HIM

‘The best reward is to play a gig’ says Ville Valo, in a low, raspy, smoker’s baritone. ‘To see how your music reflects on the people and how music is such a fucking universal thing’. Vocal-lyricist for self-proclaimed ‘love metalers’ - HIM – and beauteous demigod to a million wrist-slashing females, Valo is simply ‘killing braincells watching American TV’ when I catch up with him.

From his pre-gig Norfolk, Virginia hotel suite, he ponders the relationship his music has with time. ‘I can play a stupid little ditty called ‘Join Me In Death’ which I wrote on acoustic guitar twelve years ago whilst sitting in my first rented apartment in my underwear’. And the revelation? ‘Now, all of a sudden, 5000 miles away and twelve years on, there are people who are weeping when they hear it. Hopefully for the right reasons. As an achievement, that’s the kind of thing that never ceases to surprise the whole band’.

Valo’s band name is an acronym for ‘His Infernal Majesty’. Their latest, and sixth, album, is called Venus Doom. This album contains, amongst others, tracks entitled ‘Love In Cold Blood’, ‘Cyanide Sun’ and ‘Song Or Suicide’. Clearly, this is a man who could be construed as being ‘quite dark’. Unsurprisingly, Valo admits ‘there is doom and gloom all over the realm of music and I find that comforting. I was blessed with the opportunity of life kicking me in the face continuously for the passed ten years so I don’t have any fucking problems with getting myself into a dark place. The only problem is getting out’.

On various levels, the creative process in the construction of music has been very cathartic for Valo and possibly the only thing keeping him sane. ‘It’s been my lighthouse, my beacon’ he confesses, before launching into the complexities running through the new album. ‘It’s a bit more Sabbathy and left-of-centre than Dark Light’ - the doom-rocking album that crowned HIM the first Finnish band to go Gold in the US - ‘it’s definitely the most musical album we’ve done so far’.

The disregard for boundaries is the reasoning for the lean, but categorically achieved with an acutely insightful mind. ‘There’s a lot more instrumentation going on. On that level, it’s maybe risky. But what the fuck is risky anyway? Risky is about doing something stupid like going into a bar, drinking too much and seeing where you wake up the next morning’. A comment made all the more compelling when uttered by a man with plenty of experience to trade. His battle with alcoholism ended with rehab but the ‘risk’ was potently evident for much of his professional career. ‘We’ve played shit gigs. Most of them I don’t remember because of intoxication. I’ve heard terrible stories afterwards about how I’ve ruined everything because I’ve been so fucked up. It’s easy for me to say ‘I don’t remember, I am the Lizard King and I can do everything and anything’’.

With Venus Doom, this new-found focus has paid dividends for the band. It entered the Top 20 album chart on both sides of the pond. The level of expertise selected to guide the project was doubtless a bearing factor on its outcome. Producers, Tim Palmer (U2, The Cure, Ozzy Osbourne) and Hiili Hiilesmaa (Apocalyptica), are no strangers to the band having both been on board for previous HIM collaborations. Valo saw the opportunity as ‘a nice combination to work with two people who know us personally. We were able to tell them what we didn’t want. We didn’t have to explain everything from scratch’. This is a goal HIM have always aspired to and Valo frankly offers affirmation. ‘We thought it would be great to one day record with an English producer. We have, so a lot of dreams have come true’.

The adaptation to the live format has received a ‘surprisingly good’ reaction in the US. This comes after a lengthy stretch of touring that involved a headline slot at the European Give It A Name tour, a billing at the Projekt Revolution festival, and a prestigious airing as Metallica’s tour support. Yet although, to most, this might sound like the pinnacle of a musician’s journey, Valo keenly points out that the adventure ultimately isolates you. ‘It was crazy flying back home after being away for twelve months and not realising that this is the place where you live. It was illogical’.

Valo concludes that the tour has been so lengthy that ‘it’s all a big blur. We basically haven’t had any time off’. But he forgets that it isn’t over just yet. A UK tour beckons in December, as does Australasia come March 2008. At least it wont be dark down under. Or will it?

The Wombats

Blithe, juvenile, delinquents – three words most people would use to describe pop-punksters, The Wombats, since chatting with them recently. ‘Flatulent’ is yet another one. ‘Farts are magical things and humanity needs to embrace them’, admitted drummer Dan Haggis, before continuing, ‘we are a very flatuent band and our tour manager can back that up. We’re very proud of each fart. We cherish them and let them come out in all their glory’.

It was lucky for me, therefore, that the band were in Olso during our conversation, safely at the other end of a telephone line. This maverick Liverpudlian trio wear their youthful exuberance as a badge of honour and is reflected in their deliberate acronym name – ‘Waste Of Money, Brains And Time’. Yet, without this acute sense of mischief, The Wombats would never have been so successful.

