Work,” a long while ago it feels like, on his 6music programme. I have my own strong opinion on the subject, but what are your thoughts on the BBC’s proposed closure of 6music? [In early March, Director General Mark Thompson of the BBC Trust announced that BBC 6music, along with the Asian Network, may be closed due to budget cuts.]
SH: Oh yeah, it’s awful. I mean, especially because Radio1 is kind of being taken over by r&b and just bland pop tunes. There’s really not a lot of room for up-and-coming or not commercially appealing bands. So yeah, and especially because we got our first airplay on 6music, and without it we wouldn’t have gotten so much attention.

MC: Speaking of the UK, have you been following the general election while you have been in America?
SH: Yes, we have been, just on the BBC News website. I’m not really too involved in our politics.
MC: Any of you endorsing any particular political party?
SH: I think this is the problem, I don’t think anyone wants to be in government. Completely. I think that’s the problem here. I dunno, I don’t really know too much about it.
MC: Neither do I, but it was interesting watching everything unfold real time on the website.
SH: Yeah.

SH: I’m being told I need to move on…
MC: Okay, so one final question. Based on the crazy reception for your first tour of America, so when are you guys coming back here?
SH: We’re going to come back in October.
MC: Great.
SH: Yeah, very soon.
MC: Well, thank you so much Sam, I appreciate it, I know you’re very busy doing a lot of press. So enjoy New York and I will see you guys on Thursday [in Philadelphia].
SH: Brilliant, can’t wait!
MC: Take care.
SH: Thanks.

Two Door Cinema Club‘s debut album Tourist History is available now from Glassnote Records. The band has several more dates in North America before their first headlining tour of our continent ends May 17 in Toronto.

Tour Dates
May 11 – Bell House / Brooklyn
May 12 – Bowery Ballroom / New York City
May 13 – Johnny Brenda’s / Philadelphia
May 15 – Great Scott / Boston
May 16 – Salla Rossa / Montreal
May 17 – Wrongbar / Toronto

Two Door Cinema Club: website | myspace | Two Door Cinema Club To Tour with Phoenix in Spring, Headline First North American Tour | “Something Good Can Work” video | @ Constitution Hall

Australian band the Middle East is flying high these days. In early February, the group’s track “Blood” was tipped by two major BBC radio shows in Britain – Steve Lamacq‘s drivetime program on the now threatened with closure BBC6music station, and Radio2′s evening show hosted by Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie. Talk about ringing endorsements. So it should come as no surprise that with this momentum, the band has announced American festival appearances for the spring, with a proper tour of North America to follow.

Fittingly, the band will begin the tour – with darlings of the London folk scene Mumford and Sons in tow – at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 14. That tour ends on June 10 at Dallas’s House of Blues. I’ve been telling people the March UK tour line-up of Mumford and Sons with Fanfarlo couldn’t be beat, but I guess someone upstairs heard me! I couldn’t help myself, both bands are so wonderful, I wanted to share videos from both with you. Watch, listen, and enjoy. And catch the bands at a venue near you.

The Middle East – “Blood”

Mumford and Sons - “The Cave”

Tour Dates
Mar 14 – NX35 Music Conference / Denton, TX
Mar 17-20 – South by Southwest / Austin
Apr 18 – Coachella Music Festival / Indio, CA
May 13 – Cabaret du Musee Juste Pour Rire / Montreal
May 14 – Middle East Downstairs / Cambridge, MA*
May 16 – Fillmore at TLA / Philadelphia*
May 18 – Webster Hall / New York City*
May 20 – 9:30 Club / Washington, DC*
May 21 – Beachland Ballroom / Cleveland*
May 22 – Wexner Center / Columbus*
May 24 - Lincoln Hall / Chicago*
May 25 – Varsity Theatre / Minneapolis*
May 29 – Sasquatch Music Festival / George, WA*
May 30 – 560 Club / Vancouver*
May 31 – Aladdin Theatre / Portland*
Jun 03 – Great American Music Hall / San Francisco*
Jun 04 – Henry Fonda Theatre / Los Angeles*
Jun 07 – Rhythm Room / Phoenix*
Jun 09 – Antone’s / Austin*
Jun 10 – House of Blues / Dallas*
* with Mumford and Sons

The Middle East: myspace
Mumford and Sons: website | myspace | MP3 Minute: Mumford and Sons Cover Vampire Weekend

In the second half of my interview with Brakesbrakesbrakes‘s singer/guitarist Eamon Hamilton and bassist Marc Beatty , they talk to me about their new live album and tell me about their “hometown” of Brighton, England.

To catch up on part 1 of this interview, click here.

