Words by Mariah Scary

The Suburbians are a band getting a lot of attention at the moment having just won the International Indie Week competition in Dublin, and are now set to headline Indie Week Festival in Canada next month. With a cracking single ‘Six In The Morning’ and debut album ’Follow The Lights’ due for release in November, it’s no wonder their fan base is doubling with almost every gig. Drawing influence from commercial rock bands such as Foo Fighters and Jimmy Eat World, each song is as catchy as the last and they produce an anthemic style of stadium rock that audiences can’t help but sing along to. Clink caught up with frontman Mark Konstantinovic to get the low-down on life as a Suburbian:

You are a band that clearly wear your influences proudly on your sleeves, who are some of those and why?

They are completely different depending on who you ask in the band… Charlie and Ben N are avid fans of rhythmically prominent bands like Blink or Biffy, and are madly into funk and jazz players, the influences they have definitely make them a really solid foundation to our tracks. Ben K just loves the 6 strings, from Rage to John Mayer, anything with great guitar parts. Just listen to the varying styles from Breathe to Slow down and you can see how his wide influences come across on record. Myself, I like lyrics and good song structures, Dave Grohl really mixes things up in the foo’s, from the massive tunes to the delicate ones. Gary lightbody also comes to mind as someone who can write really simple songs, but leave a lot to the imagination that you can sink your teeth into.

Who writes the songs?

Myself and my brother Ben K, we’ve been writing for years and have seemed to come up with a process that seems to work well… Usually he’ll come up with some awesome guitar parts stiched together into a demo MP3, which I play for about a week solid on my phone while I write lyrics and melodies then Ben K will chop it all up again until we’re both happy with it.

What does playing on an international stage in Canada mean for you guys? And how did that come about?

It’s massive! Its a great goal to aim for in terms of getting a show to the standard it needs to be to start performing internationally. It came about because we won an international competition in Dublin for the chance to be taken over to Toronto and headline Indie Week festival it felt like we’d won the lottery at the time! Now we really just can’t wait to fly over and show Canada what we can do.

At what point in your life did you decide you wanted to be a musician?

I wanted to play music all my life, but I’d say I decided I wanted to be a professional musician as a serious life ambition about mid way through my uni years when I noticed every spare evening I had was spent at an open mic night.

What equipment do you use to get those great tones?

In the studio we used mesa blended with Orange heads, with some Marshall in the mix aswell. We used a tonne of different guitars from Strats to some fantastic Gibsons, Charlie became quite a fan of the P Bass while Ben N loves his Sonar Drums.

Explain the recording experience with Romesh Dodangoda. What did he get out of you guys that perhaps wouldn’t have happened without his expertise?

I think we work really well with Romesh. His style fits with what were trying to achieve with the album. Theres no hiding behind messy effects and over processing, he get an incredible punch in his drum mixes and really knows his stuff when blending tones in guitar heads. He’s a very fluid producer and kept us all busy when we were tracking, which is really important for keeping the energy up in the studio. Also there was the small issue that we only had 10 days to record the whole album, and working with him we managed to average a song a day, so all in all I think we make a good team. Without his expertise we would have had no hope it getting “Follow the Lights” to the production standard we have now.

What is the future plan for The Suburbians?

World domination.

What is the best gig you have played so far and why?

Brighton beach 2010, Mainstage at the Marathon festival, beautiful sun, right by the sea. It’s my favourite place in the world (so far anyway). Although Camden barfly with a tonne of new fans recently was pretty incredible too.

Tell us an interesting fact about The Suburbians?

We made up the name when we were living in the Suburbs of Brighton, and me and my brother are half Serbian.

When was the last time you got home at Six In The Morning?

Funnily enough last night, Ocasan stayed round our house for a break from their tour dates, and we were indeed up until 6 in the Morning. I remember drunkenly blasting it out of the laptop because we just had the draft of our new music video back that evening! I imagine it should be online by the time your readers have this on their screens.

The Suburbians release their single ‘Six In The Morning’ on 7th October with a press launch party at The 100 Club, and following that the album launch party is set for 229 Club in London on Friday 25th November. Tickets are available now from www.ticketweb.co.uk

Words by Eric Cannon

Introductions just don’t seem to fit with a band like D.R.U.G.S. They burst onto the scene like it was nobody’s business and things have never been the same since. Recently we managed to track down Craig and Matt in the hope that we could try understand what is fueling this hostile takeover of the music world as we know it.

I can see just on our first meeting that both of you are really happy, can you take us back to a time before all of this when times were a little darker for yourselves and how your band D.R.U.G.S. all came to be.

Craig: Musically speaking I think we were all in the same spot which was “what are we going to do”. For me I didn’t know if I wanted to be in music anymore, I didn’t know and I was kind of left with myself after I was removed from my last band and I took some time to figure out what I wanted. After I took some time I realised I wanted to start a band again. I was basically given a record contract and all this and they gave me the liberty to make what ever kind of record I wanted to. I thought about it and figured I need to stick to what I am good at and that’s being the front man of a band. I wanted to pull together a group of individuals who I believed where talented, responsible and could bring their A game. I wanted them to all add something but I also wanted really close friends. I wanted good human beings and people that really didn’t get all that I believed they deserved, kind of the all-stars of our scene that should be on top but weren’t necessarily at the time. Slowly but surely it formed and musically it all clicked. We thought there would be too many cooks in the kitchen but part of being a great leader, since all of us are in our own way, is stepping back. All of us had the same vision and these guys helped me write my favourite record to date.

How hard was it going through that stage, after such a big change in your musical life, were you are unsure of what to do next? I’m sure that you felt a very similar way Matt after Sonny left From First To Last.

Matt: Actually the way he felt was extremely similar to the way that I felt. I didn’t know if I should keep going or not keep going.

Craig: We all felt that way.

Matt: When your in that position I feel like it’s good to take some time to reflect on what you have done and who you are and where you want to go. Once you figure that out, then it’s just all about taking the necessary steps to get to the next level. In my particular case we decided to keep going and push forward with that and to an extent it worked but now I can understand why. I really believe everything happens for a reason and those years after that we pushed through, they weren’t necessarily the best but they were necessary to get to here. I feel like I was on my way to this point through all of that.

Craig: Everything that we have been through has just set us up, in beauty, in opportunity and sometimes in the form of tragedy.

Your iTunes release has a nice mini documentary and in that you mention how grateful you are for your band and that you love everyone of them. What I want to know is if are you in a way untroubled to have also had the people that brought you heartache in the past as in some way they were part of the path to which you have now found happiness in this band?

Craig: I’m not going to glorify their negative actions. I definitely don’t hate anybody and I am at peace in my heart and my mind. I am very grateful for where I am but I am still not going to glorify or condone any negative actions that I have been through, I still think that it was very unnecessary and negative thing.

Moving away from the past and on to the record, I personally like the way you have done the marketing for the album with your video teasers and the first video and how they all tie in together. I love how surreal and hard hitting they are.

Craig: We wanted to do something David Lynch-esque

So did you guys come up with this strategy then?

Craig: Yeah that was all planned, I came up with an idea with my friend Chris Marrs. He sent me a treatment for one teaser that he wanted to do. I said to him “why don’t we make it the video instead and a bunch of teasers” and I added a bunch of extra stuff and I just had a vision and my friend Chris Marrs Piliero is the guy who did it. Together we came up with the David Lynch influenced plot and series of videos and we were able to carry them out and I think it turned out really great. It grabbed peoples attention really quick and I think it was a really smart marketing move and you can expect to see more of that kind of stuff from us in the future.

A lot of bands are lacking in that department and it really should be pushed more often.

Craig: To their defence not everyone has a major record label pushing them and giving them what we had but at the same time you could grab a camera and make something happen.

Matt: I think it’s like 30% lack of money but I think at least 70% of it is just your will and desire to go out there and make it happen.

Craig: And passion, don’t just talk. Act.

Matt: I feel like a lot of bands expect everything but they don’t want to do much for it. Yeah you go on tour and yeah you do this but everyone is doing that and this is a dog eat dog world and music is probably the most competitive field.

Craig: If your not going to do it somebody else will.

Matt: I always think that no matter how hard I am working, someone is working harder. I think that with the years of experience that we have accumulated this band is about always taking things to the next level and doing more than everyone else. At the end of the day everyone wins because fans more out of us and in turn if we are pushing everyone to keep up with us then they are getting more out of all of their bands, not even just us.

What is the main theme lyrically in this album?