Following several unsigned and self-financed EP releases, the surge of internet disciples grew to such a magnitude that it could not but help bring the record labels a-courting. Up stepped 14th Floor Records as the eventual victors in the race for signature acquistion and, as Haggis believes, it was because ‘they seemed to like all the quirkiness. They didn’t want to change us and no one has been telling us what to do’. Yet, despite this resolute allegiance to his employers, there is still a minor warning in the event of such an occurrence - ‘If they did, we’d tell them where they could shove their ideas’.

Haggis, along with bandmates Matthew ‘Murph’ Murphy and Tord Øverland Knudsen, have since become darlings to the industry. As well as XFM, NME and MTV2 displaying a zealous greed for their contagious indie riot, ‘Let’s Dance To Joy Division’, The Wombats have been on the receiving end of some serious Radio 1 backing. The culmination of which convinced Zane Lowe to chose each of their last three singles for his weekly ‘Hottest Track In The World’ honour. They’ve even shaken the hand of Sir Paul McCartney, which isn’t overly surprising since they formed in 2003 whilst studying at his Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.

The fruit of these credentials has been an intense touring frenzy through Japan, China, the US, and Europe - fifty gigs and only four days off – as well as the recent release of their 'Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation' album. Although the title might not instill the images of fun and frivolity that the band are keen to exude, Haggis entertains the reasoning as ‘matching the paradoxical qualities of the lyrical content and the music. The album’s got this poppy, bright sound but the title misleads you into thinking that it’s going to be something different’.

Each track has meandering meloncholy at its very core but is discordantly wrapped with ‘quite dry humour’ and topped with an upbeat tempo. This is something Haggis wants to continue as the band have been writing a bank of novelty songs whilst on tour. ‘We’re actually thinking of making a Team Wombat: On The Road album’, he hopes. ‘We have a whole host of minute-and-a-half songs that we’ve done backstage and at various after-parties: ‘I Was Just An Embryo And I Cant Believe It’; ‘The Man Who Can Sing Happy Birthday With His Bottom Is The Best Man Alive’; ‘Get On The Motherfucking Bus, You Cunt’; and, ‘My Two-Day Sack’, which is a song about the bit between your leg and your sack when you haven’t showered for two days whilst you’ve been doing loads of gigs’. Hmm, charming. After singing the chorus of the latter’s immense opus – ‘Two day sack, stink so bad’ – Haggis adamantly believes ‘it’s a classic in the making. The whole of Team Wombat is going to retire and buy an island with the royalties from that album just from the amount of radio play it is bound to get’.

If this sure-fire, in-no-doubt-at-all idea miraculously fails to materialise, then at least the band can rely on touring to make their ends meet. Having co-headlined the NME Rock’n’Roll Riot Tour with The Enemy, it’s now time for The Wombats to rampantly go it alone. ‘The live stuff is all about people just letting go, abandoning all their inhibitions and just have a good forty-five minutes of pure sweaty fun’ explains Haggis. The sold out show at Koko on December 7th should be a defining moment, then. ‘Hopefully all the people who’ve got tickets have already got the album and want to go absolutely mental to every song’.

A scientific analysis of The Wombats would most likely prove nothing we don’t already know: yes, they are young; yes, they are dumb; and yes, they make fantastic singalong dance tracks that administer a healthy dose of tomfoolery to all. But is there more to these foppish munchkins than would immediately greet the eye? ‘We may look like three cute furry little animals’ Haggis draws on the connection with their marsupial namesake, ‘but we’ve got a darker side to us. We’re a serious band as well. We all read the newspaper every morning’. Ah, a breakthrough, a brief glimpse into the deeper psyche of a innocent pop band on the verge of greatness. Perhaps base.ad got it wrong after all. But wait. ‘Actually, no we don’t. I’m lying’.

Sia (Zero 7)

Although most of us wont automatically recognise the name Sia Furler, her voice will most certainly evoke a flash of memory. Her silky, sultry sounds have triumphantly conquered both sides of the musical pond through her major collaborative work with chill-meisters, Zero 7. Despite her enormous success with the group she has maintained a steady solo career for many years and is set to release a new album – Some People Have Real Problems – in January, on the back of a British tour. She spoke with me recently as she prepared to leave New York for the UK, by staying in bed and watching documentaries about gender disassociation. Her playfulness was immediately evident from the effect of her a strong South Australian accent combining with a chirpiness that was near the point of hysteria.