Mary Chang, PopWreckoning: “Don’t Take Me to Space (Man)” is a great song, loved it the first time I heard it on Steve Lamacq‘s 6music programme. As a writer and poet, I can appreciate the rhyming use of “I don’t care if this world’s masonic” and “I’ve got a true love keeping me on it.” What was the inspiration behind it?
Eamon Hamilton (singer/guitarist for Brakesbrakesbrakes): I had seen some 2012 internet conspiracy theories, (in cheesy voice) “the world’s gonna end in 2012!” Anyway, it seems like these adult ghost stories, these conspiracy theories about the end of time. And I just didn’t care about this. I wrote it like, I don’t care whether the world ends or not.
MC: Do you feel that it’s a defining song on the album? The cover of Touchdown has the five UFOs.
Marc Beatty (bassist for Brakesbrakesbrakes): And it’s [the cover design] seems to have gone down really well. We were quite surprised how popular it’s been [with the fans].
EH: But it’s just a love song, innit? (grins)
MC: I was wondering if you’d had any alien encounters or something.(all laugh)
MB: Yes, we’ve all had them.
EH: Unfortunately, we can’t tell you.
MC: One of those “if we told you, you’d have to kill me” things?
MB: Right.
EH: One time I saw these weird lights coming up over Brighton. I couldn’t work out what these lights were. They were really close together, and then they shuttled away. Then it turned out it was just lasers. Disappointing.

MC: You will release a live album next month called Rock is Dodeljik. I have it on good authority from my best Dutch mate that I pronounced that right. She told me she read an article in a Dutch music magazine that the title had something to do with someone quitting smoking. Is this true?
EH: Yeah, I’ve quit smoking. The Netherlands, Holland, they have the best tobacco in the world, the Drum. It always was the tobacco center of Europe, what with Rotterdam and all the ports. So yeah, you can find it in all the cafes. So I thought, yeah, it was time to give it up really, and the album’s name is a reminder of this.
MB: And it’s a pun of “death” on the cigarette pack. Whenever we tour over there, we see it, and then you’ve got a picture in your mind.
EH: The health warning is “roken in dodeljik”.
MB: “Roken” means smoking, and we always thought it was funny, so we wanted to call our album “rock is deadly.”
EH: But there’s also the English phrase of a “doddle” – is that an American phrase as well? Or just British?
MC: No…not that I’m aware of.
EH: A doddle is something easy, “it’s a doddle, mate!” So yeah. And what else would you said…(begins jokey imitation of Mark Knopfler in Dire Straits) “that ain’t working, that’s the way you do it.” We’re all Dire Straits fans on the sly. (laughs) Or it could be, “rocking is dude-de-lik” like over here [in America] “hey dude!” But yeah, it [dodeljik] means lethal.

MC: So you blokes are from Brighton. Are you all originally from there, or do you have individual stories on what drew you to the seaside?
MB: Only [the brothers White] Alex [drums] and Tom [guitarist] were born in Brighton. I was born near London, moved to Brighton when I was about 3.
EH: Eh, you’re a Brighton boy!
MB: Yeah, Brighton boy. And Eamon is from Canada.
EH: From Northern B.C. [British Columbia] but moved away when I was about 2. I grew up in the West Country of Britain. I went back to Brighton for a band I was in before this because Brighton was a good epicenter of music. It’s an awesome place for music. There’s not much else there but music. But yeah, it was music that drew me to Brighton.

MC: I have been lucky to visit many places in England, mostly for gigs! But I’ve yet to stop in Brighton.
EH: Oh yeah?
MC: Yeah, but the pier and some of the venues are legendary. I’ve several friends who go down to Brighton from London regularly for gigs. Do you have any favorite venues, either playing yourselves or where you’ve seen memorable shows?
EH: My favorite one is the Pavilion Theatre. It’s a council venue. It’s so very expensive to put gigs on there. So not too many gigs get put on there.
MB: There used to be a lot of good gigs there, the promoter would promote [the bands], they would bring in their own sound systems. These days when people put on gigs there, they use the in-house sound system, which isn’t as good. And people don’t want to put on stuff there [for that reason]. Brighton’s had a bit of bad luck with venues, a lot of people buying the venues, doing them up, and getting it wrong. There’s one place, Freebar, the place where we grew up…I met Alex and Tom there when I was 15. I worked there, loads of my friends worked there, yeah, and the place has changed a lot over the years. And now it’s in a state that no one in the town likes. It was ripped out and redone.
EH: Out of towners…(scoffs)
MB: And the people who bought it recently, they changed it and had such bad business, now someone else has moved in…
EH: Really? Shit.
MB: And Brighton’s always had this changing venue scene.
EH: And we’ve always had the Concorde 2. Half of Rock is Dodeljik was recorded there.
MC: Okay. Is that shaped like an airplane or something?
MB: It’s called the Concorde 2 because there used to be a Concorde venue further towards the centre of town, near the seafront. They closed that down because the council wanted to turn it into this whole new development with a Burger King, an arcade, all that sort of shit. So they [the people who run the Concorde 2] bought a listed building slightly further down the road, a big old building.
EH: Yeah, and it’s a great venue. Brighton’s just a great town for music.