Craig: Lyrically it’s just a summary of the past two years of my life. I like to think that the theme is overcoming, figuring out who you are and reminding your self to be the best that you can be.

With the release of the album has that in a way signified you finally overcoming those last two years?

Craig: Yeah I think all of us feel there is a certain amount of redemption involved in what it is that we have done and what it is that we are doing. We still have a long way to go and we know that and we are very lucky to be where we are, we don’t take anything for granted but we want the world. We want to do as much as we possibly can and we want everyone to listen to our band.

Each member of this band is an accomplished musician, what do you think each member brings to this band?

Matt: Well lets see, this is a fun question.

Craig: It is.

Matt: I would say that Aaron and Nick are the duo of calm level-headedness. They both have this vibe where if there is a storm coming they would just stand there and be like “okay, we are going to figure out how to deal with this”. They both have that almost super adult rational thinking going on, they just know how to do things like that. It’s weird because me and Craig are probably the most similar in the sense that we are both wildly emotional and sometimes crazy.

Craig: That’s why we stick together

Matt: Adam is the glue, he holds us all together.

Craig: That’s personality wise. Musically I think that Aaron holds it down. I think that Adam adds a little flair. I think that you can hear all of our previous bands in the record if you pay attention. Nick brings a lot of really cool ideas and solid choruses. I think that Matt brings the most creative kind of vibe musically and I like to consider myself the visionary. I would say that is how it all fits musically.

Looking back at your previous band, Chiodos, theatrics were a big part of the sound. With D.R.U.G.S. the theatrics are still there but a little more subtle. Did you plan for that or was it a more natural affair?

Craig: It just came naturally, that’s what happened when we started writing. To be honest I wish there were more theatrics on the record, that’s one thing that I do wish. If you listen to the record my favourite song is Graveyard Dancing which is probably the most theatrical, it’s just who I am and that’s what I like. I grew up doing musicals and I wasn’t supposed to do this but I guess I am. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that but I got signed and that was it. So musicals is a very big part of my life and I really like the theatrical part but I knew that it was time to write a great rock record. I needed to write a rock record, not some crazy orchestrated musical or theatrical record. So I had to sit down and really figure it out and John Feldmann also helped with making it an actual rock record and less theatrical.

Matt: The blending of the two is a really subtle thing and it’s like I love it. When I listen to a song like Graveyard Dancing I love imaging our band being multi-platinum and playing with a full orchestra so that all that stuff on there is live, like replicated right there in the moment. When I think about that it’s such an overwhelming feeling, if we could ever accomplish that I think that I would cry because it would be like the coolest thing ever. Like Metallica S & M or something. That shit is something that we all love a lot. My favourite musician is actually John Towner Williams, he is a composer and wrote the Star Wars soundtracks. It’s cool too because there are so many more dynamics you can achieve with strings in comparison to guitars. With strings you can play soft and staccato and loud and there are just so many things that you can do.

The record is probably one of your darkest, do you think that the darker elements suit the theatrics in music?

Craig: I don’t know, I think the lyrics are what they are and I don’t know if it suits it more or less. I wrote what I wanted to write and it wasn’t a planned thing to make it less theatrical. I think that the lyrics I have now are much less theatrical then I ever have had. They are much more straight forward kind of like the songs and I think it just matched maybe in that way more.

Lastly, the name Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows. Could you shed some light on how you came about the name?

Craig: I said it as a joke, I was going through rehabilitation for my addiction problem and I said it to management and all of really like it as a band name. We tried to write a bunch of other band names and we came up with a bunch of really cool stuff that we didn’t really fit. Stuff like Kids On Holiday, We Like Worlds. We wanted to have an epic name that was short and we wanted to do something that meant a lot and D.R.U.G.S. was the most epic. It was straight to the point and we knew no one would forget it. It meant a lot for me because if I made a band called D.R.U.G.S. then I can’t do drugs otherwise I would be a joke, in my mind at least. So we wanted to do that but we didn’t necessarily want to be that party crazy band and so we wanted to add an acronym to it to add some artistic integrity and depth. By coming up with the acronym we also wanted to make sure it represented who we are and it would remind us why we are here and what it is that we are doing. We are rebuilding everything that has been destroyed in our lives and we are going to keep doing that until we die and that is basically the name Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows

Words by Jamie Reynolds

If your still getting confused at why Manchester Orchestra don’t have a violinist, harp or tuba it’s because they aren’t an Orchestra at all. On the other hand this 5 piece make enough noise to warrant you thinking they had an entire orchestra behind them. Just before their third album was released we managed to track down Chris Freeman and find out a little more about the masterpiece that is Simple Math.

You’re gearing up for the release of Simple Math. How was the writing and recording process?

Writing and recording this record was a really natural process. Once we felt like something sounded great, we just sort of moved on to writing the next song. We got into the studio with a pretty solid sense of confidence. We were going into a studio that we were familiar with, in a town that we were comfortable in, with a producer that we trusted. It was a tedious but fun process overall.

As a fan, one thing that has always stood out for me is the tone of your instruments and, once again, this album has WOWED me. How important is the right tone for the band?

I think that tones are very important to this band. You can have a great guitar part or a great drum part, but if it sounds like hell then there’s no point in recording it. Our drummer, Tim, spent hours on getting drum sounds for this album, which left me and the other guys plenty of downtime to play way too much pinball in the lounge.

I’ve seen a lot of comments already that throw around the phrase “concept album”. Is Simple Math a concept album and if so, what is the concept?

The record is a concept album in that it has a story. But I still don’t look at it as a concept record because usually concept records don’t come out sounding so crazy. A lot of the lyrics in this record are sodetailed and specific that I don’t think that any fan is going to listen to the record and be able to immediately see any sort of story line. This record is about what Andy went through in his first two years of marriage, being on tour, being home, being in his early twenties…etc. It’s about pretty much everything that happens from the point at which you start to grow up and that continuous process of growing up.

Lyrically I think this the boldest record you have put out. How personal is this record to you and how proud are you of it?

This record is very personal to all of us. We are all very close friends and go through things together. When Andy was going through some of the harder points in the early stages of marriage, we were all seeing that and experiencing those things with him. Most of what he talks about on the record are things we were all there for.
Secondly, we are wildly proud of this album. I think we’ve all pushed ourselves on this one and we’ve definitely been able to branch out in new ways with new drummers and new inspirations.

This will be the first time your record comes out in the UK at roughly the same time as the US. How excited are you about that?

Very? Haha. Honestly, I just wish the thing could come out everywhere tomorrow so I can stop feeling guilty about not sending my mom acopy (I just don’t want it to be me who leaks the record). Honestly though, I just wish everyone could hear it right now so that we can talk about it.

Is Woody Allen still your guys’ biggest influence in comparison to any specific band or artist?

Woody will always be around. I’d say Mr. Neil Young took the spotlight on this record though.

You have toured the UK 10 times now and you play lovely intimate venues. What is the one UK venue that you would most like to play?

I just want to do what Foo Fighters did and build that huge runway through Wembley and just take off running through the crowd whenever I wanted to, possibly while shredding on a key-tar.

The single Simple Math is an amazing song that can be in some ways questioning everything about life, how much time do you spend thinking in the same mindset as the way the song depicts?

First, thank you. Second, I think that the lyrics in that song depict the root of all anxiety. Imagining that, on any level, you were wrong and you had no idea. I think Andy was speaking, in that song, from a spiritual perspective. But I think he tapped into something much bigger with that one.

When playing live you seem to lose yourself in the music and go mental on the percussions. Have you ever incurred any injuries from this?

Oh yeah. On the UK Biffy Clyro tour, I couldn’t really hold or move the drumstick with my right hand. I had to get the paramedics on hand to tape my hand up every night. The amount of times I smash my knuckles on the rims of my kit is atrocious. They usually swell to twice the normal size on my pointer fingers. I get bruises on my thighs from going for the snare and mainly hitting my leg. I’ve hit myself in the face numerous times. I hit my head on my microphone all of the time. My back and neck are usually stiff as rocks when I wake up in the morning. And my left arm is usually bruised and swollen from the tambourine. That’s about as badass as it gets: Tambourine wounds.

Words by Warren Zannin

9 years in and 5 albums deep, German Death Metal quintet Neaera have worked hard to build a reputation as one of Germany’s best metal bands. 2010 saw the release of their latest recording, Forging the Eclipse, only to receive a stack of praise from all across Europe and just recently been nominated for Best German Metal Band in the German Metal Hammer awards. Clink caught up with Benny Hilleke (vocals), Sebastian Heldt (drums) and Benjamin Donath (bass) to find out a little more about what makes the band tick.

