Interviews
Soundmag: I saw you last time you played here with liars and bought the ep. I looked for your first release. When is it going to be avaible in Germany?
Nikki: Its on a different label and we didnt have any press for a long time. But it's going to be rereleased on the Blast First.
Soundmag: You were on Fierce Panda first in England. Did you have any trouble with the guys?
Nikki: No, the label on the basis on putting out 7inch singles. We were one of the fiorst bands they released a full length record with. It was kind of an experiment and then we moved on to something else. It was no disapprovment.
Dave: Also while the record came out we've been touring a lot in the states. So the album got a bit lost in England.
Soundmag: Why won't you bring out the band red on album on Fierce Panda?
Nikki: It wasn't really an option. We've been asked, but the label has this one off thing of signing bands form the underground indie scene and help them to get started. We weren't in England that time anyway so Blast first came first.
Soundmag: It's kinda funny that you have played together with big name as Interpol and Sonic Youth and over here you don't get that much attention.
Nikki: We are probably bets known in America cause we've always been out there and supported bigger bands. We toured really hard. And we weren't asked becasue we were on the same label but because they liked our music and asked us to tour with them. A really big compliment.
Dave: We played everything from launderettes to ...
Dieta: .. sheds.
Nikki: We had one of our best gigs in peoples houses as well. And you meet some really outragious people in a way. You discover new bands which hasen't been signed but there music is so inspiring.
Soundmag: How come a band form this little town in Enlgand, Norwhich, gets to tour so extensively in the US?
Nikki: SEAFOOD from London played together with us and Fiver at the garage four years ago. Their manager wanted to put out our album in the States, cause they were from the States . We went out to tour with them a few months later. From there...
Dave: There's such a good underground network through the college radio stations. It gave us such a head start in some ways. We were driving to gigs and people said ’oh, I heard your song in the morningŒ. People know actually who you are.
Soundmag: You played the Festival in Austin/Texas.
Nikki: Yeah, three times.
Soundmag: Is Austin a special town for the music you do?
Nikki: Yeah. It's kinda different so it hits the people. All restaurants and clubs are transformed into A venue.
Dieta: There's people who just put on private parties in their garden. And some of best gigs we played in a carpark and in someone's backgarden. A disused theatre.
Dave: We've been there off the festival season and still people are the same there. People from Austin like to drink. It's a good place.
Soundmag: A friend of mine comes from Austin. And she said Austin is a fucking boring town but maybe she's just a fucking boring girl.
Dave: It's a very big place. I think in America you can never get over like how big it is. I'm sure if you live in the wrong part of Austin it's probably be very boring.
Nikki: I htnk it's still happening inside. They have a lot of record stores.
Soundmag: How do you create your style?
Nikki: We didn't have any plans on style. It happened instinctively. All our musical influences are different. We just had this chemistry which we just kept building on. We are still learning how to write songs now. We found our style during the time.
Soundmag: Do you listen to a lot of music yourselves or do you try not to be distracted from other music. /Are you open to influences b listening to other music?
Nikki: Yeah, that's on eof the reasons we found a band. First of all because we are all music fans. But our tastes are all very different.
Dieta: I think the music we are listening to is just so much wider than bands that are in the same musical range with us.
Soundmag: The sound sometimes reminds me of japanese noise. Also your bad name is japanese. Where did you take it from?
Nikki: It is form a japanese comic strip. We choose it because it was a name. It didn't have any meaning.
Soundmag: Did you hear of the japanese musicians called KAITO? Did you have any problems with the name sharing?
Nikki: No. We never ran into problems.
Emma: There's another band from Scotland spelled CAITO. There's a christian band also with a similar spelling.
Soundmag: And the songtitle “Anamoy_, is it a made up word?
Nikki: Yeah, cause we mainly base our music around the sound. So we like to use words just as another instrument.
Soundmag: How did you develop this special way of playing the guitar?