MC: How often do you go back [to Brighton] now that you’re on tour?
MB: Eamon lives in New York…Alex is in London. I lived in Glasgow for the last 2 and a half years, I’m just about to move back to Brighton. So yeah, we’ve got family and friends there.
EH: (begins Rod Stewart impression) “it’s in our heart, it’s in our soul…” Sorry! (laughs)

MC: I know you guys are needed at the sound check…so what it is like touring with your labelmates [We Were Promised Jetpacks and the Twilight Sad]? Were you mates before? Did you know what their music was like?
EH: We did know their music, yeah.
MB: We’ve only been on this label for a year or so. And yeah, a year today, or a year a couple days ago. But this is the first Fat Cat-orientated tour that we’ve done. We did a show in Brighton at the Great Escape [a English music festival that takes place in May]. It’s sort of like a South by Southwest in Brighton. We did a gig, we headlined and they supported us. We kinda met them then, but it was a really busy time, we couldn’t make any relationships with them. And they live in Scotland. Surprisingly, I hadn’t even met them when I lived there, probably because I was away on tour and they were always on tour. So yeah, since last week, we’ve been starting to get to know everyone on the bus.
MC: Have you been enjoying the tour so far?
EH: Yeah, it’s been awesome.
MC: When did you guys start in America?
EH: A couple days ago, on Thursday in Chapel Hill.
MB: Just about recovering from jet lag now. Today. Today I feel normal. The thing is, we flew over and then went straight into it [gigging]…ughh! And you don’t get much sleep, it takes about a week to get used to sleeping on a bus.

Alex and Tom come out and say it’s time for their sound check.

MC: Thanks guys for this interview.
MB: Yeah, thank you.

Interview conducted and gig photos in this article by: Mary Chang

Brakesbrakesbrakes: website | myspace | BrakesBrakesBrakes Announces October North American Tour, Plans for Single and Live Album | Fat Cat Records Tour Featuring the Twilight Sad, Brakesbrakesbrakes, and We Were Promised Jetpacks @ Black Cat, Washington, DC | Interview with: Marc Beatty and Eamon Hamilton of Brakesbrakesbrakes (Part 1)

English stadium rockers Keane have announced on their website that they will be releasing an expanded version of their debut album, Hopes and Fears, in early November. This special release features the band’s early BBC Radio1 sessions with Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley, demos, and some of their earliest released songs, including tracks from a live EP released in 2005. Championing the band early on, Lamacq contributes the text for the album’s liner notes as well.

The full tracklisting of the expanded edition is as follows:

CD ONE
01. Somewhere Only We Know
02. Bend And Break
03. We Might As Well Be Strangers
04. Everybody’s Changing
05. Your Eyes Open
06. She Has No Time
07. Can’t Stop Now
08. Sunshine
09. This Is The Last Time
10. On A Day Like Today
11 Untitled 1
12. Bedshaped
13. Somewhere Only We Know (Lamacq Live)
14. Bedshaped (Lamacq Live)
15. Bend And Break (Lamacq Live)
16. We Might As Well Be Strangers (Lamacq Live)
17. This Is The Last Time (Jo Whiley Live Lounge)
18. With Or Without You (Jo Whiley Live Lounge)
19. A Heart To Hold You (Jo Whiley Live Lounge)

CD TWO
01. Snowed Under (B-Side)
02. We Might As Well Be Strangers (DJ Shadow Remix)
03. Into The Light Demo (Unreleased)
04. Call Me What You Like Demo (Zoomorphic single 1)
05. Closer Now (Zoomorphic single 1)
06. Rubbernecking (Zoomorphic single 1)
07. Wolf At The Door (Zoomorphic single 2)
08. She Has No Time Demo (Zoomorphic single 2)
09. Call Me What You Like (Zoomorphic single 2)
10. Everybody’s Changing (Fierce Panda single 1)
11. The Way You Want It (Fierce Panda single 1)
12. This Is The Last Time Demo (Fierce Panda single 2)
13. Bedshaped Demo (Fierce Panda single 2)
14. Allemande (Fierce Panda single 2)
15. Somewhere Only We Know (Live E.P. released 3/5/05)
16. We Might As Well Be Strangers (Live E.P. released 3/5/05)
17. This Is The Last Time (Live E.P. released 3/5/05)
18. Everybody’s Changing (Live E.P. released 3/5/05)

This expanded edition of Hopes and Fears marks the final of Island Records’ Island 50 series commemorating the record label’s 50th anniversary. The album will drop on November 6 in the UK and can be pre-ordered from the band’s official online store. Also available at the store are t-shirts and a very limited number of special edition art prints signed by the band.

Keane: website | myspace | @ DAR Constitution Hall with the Helio Sequence and Mat Kearney