For those who have never been tell us what show-goers can expect from a Neaera show?

Benny: A lot of stupid people on stage.

Sebastian: We’ll be in time that’s the first thing (laughs), the drums will be in time and in between we really try to convince the UK audience because we haven’t played that much here in the UK.

Benjamin: Our opening slot is a great opportunity to get the people’s attention, especially people that might not know us and to get them interested in what we do.

Benny: We don’t have a lot of time but we try to make the most of the time that we have.

The London crowd is notoriously quite hard to win over, so how does playing in London make you feel as a band?

Sebastian: We know what we are capable of doing within the time that we have, and we give it our all in the 25 minutes that we are given and that’s what we do. 5 years ago we played in the UK with As I Lay Dying and Heaven Shall Burn which was the best UK show we’ve ever played. It’s a challenge more than anything but we are ready for that.

Benny: The package this time around is really good, the bands that are playing are all a good fit (Bleed from Within, Caliban, Soilwork, All That Remains). The last time we were here with Uprisers, and some other bands and it wasn’t really a good fit, maybe a bit too diverse to make a strong appeal.

How have the crowds responded to your latest release, Forging the Eclipse?

Sebastian: At the release show the new material was really well accepted and people really got into it. The response we have received online, from critics as well as in stores has been overwhelmingly positive. When playing a show we will always be playing some of our hits (laughs), we have to do that, and then we will also be giving a taste of the new stuff, which has really well received as I said.

For each of you what is your favourite song to perform live?

Benny: For me it’s Spearheading the Spawn, I really like to mosh part and as a song it’s really groovy.

Sebastian: I like Armamentarium because the drumming is not so difficult (laughs). I like Spearheading the Spawn as well, it’s a great outlet.

Benjamin: Yeah Spearheading the Spawn is our most brutal song, I think.

Stand-In guitarist: I agree with Spearheading the Spawn as it combines everything that makes Neaera special.

The album artwork for Forging the Eclipse is a bit understated and essentially atypical for the genre. Was this an intentional decision on the part of Neaera?

Benjamin: This is the third time we have worked with Terje Johnsen, who also did the two albums preceding Forging the Eclipse, and he has purposefully taken a different approach for each album. For Armamentarium he brought a strong theme of social criticism into the artwork, with Omnicide it has more of a global theme, so global destruction and stuff like that. For Forging the Eclipse we thought a lot about how we could represent the theme of the album in the art. In the end we chose to go with a personal approach, showing a person you can relate to on the cover and giving a sense of their inner emotions.

Sebastian: There is also a focus on contrast with the dark and light references to an Eclipse as well the psychological intention behind our music.

Benjamin: The inside artwork is also really cool, it consists of pictures of happy families, which have been blacked out with big black squares, a sort of depressive approach looking at the ugly feelings inside us and how those develop.

When Forging the Eclipse was released the full album was available freely online. Do you think that having an album freely available online is a good way to win over fans?

Benny: We chose to have the album free to listen to but not free to download, meaning that if you want to own the music, and put it on your iPod or something like that then you need to buy the songs or the album.

Sebastian: There are two sides to the coin here. On the one hand you of course want people to buy what you produce, which costs a lot of money. Then on the other hand you want people to listen to your work so they can get into it. We choose to make it available to listen to and if people want to download it somehow then that is on their conscience to do so.

Benny: The funny thing is that almost every band is doing it, so if you don’t do it you look like a bunch of assholes.

Sebastian: People are becoming used to being able to access music in this way, so you almost have to do it.

Benjamin: It’s something of trusting in the goodwill of people, giving them access to your hard work and letting them experience it before they go on to buy it for themselves. Having the songs available to listen to online is a great way to support our touring and grow our fan base.

There’s a philosophy behind the name Neaera, can you tell us a bit more about it?

Benny: That’s what you think (laughs)

Sebastian: We picked the name because it sounded cool and then afterwards we did some more research to understand if the name was appropriate and fitting and then Stefan (guitarist) investigated the story behind it.

Benjamin: We didn’t need to make up a story because the story was already there and we thought it was fitting to what we wanted to say with our music. I think the name sums up our political concept, a Neaera was a sexual slave who was exploited her whole life, she was also used in bigger social and juristic processes and we deal with those same sort of themes within our lyrical content. We deal with social, political and environmental topics as well as stuff that listeners can relate to on a personal level. We came across the name in Paradise Lost the book by John Milton and we thought it sounded cool and catchy and wondered if there was anything behind it. It just so happened to have a cool story behind that was a great fit for us as a band.

Who would you attribute as major influencers, musically or otherwise, for Neaera?

Sebastian: That’s not such an easy question to answer. We obviously have our contemporary influencers as we all listen to music ourselves but this is now our 5th album so we try to develop ourselves, as musicians and within the music we have created. We may have some bands that we use as reference points, if you want to call them that, but we try to raise the bar for ourselves and forge our own path without focusing too heavily on the influence of other music.

Benjamin: Our guitar players expose themselves to such a broad range of metal, paying respect to some of the old stuff but also having exposure to more contemporary stuff as well.

So what then are you guys listening to at the moment?

Benjamin: Acacia Strain’s Wormwood

Benny: YES!

Sebastian: I also like the new Oceansize (Self Preserved While the Bodies Float Up ).

For would be fans who have never heard your stuff how would you describe Neaera’s music to win them over?

Benjamin: Come to our show and see for yourself.

Benny: Google us (laughs).

You think there is any reason why as a band you don’t get too much love from the UK press?

Sebastian: There’s no particular reason for it and it certainly doesn’t bother us.

Benny: We are just trying to play as many shows as possible to win over as many fans as we can.

Benjamin: It’s okay and normal for the local magazines to covers their scenes more, we expect that and are not offended by it at all.

Can we expect to see Neaera at any UK festivals in 2011?

We would love to play some festivals, of course, but at the moment we haven’t had any offers for a spot at any of the UK festivals. You might however see us back at a gig in your local cities pretty soon.

Words by Brendan Monteiro

In a world fixated on scenes and trends, what’s hot and what’s not. It’s a constant struggle to keep a finger on the pulse and the world of music is no different. Bands come and go, magazines and radio depict what we should take notice of while those less fortunate slip under our radars, or maybe not. I myself have never feared being ridiculed for liking something that isn’t cool or hip right now, I mean I still like Hoobastank for Pete’s sake. One great band that I will never be ashamed to confess my respect for is Feeder. Every time I head past the north circular and take that bend to the right and see the signs for London’s Eco Park, I get taken back to a time where my diskman was on constant repeat with their third album. Yes their popularity has trailed off a little of late but with the release of their latest album ‘Renegades’ they have reignited that passion I had for them and whether or not they make it on to day time playlist, they are still one of the best bands this country has to offer.

You have just recently released Renegades, your strategy for introducing it to the world is so fresh and inspiring, how did you come up with the idea?

Grant: I will take some of the credit for that, I talked to Taka about it and basically I think the band got to a point after Silent Cry. It was such a long tour and I felt a bit jaded by the end of it. Although the band was sounding great and it was all this big production and stuff; to me it felt as though we had to go back to where we were to sort of find ourselves again before things got to stale. I know some bands have the same formula and stick to the same things but we are not like that. So we went back to our roots and the best way of doing that was obviously make this record and also to go back to how we started and road test the songs in small clubs. It was great fun and we really enjoyed it.

From the outside looking in it looks as if you had the record made and then came up with the idea for the Renegades side project.

It was kind of like that, we had a whole bunch of songs actually. We had a bunch of songs, we had some commercial songs that our people would say “yeah that’s a single for the radio” but we didn’t want to put it on the album. It wasn’t that we didn’t like it but we just felt it wasn’t the right time for it. We wanted this album to sort of reflect what we had felt when planting the seed for Renegades; we enjoyed the small club tours so much that we knew it just had to be the album.

And why the name Renegades, is there any hidden meaning or story to the name?

It was just really from the song and we felt that it would be quite nice to connect the two some way (Renegades side project and Renegades album). To be honest the first name was actually Barking Dogs which is another track on the album but I think Renegades just suited better because it was almost like we were the deserters of Feeder in some ways and it just felt like the right name and summed up the whole thing for us. Some people may think we trying to prove a point that we can still rock and in some ways it’s true but we did this because it’s what we want to do. We’re not trying to prove that we can still do it, we know we can still do it. It’s just that this felt like the right record to make at the time and who knows, the next record might be a heavier record or it could be a bit more commercial.