Dave: For genetic reasons. I ain't got full rotation in my wrist. To play some of the chords I would be very clumsy. I build my style around my limitations which is really good. Before I started playing guitar I was actually bored hearing guitar solos. I like playing it sometimes, but it's just not much rewarding for me. A lot of the guitar I play is just sound. I go to a lot of raves. There you have a great combination of noises. I'm approved in a very non guitar way. So when we write a song we all reacte instinctively to sound. We toured with some bands who remain packaged trying to build into a certain sound. But when you play with the Liars you realize it's all about the art of a sound.
Soundmag: I someone asked you about the name for you style, what did you answer?
Dieta: Don't be so stupid...
Soundmag: The i-d called you the new underground of 2004. Do you agree?
Dave: In a way it's kind of a crossover thing. There's all the different interests in the band.
Soundmag: How about Punk? Are you happy with that?
Emma: Artrock.
Nikki: Postpunk would be cool. Maybe a whole sentence would be more fitting to describe what we are.
Dave: [/b] I always get confused of what it all actually means. When we first started we described us in the demo as low -fi. It took a while to work it out. Until you have a definite sound you going for people compare you to lots of different bands.
Soundmag: Were you asked to be featured a song to the Sonic Moog compilation?
Nikki: No, When we came to Mute the sampler was already released and they haven't heard of us before. Well now that we are touring with the band red album, we like to go home afterwards and write on our new album. And our manager is aware of that and doesn't want us to be mixed up with other options.
Soundmag: Let's talk about the recording process of the album. Have you had a concept of what the record should sound like.
Nikki: I think whilst recording we are still learning. We just picked up anything that surrounded us and we recorded that. We used a lot of cheap microphones. There was more spontanity in the sound, cause the songs were already recorded in chunks, sort of. And we had to go on tour at the same time. But we are quite pleased with the way it came together in the end. But generally we don't really plan anything. We do it just as it comes along.
Soundmag: Is the choice of the tracklist randomly?
Dave: We've spent a lot of time recording band red. So as the deadline came closer we just put the songs in an order.
Nikki: Yeah, we were under a lot of pressure meeting the deadline. So there wasn't much time for spontanity. But for the next one we've given more time. I think we'll be the studio around july. We get producers this time.
Soundmag: I read Jon Spencer aksed you ...
Emma: He came to New York to see us and came backstage after the show saying he's interested.
Nikki: He's just came back from tour in Europe. We just have to see how it fits in our schedules.
Emma: We will first track a few songs and see if it works out for the whole record. There's lots of other people ad well that we like to approach. We also like to record in London.
Soundmag: Why?
Nikki: Nearer home (laughs). And it's just like the attitude that we want to go to. We wanna recreate the live sound, which is really difficult to do. And there's only few studios in London that seem to be completely based around the live sound.
Dave: It's nice having the chance being on Blast First to try some different things.
Soundmag: You should ask Steve Albini.
Nikki: He would be great to record with. But I think he's doing too many bands.
Dave: Steve is good for capturing sounds. But he's not involved in the development of the record. If you have an album with 12 songs ready to record, he would do it very well. But we have an extra booth of songs that we might want to combine with each other. I'm not sure if we achieve that with Steve Albini.
Soundmag: How about working with the DFA?
Nikki: Yes please. I would love to do that. That's the sort of direction I could see us go. They've got their own idea which I like.
Soundmag: Imagine Vodaphone comes up to you and offers you 3 mio pounds for a song. Would you do it?
Nikki: Yeah. If it's not McDonalds. It probably depends.
Dave: If it gives us the opportunity to achive more for the band. We'd look at it in the right way. And if it is the right ad to expose our music to the right people.
Nikki: But I wouldn't like what happened to the Dandy Warhols. Everyone connects their music with the Vodaphone ad. And there's people coming to the concert and go like “YEAHH_ when they hear this song. That must be awful.
Soundmag: If you could only bring five records on tour. Which ones would you pick.
Emma: I would bring Nick Cave.
Dieta: It might be the best of Fela Cuti.
Nikki: Well and heat from Detroit.
Dave: Sonic Youth. Dirty Boots.
Nikki: Oh, we have.
Dieta: It would be a compilation.
....long discussion ...
The second record is my 60 Gigabyte I-pod.
Nikki: I think it would be Liars.
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