Tell me a little bit about your forthcoming album
It’s just another album. For me, it’s my job, the best job ever. I’m so lucky because it doesn’t really feel like work. There’s four cycles – you write the album, you record it, you sit around and wait for a while then you promo and tour it. Each album usually has a different feel based on where your life or your friend’s lives are at. This is going to be a more mature album because I’m more mature (playfully sniggers). There’s less drug references….no not really. It’s a broader brushstroke about love and life (now breaking into full belly laughs – can we take this girl seriously?). The artwork is the best artwork ever. We got all the kids on the website and MySpace to designed the artwork.

There were some big collaborations on this album, right?
I invited Lucia on ‘Little Black Sandals’ because she’s got such a good voice. And Beck has this deep timbre that he used on Seachange that’s really resonant. I felt that would go nicely on ‘Academia’ so I asked him and he said because he’s so nice to me.

Since the last album what have you learned as an artist?
I certainly know that I was miserable for Colour The Small album and I was singing really closed mic-ed. It was definitely a studio album and trying to translate live was difficult. I realised from touring with Zero 7 that I had a lot more fun on stage, I liked singing out. So with this album I wrote it a little bit less fragile. I wanted to sing big songs rather than intropspective, close mic, breathy stuff. I’ll always be grateful for ‘Breathe Me’ because that totally resuscitated my career and gave me an identity here in the US but it is quite a hard song to sing live.

Are you looking forward to you UK tour and especially the December 4th gig at King’s College?
I don’t really have a profile in England, I always play pretty small gigs. My favourite crowd is 1200-1500 jam packed sardines. And sold out. That’s when I feel like the energy is good because it’s intimate enough to have a conversation with the people in the front and the back.

Have you got better at live gigs as you’ve become more accomplished as artist?
Yeh, you get more comfortable. I don’t need to drink to stay on stage now. I’ve gotten older too and I understand more about how inconsequential we all are in the grand scheme of things. One shit note or one fuck up doesn’t make a bad gig. People come to be entertained and to support you and enjoy it. If you make a mistake and apologise, they’ll forgive you. That was the whole point to calling the album Some People Have Real Problems because it’s a note-to-self. It’s a reminder that some people don’t have rice or they have a terminal illness and here’s me and all my friends going ‘the traffic really sucks’. I’m starting to get rich, successful and famous but it’s starting to freak me out a bit because I don’t want to become a dickhead. I like to keep reminding myself that I am a human being and I’m part of a community. We’re all here to help each other evolve.

Zero 7 – do you consider youself ‘part of the band’?
On the last album I had more involvement on a purely contractual and financial basis. We were partners in that album, to a degree. I’m a bit sad about it but I don’t think I’m going to be doing any more stuff with them because it’ time for me to concentrate on doing my own thing for a while. Plus, now I’m getting really busy because here in America it seems they really like me.

Do you have any personal vocal influences?
My Dad used to play a lot of 60s girl band stuff in the car when I was growing up – like the Shangri La’s. Also Chrissie Hynde, Annie Lennox, Sting and my uncle Colin from Men At Work (actually her Godfather, they are not related).Even, when I was about 17, Mariah Carey and Lauren Hill. Oh, and Jeff Buckley.

Do you miss Rundle Street?
I really do. I miss the beach at Port Willunga. I miss sitting outside Al Fresco’s and having a coffee. I also miss The Carver Hut on Hindley Street and the bar that used to be called Q but it called Sugar or something else now. I liked to go there and play pool and have a dance. I want to go back.

Elektrons

Oh look, it’s another band from Manchester. What is it this time? A flash-in-the-pan Northern soul derivative? Perhaps it’s indie, tinged the Happy Mondays’ way? Or maybe, as their name suggests, Elektrons are a futuristic rendering of New Order’s electronica?

Not so simple, it would seem.

Proud of the myriad urban influences flowing through their upbeat debut album, Red Light, Don’t Stop, Elektrons’ heritage is wildly non-discriminative. Their eclectic compound fuses 90s acid, Euro house, Caribbean funk, East London grime and groove from both sides of the pond.

Originally known as the DJing partnership, The Unabombers, Luke Cowdrey and Justin Crawford’s leap into the production realm began in the basements and warehouses of the North’s most prolific city. ‘The word ‘underground’ is one that’s very abused’ Cowdrey told me. ‘It’s such a self-conscious word that it becomes a kind of self-parady, in a Spinal Tap kind of way’.