What were the pro’s of promoting your album in this way in comparison to using normal strategies?

Grant: It was really good but we are on a tiny label and I have got to be honest with you, if we had the right big label behind this record I think it could of sold shit loads more. We know that. The bottom line is about having the right promotion and having radio play if you want to have mainstream success. We did it on our own label and it’s a tiny little operation. We have some great people involved in our team but we only have a certain amount we can spend because it is coming out of our own pocket. I think it was a really underground idea, we wanted to show people that we are not a band living off past success. A lot of people do, they just sort of stay around and do a couple of things but we like to shake it up a little and do something a little more underground.

I think that in a way it shows your fans that you still have heart and that your still in it for the love of music.

Grant: Oh definitely! We love doing it.

You have evolved from album to album, can you explain your development through the years?

Grant: Each album is different but I think with Feeder, maybe the fact that we are still around, it’s difficult to get on to A-list playlists because it’s always about the new bands. I think each album has kind of changed in some way and we have tried to do things to evolve a little bit but it has been quite a natural progress. It wasn’t like we forced it, even when we started we had heavy songs and acoustic songs and that has always been there. Although we came from the Kerrang!’s and Metal Hammers, which is heavy rock magazines, it was bizarre because we never thought we would fit into those magazines and actually saw ourselves as more of an NME band just because of the way we looked and stuff. It sort of set the foundation for us kind of and each album has kind of stepped away from that. We have always been a rock band but at the same time there has always been some sort of ballad type tracks and mainstream tracks. Those songs aren’t unnatural to us, it all goes into what Feeder do, it’s all the music that we grew up listening to. Some of the bands that we love, whether it was Led Zeppelin or whoever, they had so manny different kinds of songs. They had acoustic songs, folk songs, cashmere, rock songs.

It seems that in present day it’s sort of unheard of to be so varied in style.

Grant: Yeah, People sometimes get confused by it sometimes but I love it. I think the nearest band for me when we started off was probably The Smashing Pumkins.

That’s so strange, I was going to say the last good record that really mixed things up for me was Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness.

Grant: Yeah, they were really brave but to me it seemed completely normal. That’s kind of what we have always done. Our songs are influenced by punk rock, 70’s rock and all sorts of other things.

Taka: Some fans are happy to listen to all the same songs, but that’s pretty boring for us. Sometimes you have to educate your own fans and play different music, otherwise we get bored and although they may enjoy the same songs we also have to enjoy it up on stage.

Grant: Hopefully Renegades is like that, it has taken time for some people to get it and some people don’t like it but people are definitely warming up to it, especially those that have seen it live. I think there is a lot of people that are more mainstream fans who like the more commercial songs, like Taka mentioned, who are actually starting to get into it. I think it will take a bit of time but we are hopefully crossing some of those fans over into what we want to do. This record is so enjoyable to play live and to me I feel like a new band again.

I think I could honestly be quite content watching you guys do the new album in it’s entirety.

Grant: I could quite happily do that tonight. We do play a lot of it in the set so if your here tonight you will get to hear about 7 or 8 songs from it.

One stand out track for me on the album is City In A Rut with it’s old school 70’s swagger.

Grant: Yeah it’s real 70’s. It has got a sort of retro feel, I was trying to do something retro and old school but in a more kind of Queensie kind of way. We don’t really do that sort of thing very often but it just felt fun.

My first impression of the new album was that you guys are having a lot of fun playing again. I also feel that this album would suprise people, how much pressure is there just on the fans expectations?

Grant: There is pressure but probably a lot less pressure when your on your own small label like we are, you can kind of put your foot down. You still have to listen to your team though because they are the people that have to go out there and try to sell it.

Taka: There was a lot of talk about which songs were going to be on the record because we had lots of songs. We had some of the usual and some of the mainstream songs. After the Renegade tour we made up our mind to go with these songs.

Grant: A few of our albums our quite eclectic in the way that they are diverse but we wanted this album to be the least diverse; we wanted it to be like “this is a rock record and if you don’t like it fine but if your into rock music and you like big guitar riffs and classic Feeder elements then this is for you”. With regards to the music we have definitely gone back to our roots and back to a three piece which is exactly what we are live. We do have some samples and a bit of keys but majority of Renegades works totally as a power trio, it’s a very portable album.

Finally, you have been a band for an incredibly long time, is there anything still that you would like to achieve?

Grant: We just want to do what we do in other countries; take for instance South Africa, we are going there to play but we would love to do more out there and we are currently trying to set up a deal with a label. I think we need to play there and get the buzz going, we have played there before a long time ago. We just want to tour everywhere. I still feel we are an underrated band and I still think we have a lot to prove to ourselves and a lot to prove to the fans. As long as we are still enjoying it is the main thing.

Words by Ayisha Khan / photos by Imelda Michalczyk

Adam Ant is the last punk rocker of his generation. A smouldering icon of masco-sexuality, his multiple top 10 UK chart hits and 3 number 1 singles have given the world the likes of Stand and Deliver, Goody Two Shoes and Prince Charming. But underneath is an angry middle-aged man, once bitten by bipolar disorder and without a record release in 15 years. Now he’s back from the dead with a new album – Adam Ant is the Blueblack Hussar in Marrying The Gunner’s Daughter – a prolithic upcoming tour and yet another intriguing tattoo. Ayisha Khan visited him at his home to learn more about the latest installment of Antmusic.

You’ve been playing some low key gigs in Paris. You haven’t been playing out of the UK for quite some time now – about 16 years isn’t it?

Yeah well I live in Paris part-time so it was just a local pub; a Scottish pub. And I’m part Scottish. So I went down there and [the owner] gave me a Guinness, and we chatted and he said, “Well would you do a gig here?” And I said, “Alright.” So I just turned up with an acoustic and did it. And that was it. It’s always good to practice; I’ve always played guitar. I like to be able to do it for 30 people in a bar without any amplification.

You got back into the studio last year and since then you’ve been working hard on your new album. What progress have you got to on that?

It’s finished. It’s been finished for six months – I did it with Boz Boorer, co-producing with Boz Boorer, and with Chris McCormack of ’3 Colours Red’. [I] co-wrote with them and some are my own. And we produced it in Boz’s front room, which is called ‘House of Boz’ – Boz’s studio – and Chris McCormack’s [studio], ‘House of Noise’. And it’s the first time that I’ve really been able to kick out all the fucking producers, ’cause they took night and day to get the drum sound and fucking wasted my money. And it ended up costing no money because we just did it with a laptop, mic-c, and our ability. And that’s wonderful – it’s a great sound and I love it. And it’s 18 tracks; it will be a vinyl gatefold sleeve, CD, cassette and they’ll be limited editions and old fashioned singles. And I’m not doing downloads.

Yeah you don’t do downloads?

No, no ’cause I don’t want to. But I think it’s making a point. You know I may do later…I don’t make [digital] records.

What are the new tracks about?

Yeah, well all the songs I do are about things that interest me – stories, or experiences, or conversations that I’ve overheard, or things that annoy me; things that don’t. Certainly, I’ve been away for 15 years, and been sectioned illegally – which I was, and got out. There’s a lot about mental health, which I think is a very serious issue. I went on John Humphrys’ yesterday and sort of tried to explain it, but it’s just ignorance; some people are scared ’cause it’s a taboo. If you’re in the poor house, you’re in the shit; if you’re in the mad house, your family don’t wanna know ya. And we live in a society where a government just want people to sit at home and watch fucking ‘Crossroads’.

Is that what ‘Shrink’ is about too?

Absolutely – you’re fucking right it is! I think psychiatry should be locked up. I think they should see psychiatrists. Why do they get paid for an hour’s work for 50 minutes? So they can get 10 minutes to write out the fucking bill, that’s why. Their philosophy is based on two old Germans and Austrians – Jung and Freud. You can’t talk to your family ’cause they’re ashamed of ya. You can’t talk to your friends ’cause they don’t wanna know ya; ’cause you’re a nut job. So you go and see a ‘neutral zone’; you’re supposed to be going in to express your inner thoughts. If you’ve got a tattoo, you are likely to be a drug addict. [With] Jung and Freud, you’ve got two guys – in an era when seeing a woman’s ankle a guy could jerk himself to death – in a room in the 18-1900s with a beautiful, young, confused, rich middle-class woman, for an hour, with the door locked. Now, I think there’s a high possibility that talking to a woman from that area about, “You’re dreaming about penises aren’t you? Have a look at mine”…I think they can fuck off! I think psychiatry should be fucking banned! Or do it for free, you pricks. I fucking hate it. And ‘Shrink’ is gonna be terrifying!

What else have you brought in and concentrated on in the new album which you felt was an issue that needed to be explained?

There’s a song called ‘Bullshit’ [which is] about the whole internet Steve Jobs family. And that’s what I think it is – bullshit. I don’t want kids buying iPads and all that – [use] the fucking library! I want them to read books; books that they can keep forever or give away. I tell you the next thing Steve Jobs is gonna come up with is a little socket in his laptop to stick his dick in and jerk him off. ‘Cause they’re nerds; it’s the nerd culture (Adam does his nerd impression), “Oh let’s have a table; you can do Star Trek!” What they should do is go and see Richard Branson, all get in that first trip up into space, and fuck off to Mars, where they’ll be a higher intelligence to say, “You’re primitive.” It’s digital sound; analogue is the only way to listen to music – digital is shit; [it's] so you can cram. It’s all about money – the guy’s a fucking snake-horse salesman! You see him [say], “Hey you can put your family album in it!” No you don’t, Steve! You put it in a fucking album, you prick! Anyway, look at the fucking state of him – who wants to look like that?!

What are the styles of music on the album? Your past albums have varied in terms of what you cover.

It’s quite simply the next Adam Ant record and I can’t discuss it ’cause that’s for you to make your mind up. I can – I can tell you the titles and what they’re about – but I think really the beauty of rock ‘n’ roll is [that] the audience has that quiet time to listen. And if they wanna listen to it they can do it a 1,000 times; and if they don’t they can put it in whatever. But I make records. This is the first in 15 years: I want it to be as good as I can make it, then I let it go – you gotta let it go. It’s like a kid: you teach it to wear its nappies, you love it, and then one day it gives you lip at 16 – [it] say[s], “Right now fuck off out of it.” With an album, that’s it. It’s literally like the next collection of paintings; people may love it or hate it. But if they buy it they’re gonna know how I put everything I can – my heart, my guts, my soul – into it, and my own money this time ’cause it’s my label. I think style is consistency and I think I’ve always been consistent.

Could you describe the overall meaning of the new album?

Yeah, it’s kind of a manifesto. It’s stories of events that have happened. It’s about a relationship I was in for a long time that was not particularly nice – in fact shit. And it’s about my feelings about the internet. And it’s my feelings about Liam Gallagher, and that fucking monobrow, fucking crew of monsters and how music went down the shitter. And it’s an angry middle-aged man’s view of the world, put to music. It’s going to be a beautiful record; I’ll do the best I can. If people buy it, they won’t want to take it back, ’cause all my records are worth money.

And you worked with Boz and Chris on that. There was a bit of controversy with Marco Pirroni and Andy Bell – there were some tracks originally written by them. Did you get rid of all the material that they worked on previously?

No, Marco was not involved in it – he played guitar on one track. I got rid of him. And I don’t work with him; I don’t speak to him. And that’s between him and me. I never wanna see him again. And he’s quite happy getting half of the royalties for the songs that I wrote. I wrote the songs; he was in the room. He had a go in ‘Kings’; I mean we got to ‘Prince Charming’ and he was too fucking tired to work. So let him get on with it.

And with Andy Bell?

I never met Andy Bell. I don’t like Oasis. I don’t like Liam Gallagher. I shit bigger than Liam Gallagher.

Did you take Andy’s track off the new album?

No, no. That track’s on the album. It’s called ‘Cool Zombie’. It might be a fucking single. I wrote it with Chris. I’ve got nothing to do with Andy Bell; he never wrote shit. Writing ‘boom, boom, boom, ba-boom’ – that’s by me and Chris McCormack. But I did it and let Chris have the courtesy to play it to Andy – he’s probably a very nice chap – [and] he loved it! Then he tells Liam and Liam goes (Adam does his Liam impression), “He’s not fucking putting that on the album”, ’cause I did an interview saying that I thought Liam Gallagher was a card-carrying, monobrow cunt. Which he is. And if I see him in a room, he better fucking duck. So I get a message third-hand from Andy via Chris, “Well it’s gotta fucking come off the album.” No it ain’t – tell Liam to fucking duck. And I’ve been training with Chris Eubank, so when I do hit him…The reason I hate Oasis is ’cause Ian Brown did their fucking act and didn’t get the money. Noel’s a nice fella, and his big brother’s lovely; but Liam – he’s got a problem. He’s got it, not me. I’ve written a song called ‘Gun in Your Pocket’, which is about him and Jonathan Ross and that other fucking idiot, the scarecrow [Russell] Brand, who fucked off Georgie [Baillie]. I tell you, when I’ve finished with [Brand], he’ll be playing shithouse comedy clubs in fucking Everton. Forever. ‘Cause Georgie girl’s made a fucking great record and I co-wrote it, and it’s gonna nail him. I’ve written a song with her that’s gonna last forever, and ever, and ever. And he’s gotta live with that.

[Gallagher's] too ugly to be in the charts; he’s too stupid to be in the charts; he has no talent – his new group are shit! Duran [Duran] have written a good record – fuck me! Oooohhhh! That [Mark] Ronson is a very talented young man – Ooh! They’ve made a great record – they’ve got Burundi in it; they’ve thrown the kitchen sink at it. Good! That’s what I want. That’s not retrospective, that’s now. That’s showing that if you’ve written a fucking hit record that went to number one, you’ve always got the potential to write another. See those two statuettes up there? (Adam points to the awards on his bookcase) One’s a ‘Lifetime Songwriter’ award and the other one’s a ‘Top 7 Single’ award for ‘Stand and Deliver’. They’re the only two fuckers that I had in here ’til them (Adam points to his numerous disk awards on the wall). But those two [statuettes] are the only two I fucking looked at ’cause they’re for songwriting. Now, “Experience is the name we give [to] our mistake in life”, that’s what Oscar Wilde said, and I’m very experienced. I’m just trying to pass [this] on to the new bands sitting in their bedrooms who don’t wanna go on the X Factor, because they think there’s a little bit more in the world. Every year we end up with another Whitney Houston and another fucking Soulboy and it’s getting fucking boring! And they will run out of steam.

What do you think about bands/singers on the X factor?

I’ll tell you what: I love Take That – I think they’re The Beatles of the X Factor generation. That’s why I might join them on stage at Wembley Stadium…soon. ‘ Cause I love ‘em. Robbie recorded ‘Antmusic’ and paid my rent for a year. And I met Jason Orange in Starbucks – lovely fella. So I’m gonna fucking go and sing with ‘em. You know why?! ‘Cause they’re a pop group! And they write fucking good songs. Good! That’s what I like. But I can also go on stage with the fucking Klaxons.

What are you working on with The Klaxons?

I’m going to go meet The Klaxons in the studio; they’re fans of mine. They’ve financed this film, this documentary that Jack Bond is directing, who did a film called ‘Dali in New York’ in 1965. And he’s been filming me for the last six months. And that was purely [The Klaxons] saying that they’d like to meet me, and I’m going to go down and have a little play with them. And they’re good-looking kids and they play good music. They’re trying to do something a bit different. And, erm, they’re good.

What’s the artwork on the new album?

There’s the front cover; there’s the back cover (Adam points to two paintings on his wall). Mary Jane-Ansell. [She] won the BP [portrait] award and I collect art, as you can see. And I love her work; and there ain’t that many female artists in art; and I’m a collector and I think she’s wonderful. So I’m doing something a bit different. The portrait’s called ‘Girl in a Cocked Hat’; I saw it in a shop window and it’s great. And ’cause the album’s called ['Adam Ant is the Blueblack Hussar in] Marrying the Gunners Daughter’, she’s the Gunner’s daughter. And the little girl in [the portrait] is called Georgie and she’s a little punk rocker.

What’s the title of the album about? It’s you coming back from the dead and the kind of terminator theme. Could you expand a bit about what the actual title means?

Yeah. Right. Adam Ant’s me. The Blueblack Hussar is the warrior. Let’s say that Napoleon had gone to Moscow and walked back through the snow. And he’s an experienced person now – he’s older, he’s harder, he’s not the same person, and he’s been killed. So he’s like the terminator. His spirit’s still there, but his body is physically different; but he looks good, ’cause he’s got older. But that character’s now gone up in the ranks, and he’s kinda a sort of Napoleonic survivor. And ‘marrying the gunner’s daughter’ is a naval term for getting punished – you’d get put over a cannon and whipped – which I think is a metaphor for being involved with Sony for 30 years, which was financial sodomy. And that’s it. You get to a point when you do a piece of work and it’s finished – I’m already writing the third Adam and The Ants album.

How are you enjoying getting back into the touring experience? You seem to be very natural and you’ve got a real presence on stage; you’re very comfortable in your own flesh. Have you got any plans to do any future tours? I know you had a recent one to promote the new album…

Thank you. Love it. Love it. Well I formed a promotion company called ‘Blueblack Hussar Promotions’ and I put those shows on. And I learned how to put a show on. That was really to get the band together – there’s been personal changes – but I’ve got a great band now. They’re called ‘The Good, The Mad & The Lovely’ possey. And they are great and all good kids. And we’re ready to play anywhere. So I then went into business with Live Nation; they’re the biggest promoters. They offered me the O2 arena ala Spandau, 4 years ago, and I said ‘no’. ‘Cause a) it’s not the kind of think I want to do at this point, and b) I wasn’t ready. So now I’ve sort of gone back to roots; reacquainted myself with stage craft and playing the guitar; getting my spirit and love back, which was there. I mean I had to overcome a 7 year illness, and a 15 year gap. Coming back and delivering the goods, ’cause now there are only 2 ways that any musician can make money – merchandise and live. Everything else has been fucked up: you don’t get paid, and [with] the record companies – and this is a big warning – don’t fucking sign with them ’cause they’ll want a piece of your merchandise and your live work. And your publishing. Fuck them! No! That’s thievery. Don’t sign a fucking deal with ‘em. Keep your publishing. Never give a manager anything. Managers are thieves; they can crawl back under the fucking rocks they came from. No one can manage me – I’ll wear ‘em out. They’re pricks. Never fucking give anybody anything unless they’re gonna do the work, and most of them don’t.

You were talking about stage craft. There have been a few reviews – some good ones, some dubious ones – about your various performances at the end of last year and this year, saying you “stormed off stage” etc. I don’t know if they realise that your live performance is an act rather than who you are. How much of the live performances are yourself, and how much are the Adam Ant image that is projected?

Well that’s a good question. Well those [gigs] were when I thought the audience were taking the piss, ’cause [when] they’re seeing me up that close, they’re like next to nothing. I’m working my bollocks off and they sound like a bunch of fucking Teletubbies. That’s why I spat at them, ’cause if they want punk rock, we used to spit – have that! And the other one was some fucking idiot in the audience [who] started giving me a lot of lip, so I was gonna hit him over the head with the fucking guitar. And that’s punk rock – if you don’t like it, don’t fucking come. ‘Cause I tell you what, I’m the last punk rocker; there’s no one left – they’re all fucking old.

What about the ticket costs – there’s been a bit of controversy over that?

Good. I’m worth more than that. Fifty quid is just the start mate. You’re paying one hundred and sixty quid to see fucking Michael Bublé. Fuck it! No. I gotta pay the rent!

Your stage presence is interesting, ’cause a lot of musicians just stand up there and play. But with you it’s more the character of Adam Ant; you’re more three dimensional; you’re an entertainer. You’ve got the songs, but also the jokes and it’s fleshed out. Is that something that you want to bring across about yourself now as you did back in the prime of your career?

Well I enjoy it more now, ’cause I know what I’m doing. I say when I wanna play, where I wanna play and how much I wanna play. But then again I’m a 56 year old man; I’m not a 20 year old guy who will just do anything to get on stage. You know getting told to fuck off for 4 years, or 3 years, [and then] turning 50 you get told you’re shit…and then [they're] calling you a bunch of fascists ’cause you wrote a song called ‘Deutscher Girls’ – they don’t notice I’m a Romany which means I’m a mix race – that’s ignorance. Now [when] you go up against ignorance year in and year out, it’s very hard to grab defeat from the jaws of victory – and they said we did and we fucking didn’t – so it’s good to have something to fight for. When I go on stage it isn’t a character, well it is, but it’s the way I feel. If someone upsets me before I go on stage or on stage, they’d better fucking look out, ’cause they will get it. ‘Cause an audience is there to see and not be seen and hear and not be heard. And if they wanna make a point, you’d better carry a fucking club or you better be a good fucking fighter, ’cause I will knock you spark out. And that’s the end of it. It’s like a boxing ring. When I walk on a stage, my life depends on it, and when I stop feeling that way, I’ll fuck off. ‘Cause I’m not fucking Bono, I’m not a self-righteous sanctimonious cunt, and I’m not interested in people who don’t dress up good. And I’m not interested in people who just wanna see…

…you play the hits?

Well I play my hits but I’ve got a fucking lot of them.

But you don’t have to play what people are calling out. You’re not a jukebox…

No. But when you play them, you’ve got to play them in the ilk [that] they are. Like I’ve got a six-piece band; ‘Dirk Wears White Sox’ was made by four guys; the second one’s made by five guys; this is made by six guys.

In some of the reviews, such as in the newspapers, they were commenting a lot about your health. And I find that now people know about it so much, it’s not really relevant anymore.

Yeah, yeah. No [The Independent] was a good review, except for the question mark. But that’s [the writer's] opinion. You see people are gonna have to get over it. I have.’Cause I’m from the mad school of rock ‘n’ roll. I’m with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. If I’m ill, then my illness is rock ‘n’ roll. I’m fucking stark raving mad when I go on stage. But I’m on stage and they can’t get their head around the fact that on stage is my work, and that isn’t me. Like Liza Minnelli doesn’t get up in the morning and go, “Oooh Cabaret!!” You know they can’t get their head around it. But never mind. They’ll learn.

Finally, this is difficult but could you ‘genre-lise’ your music?

Antmusic. Antmusic. That’s why I called it Antmusic. They call it ‘New Romantic’ – they can fuck off! There’s nothing new about it; there’s nothing romantic about it. New Romantic – here’s a little secret – was made up by a guy called Richard James Burgess or Richard Bogie-Ball Burgess, and they jumped onto it. New Romantic is Spandau and all that lot. All that kind of council flat and art school [stuff]. I never set foot in the fucking Blitz [club] – I would have bombed it. [My music] is a hybrid. It’s a mutant. It’s an experiment in the test tube that went wrong, but came out pretty good. It shouldn’t have worked but it fucking did.

Words by Heather Fitsell

As many bands come and go and membership line ups change, it is refreshing to find a band together fifteen years on and still with the original line up. ARIA (Australian Record Industry Association) Award winners Grinspoon are about to hit the UK’s shores to play their postponed shows, in support of their sixth album ‘Six to Midnight’. Clink’s Heather Fitsell caught up with drummer Kris Hopes before the band leave their Australian home.

Your new album ‘Six to Midnight’ is being well received by music press and fans. You took a different approach to recording this album, why was that and did you find it a more productive experience when compared to earlier albums?

We did a lot of pre-production & rehearsal with Producer Rick Will (Skindred), so opted to record mostly live for this album… In the past we have use pro tools a bit as most bands do, and think the live feel on this disc is great.

Do you feel that you are returning more to your original Grinspoon roots with this album, or mixing some old with some new?

I guess you could say this album is a little less serious lyrically which could compare to our earlier Albums… With this album, we set out to do a heavy record which we’d be happy playing live, and I think we achieved it.

Do you write songs purely about your own life experiences, or do you find inspiration from elsewhere too?

All the band write, so our song writing influences come in a verity of ways.  As a whole, last few albums were more introspective, but our current album ‘STM’ is more broad approach.

You have toured with some big name bands during your 15 year career as a band, which of those tours did you most enjoy and is there anyone you would like to have the chance to tour with if the opportunity arose?

Anthrax were great. Vanilla Ice on his come back tour – Pretty funny shit!  Big Day Out is always great… We are touring with Stone Temple Pilots in March which should be cool.

In support of ‘Six to Midnight’ you returned to playing smaller venues in Australia, what was the reason behind this and did it have the desired effect?

 We try to do a Club tour in regional Australia every album cycle, as this is where we started and have lots of fans in these areas.

With all the Australians that live in London, do you find the audience reaction to your gigs here similar to back home, or does it have a slightly different flavour to it?

The last couple of times we’ve come the UK, we’ve had majorly Aus ex-pats at our shows in and around London… I think on this tour it should be different as we’re venturing around your country a little more.

Might we see Grinspoon playing any of the summer festivals this year, or do you have other plans?

We’re writing a new record this year, but hopefully we can fit in some festivals as well.

You are now in your fifteenth year as a band, still with the same line up – congratulations – what has been your biggest career highlight so far?

Thank you… I guess our career highlight would be that we’re still here!!  We’ve seen lots come & go and are thankful we are still together and making music.

Finally, for people who are not familiar with you as a band, why should they check you out?

We deliver a great live show…Check it!

Thank you for the interview and I look forward to seeing you in Brighton.

Words by Heather Fitsell

Multi-platinum selling Disturbed have this year, celebrated the tenth anniversary of the release of their first album ‘The Sickness’. They have also released their fifth studio album ‘Asylum’, which went straight to number one on the Billboard album charts, making them one of only three bands to have four consecutive number one albums on the Billboard 200. They have sold over 11 million albums worldwide and even had a Grammy nomination! Drummer Mike Wengren and bassist John Moyer took time before their show at Wembley Arena on the Taste of Chaos tour, to answer some questions for Clink and reveal a festival date exclusively to us!

It has been two years since Disturbed last toured the UK and this is the first arena show here. What can fans expect from tonight’s show that they may not have seen previously?

MIKE: Every time a large proportion of bands from the States come accross here they have to downsize a lot, but we’ve been able to bring our full production this time. Not only is it the full production, but what we’ve put together is the biggest show of our career.

You have brought your latest single ‘The Animal’ into your live set for the first time on this tour. Are you enjoying playing it live and how is it being received by fans?

JOHN: Yeah that’s right, infact we didn’t play it at all in the States and then came over here and we’re like well this is the new single, y’know you’re expected to go out and play it. When you go out on tour and play a new song you never really know if they are going to be a fan of it, but they’ve been singing along. It’s a cool part of the set.

Your DVD M.O.L. showed Disturbed living the rock’n’roll lifestyle in the early days. Now that some of you are married with children, what has changed on tour for you? Is there anything you are able to do now or appreciate differently than in the wild early days?

MIKE: Yeah we were just on the bus the other night talking about this….I just miss coming over and experiencing everything for the first time. Y’know, you don’t know what you are getting in to and now when we are on the road, conditions are a little better for us, we actually see more of the world now, because we have time to stop and go around and stay in one place for more than a night, but people seem to read that as a negative, well I try to explain that I see it as the complete opposite but now there is more responsibility, a little bit more pressure and a lot more responsibility and that is…Disturbed has always thrived on pressure. When there’s deadlines, there’s pressure, which increases what you get from us.

Shout 2000’ is in my opinion, one of the best cover versions of all time. On your latest album ‘Asylum’ you cover ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ by U2. Who’s idea was that and why was it chosen?

MIKE: Wow, thank you. It was David’s idea. The concept comes from…..for us the challenge is almost to not pick a rock song, or a metal song, ‘cos it’s not all that challenging, as it is the same genre. It already has heavy guitars and riffs and rhythmic sounds and that is no fun for us. We like to cover artists we respect. Talking about bands, here we’ve been around for a deceade profesionally in the heavy metal genre; there are bands we look up to like Queen, Metallica and U2 and that’s one of the reasons why we chose it.

Congratulations on the 10th Anniversay of ‘The Sickness’. Have Disturbed considered or been approached to do a run of concerts playing each of your five albums in full in chronological order? If not, is this something that you would consider doing?

JOHN: We were just talking about that.

MIKE: Y’know everytime that we release a record, each one has lots of songs that the fans would like to see live and all the hits that we wrote on each record and then the new record has all this new material that we are really excited about and we can’t wait to go on stage and play it, the problem is we only have so much time to play on stage.

JOHN: What ends up happening is unfortunately there are songs we would love to play live, but we just wouldn’t have the opportunity to do it, or enough time to do every song that we want to do.

MIKE: Wouldn’t it be great to do. If we stayed in a city and did five shows and we did each album y’know on each night that would be – y’know no-one has ever approached us about that, I dunno if y’know, there are a lot of bands that have done that, bands that we look up to have done things like that like, Queensryche. Y’know that is something maybe we could consider in the future.

Disturbed seem to push the limits both musically and lyrically with each new album. What challenges do you feel you face musically and/or lyrically when approaching a new record and what inspires you when you are writing?

MIKE: As far as inspration, what we drive inspiration from is just anything at the time.

JOHN: As far as challenges are concerned, we challenge each other to…When we’re working on guitars, to write something that we haven’t done, “We’ve already been down that road, let’s go down this new road” and so we try to evolve and do it on purpose. We try and do new things on each record, so there is always a chance for a vocal attack and all four of us are always nipping at each other’s heels, to push each other to the next level and that is one of the challenging aspects on the music side.

You are a band surrounded by statistics, the most recent being that one of only three bands to have four consecutive Billboard number one albums. Is there anything you want to achieve, or something you have not yet done that you would like to do?

JOHN: We just heard the Foo Fighters play next door!

MIKE: Y’know there is always another level to go up, y’know like I mentioned earlier, for as long as we can, to continue and grow and it doesn’t necessarily mean explode, it’s been gradual over the years it’s been…first of all it was just a band doing what they love, ‘cos they couldn’t ask for any more…in order to be able to achieve some of those things…oh ok we had 3 number ones in a row…we just do what we do.

In 2008 you played for the troops in Kuwait, it was clearly a very moving experience for you. How did that come about and can you tell Clink a bit about that experience?

MIKE: We’d been talking about going over there to play for some time, we had full intentions of going over there and playing a show, meeting the troops and signing some autographs but not managed it and then the MySpace thing came about, to do a show, some pictures and autographs to thank them for keeping us all safe. And all the way through the show there is this armoured vehicle right in front of the stage and you have ten thousand troups with fully automatic M16′s on their shoulders, it was just amazing, the most awesome atmosphere, after years of soldiers coming up to us during, before and after shows and saying how they use our music to get through an operation and give them strength to go out there and do their job.

At the level you are now at, tour dates at the very least need to break even, but ideally make a profit. You have already announced American and Australasian dates for ‘Music As A Weapon V’; will you be expanding this headline tour across other destinations, perhaps visiting metal havens you have not previously been to such as Eastern Europe, Asia or Latin America?

JOHN: We will most definitly, probably do that.

MIKE: It’s on our radar, but then again it becomes a logistic adventure. Latin America is somewhere we definitly want to get to, but we also want to continue to cultivate the places we have already been to. We want to come here again a few more times during the festival season, we are plannig to do Download…

In 2011?

…yeah in 2011. So right now we are booked all the way up until roughly August of 2011.

JOHN: And we’ll try and find the time to do it. We’d love to!

If, for whatever reason, you had to put a time capsule together, which three Disturbed songs would you put into the capsule, as a record of Distubed as a band?

MIKE: That’s a tricky way of asking “What’s your favourite song, or favourite song you play?”, everyone always asks, you have a good way of asking! Y’know I mean, maybe we’ll pick! It’s tough, we’ve got our own children, we see our songs as children, but y’know, I wouldn’t like to pick ten songs! It depends on whenever you ask…..I mean do you want us to pick for like historical purposes if for like some reason the world was to end, that could be representative from the albums?

JOHN: I guess we’d have to choose ‘The Sickness’ off the first album and ‘Asylum’ because it shows what the band has become. What do you think Mike?

MIKE: Yeah I’d agree with both of those two, but trying to pick one more…y’know maybe ‘Ten Thousand Fists’.

JOHN: Yeah I would go with that, with those three.

MIKE: It’s difficult to try and pick our favourites.

Well that’s the end of the interview, thank you very much for your time.

Words by Emile Vowcha

As the UK gears up for the re-release of Losing Streak (1996) and Hello Rockview (1998) in two weeks time, we take a look at their TV/EP shenanigans.

So first of all you have finished up your E.P, has it been released over here yet?

It’s definitely been released in the States, I don’t know if it’s actually been released over here yet but we brought some with us.

What gave you the idea for doing a TV themed full package EP?

Yeah it’s a whole package. You know we have actually been talking about it for a long time, the idea came up a couple years ago or at least a year ago. I know we had been talking about it for a while. We used to always do cover songs of TV shows and stuff when we first started out. We did Laverne & Shirley a long time ago and it was on Pezcore. We had done them as secret tracks and stuff that we through together, we also did the Happy Days theme song. It was something to do and it was fun and a lot of the times if something was going wrong on stage then Chris would do that. Then we thought “lets actually do this” and make it a good 15 songs and make a whole package out of it instead of half ass-ing it. It was really good experience because we’re getting ready to start writing, actually we already started writing. So this was a good thing to do to warm up into the whole writing process. It’s great because we had to learn all these songs and the writers for all these TV theme songs and commercials are good. Jingles have a lot of stuff in them one minute, they pack all that you would have in a 5 minute Mariah Carey song into one minute. There’s key changes, verse, chorus’ and a bridge sometimes. It’s a lot of cool stuff to pack into a minute so it was really cool to go through them and get inspired by that I guess.

Which did you as a band find as the hardest song to cover?

Animaniacs, yeah that was definitely the hardest one. It fell together really quickly but that one was definitely the most work, I mean there are four key changes in that song and it’s only a minute long. So every time a part changed, it’s in another key and we had the horn parts coming in and there is never the same thing going on. Also all of us are singing vocals at some point.

What was your goal for the listeners to experience with this EP?

Well we wanted to make it like you said a package so that you don’t go “ah lets listen to track 4 today” and instead have it as something you sit down and listen to the whole thing. The idea is that your sitting down and flipping the channels and that’s why in between each song there is a weird clicker noise and static from the TV. There’s also little snippets that Roger taped off TV, like a news broadcast. So the experience is supposed to that your sitting there on the couch and if you go to our website, it’s still up there I believe, if you go to www.lessthanjake.com and the first thing that pops up is the video for it. I did the video for it and I synced up our audio to the actual commercials and the startings for the TV shows. There was a little timing issues but I made it happen and that is the whole package because it’s got the cover art of the TV as a frame. So the whole time your sitting in front of this TV and the songs changing but it’s us singing and it’s really trippy

Did you guys have to get permission to use the songs and if not did you have any fears of lawsuits?

No comment, not yet, I thought for sure that we would of gotten sued by now but as of now that hasn’t happened yet. We’re riding it out so we will see what happens. You know it’s not like we are making a shit load of these and it’s not like it’s going to be the next big hit, maybe if Rod Stewart did this.

You never know, it could be the next internet sensation.

Yeah the next viral video. Then we’re in trouble. We are not selling the video thing so that’s why we are thinking we can kind of get away with it. I mean I stole it all off youtube anyway so it’s all out there any way. It’s not like it’s stuff that we had to go find.

That youtube is another beast all together, I’m suprised that you got all that stuff without the whole copyrights thing happening.

You know what is scary about that, youtube’s site for the band is Sleep It Off Records and I have made video’s with our own songs that they pull because of that. They are like “you don’t own the rights to this” and I’m thinking “we do own the rights to it”. We have actually had to have our manager to circumnavigate that but there is so much red tape with it. It’s so hard to get permission to use your own song. Warner music is definitely one of the big ones that is doing that. They either have people finding that stuff or programs finding it. Not so much the video but more the audio, they’ll shut down your audio of your stuff. I made a really funny video with Chris once and it had AC/DC in the background and they shut that down.

You mentioned that your busy writing a new album earlier, the last LTG album was sort of a tribute to your roots and almost coming full circle, what direction is the next record going?

Hopefully not full circle because then we would be shitty again, hahah. It’s hard to say, so far it’s in that same world but it’s really hard to say. We have got like 10 shells of songs, rough melodies, basically the meat of the songs is there and it’s probably going to be similar. We have branched out before a little bit but none of our stuff strayed too far from the program. We have some sort of sound, I don’t even know what we sound like, whatever it is though it seems to permeate through all of our records. The recording quality has changed here and there. The only one that was really weird was In With The Out Crowd and that one wasn’t even that weird. The songwriting was still there I just think some stuff got lost in the production and recording side of things. Some of the ideas of where the songs were when we started out with them to where they ended up is different. A lot of the stuff got brought down tempo wise and some of the horn parts got buried under the keyboard part of the producer. There was some stuff that we bent in some areas that we wouldn’t usually. Then we tried new stuff too and recorded with other people which we had never done before.

How did you feel fans received that album, was there any backlash?

Yeah, you know to a certain degree, but some people say that it’s their favourite record so you can never win. It’s happened with every record that we have ever put out, like Losing Streak came out and people were like “you guys sold out, this is nothing like Pezcore”. Then a year later it was everyones favourite record. The same happened with Hello Rockview so which ever record you have just put out, it sucks and all the rest are the best.

You have this reputation, it’s like people like calling Less Than Jake sellouts for some reason, any ideas why?

Yeah that just started because when we started out as a band it was a thing to call bands that. It was a huge thing, it was when Green Day went to a major and everything went south of the border. It was like “if you do that your terrible” and there was a big faction against it and you had to defend yourself in every interview. As far as that stuff goes, as far as music goes and being in a band, as long as when you wake up in the morning and you know that you can say that every decision you have made has been your own. As long as your happy with were your at then your not selling out to anyone, you don’t owe anything to anyone except for yourself.

Another thing that is synonymous with Less Than Jake is your live shows and the crazy antics that it involves, how do you keep it fresh and maintain the energy?

For us it’s always been about the live shows anyway, all of are a little dissatisfied with how every album came out. You always feel like you can do better or you think “ah now I play that differently when I play it onstage, I wish I had done that on the record”. So that has always a secondary thing because it’s just like one month of time that your recording the song or your writing. It’s just a little chunk of time and then it’s over and your back on the road and that’s really what we are, a live band. From the beginning it’s always been an important part of us to have more of a show than just stare at our shoes and play the songs. We want people to come to the shows and forget about their issues. There’s bands that are political and that will be their thing, “we can change the world with our songs”. We want people to come to our shows and forget about that stuff. Everyone has their own political views and their opinions on the way they think the world should run. I think when your going out to go drink and have fun at a show, that is the last thing you should think about. You should go out and forget about that crap; we try and give people enough distractions to forget about that crap.

Words by Emile Vowcha

It’s not everyday that a band releases so much material in the form of E.P’s before giving the world their debut album. One full listen to Perch Patchwork and you get the feeling that more bands should be doing it this way. Maps & Atlases have a certain charm about them, they play music that is futuristic and pop like while at the same time having a mathematic folk quality about it too. All descriptions aside, they guys make amazing music and while on their recent UK tour they were kind enough to give us some of their time.

Your latest album Perch Patchwork is a real honest sounding record, do you feel that all the EP’s having been stepping stones to this album?

I think so. It seemed like we learned a lot with each of them and definitely learned a lot making this record. I also think it was good for us to not rush into recording a full length right away. I felt a little more prepared mentally having released two smaller works before a full length

Your sound is fresh and unfamiliar (in a good way) at times, is this something you strive for and how do you go about keeping the music moving forward?

Thank you! We hope to make music that is artistically challenging but that people can also have fun listening to and seeing live. Challenging ourselves this way and always trying to learn more helps keep the music going. Because of this we still have a lot of fun playing music together.

What does title Perch Patchwork mean or represent?

We took it out of a line from the title track. As far as an album title goes, it felt fitting because the making of the album was somewhat of a patchwork. It was kind of instinctual.

You have done a lot of recording in Dave’s parents basement, do you feel that being in that sort of a surrounding gives the recording more of an organic feel?

I think so. I think it allows us to record in a more relaxed setting where we are in a familiar environment and can just focus on the music. It affords us the time to not only work but also process what we are recording. Sometimes it’s hard to do that when you are racing against the clock in a studio. But it’s also exciting to record in a nice sounding studio and so we try to have a good balance between the two.

I feel that that you have a really natural tone instrumentally, what bands influence you and sound good to you when it comes to tone?

For some reason we just naturally gravitated to a more stripped down sound. Something just felt right about plugging guitars straight into our amps and going from there. I’ve always loved the guitar sound on a lot of older rock & roll records like Buddy Holly or Dion & The Belmonts. We also grew up on classic rock and so a more stripped down sound always felt right. We are expanding a little bit now but I think George Harrison is always a good person to look to. He always had wonderful tones but they always still seemed organic.

Technicality is something that goes hand in hand when people talk about Maps & Atlases, yet with all that said the songs don’t come out to busy.  Is that something that you have to keep tabs on when making music?

Yes, we are always looking for that balance between challenging and pop song. We want people to be able to connect to our music on more than just a cerebral level so we don’t want to get too carried away with the technical side of things. Our songs go through many rounds of constructing and deconstructing to find that balance.

What do you feel is the most ambitious song that you have put together on Perch Patchwork, which one are you most proud of?

I’d say the title track is the most ambitious in our whole catalogue. It’s the first time we have ever tried key, tempo and time signature changes in one song. And it’s also a very stripped done song with nothing for us to hide behind. I’m very proud of that one.

What do you feel is more fun for yourselves, making music or making a connection with people through your music?

I think it’s both. It’s that we get to create something and then share it with people. We feel very lucky.