Moulded from the same counter-culture residue as Basement Jaxx and Bugz In The Attic, Elektrons philosophy, according to Cowdrey ‘is one which is rooted in the art side of things’. The term ‘outsider pop’ has been mooted several times in accordance with their music and especially with their latest summer-doused single, ‘Classic Cliché’. It’s an association that Cowdrey is all too happy to receive. ‘Outsider pop is a term that shows pop music isn’t always just about following the rules. Some pop music is mind-blowingly awesome - like The Beatles, Beyonce, Talking Heads, even fucking Justin Timberlake. It has depth. It’s populist. It’s accessible. It’s singalong but at the same time it’s fundamentally rooted in great black music’.

Being able to appropriate exactly the right sound was paramount to the track’s construction. Cowdrey explained that Mpho Skeef was chosen for the vocal because ‘She has that quirky, oddball, British sort of sound which doesn’t attempt to be American’.

That same avante-garde approach has provided the duo with a thirteen year clubbing residency at Electric Chair. In January 2008, though, that party is coming to end. ‘The moment an art form becomes comfortable is the moment to move on. We felt it had become velvet handcuffs. It’s a very positive thing, to be honest’.

In December, however, The Unabombers are coming to the capital. Cowdrey admits ‘London can be frighteningly average, but when it’s really good, it’s frighteningly good’. And for him, the Salmon and Compass, the venue for the set, falls within the latter grouping because it’s ‘a free-for-all, bass-bugging, disco pogo-ing, sort of affair’.

Classic Cliché comes out on 10th December
The Unabombers play the Salmon and Compass on December 1st

The After Party

Yesterday, at the magazine I write for, I was set the thankless task of coming up with the five best rock-based 'after party' tunes of all time. After conducting a small survey, this was the final result:

The after-party means different things to different people: all back to mine to get stoned and fall asleep on the couch; or let's dance on the table and crack on till Monday. There’s also the variety of musical tastes to consider as well as the varied states of inebriation to contend with. My selection below should help you get the right result at precisely the right times.

Kasabian – ‘Shoot The Runner’
If you’re pushing on into the next day and you’ve got a few gurning gremlins descending on your gaff, this middle ground between rock and dance should steer them safely through the blinding storm and onto your comfortable couch.

Blood Red Shoes – ‘It's Getting Boring By The Sea (Blamma! Blamma! Red Shoes Mix)’
Yeh, it’s a band with only two people in it and yeh, one of them is a girl of slight appearances. But looks can be deceiving because the first few crunching chords of this riotous banshee-summons will instantly turn your peaceful little living room into a full-on moshpit.

The Gossip – ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’
Before you’ve had time to dress your wounds and have a quick lie down, Beth Ditto’s gay rights anthem will pull you back into the maelstrom. If you’re not too far gone, try digging out the Soulwax remix to really give it some thump. Possibly the best piece of music in the history of mankind.

Dolly Parton – ‘Nine To Five’
The perky Tennessean’s classic homage to the working week is guaranteed to get a flagging crowd back up on its sore feet. Big thanks must be imparted towards 2manydjs (there they are again) for their ultimate after-party release - As Heard on Radio Soulwax Vol.2 – which mashed Dolly with Destiny’s and 10cc.

The Open – ‘Forever’
This is for when the party is, sadly, drawing to a close. The eyes are starting to hollow and the word ‘duvet’ is on everyone’s lips. Slip on this ethereal masterpiece and allow the Liverpudlian five-piece to gently glide you into a dreamworld soundtracked entirely by Talk Talk and early U2.

Here, in no particular order, are the ‘also-rans’ from the quick poll I took of various after-party regulars:

The Libertines - Can't Stand Me Now
The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony
Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You
Carl Douglas - Kung Fu Fighting
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Is This Love
Interpol - Rest my Chemistry
B-52's - Rock Lobster
Rammstein - Du Hast
Stabbing Westward - Save Yourself
KrissKross - Jump
The Streets – Fot But You Know It
The Pixies - Debaser
The Killers – Mr Brightside
Foo Fighers - Razor
Bon Jovi - Living On A Prayer
Chilli Peppers - Under The Bridge
Fat Larrys Band – Zoom
The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet
AC/DC - Back in Black
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Chumbawumba – Tub Thumping
Terrorvision - Tequila
Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
Any Placebo song
Any Pogues song
Any Scissor Sisters song

The Go! Team

Brighton’s ballsiest band rolls, yet again, into town for another animated pep rally with ‘Wrath Of Marcie’, the latest single from their Proof Of Youth album. This ordered bedlam flaunts the Go! Team stamp of distinction. This is due, in part, to Kaori’s distant resonant wailings and the hyper cheerleading rap of frontwoman, Ninja. Corralling ebullient brass, jaunty percussion and The Rockford Files theme tune, this textured fanfare puts colour into sound.

Listening without moving is simply impossible.

‘Wrath Of Marcie’, out November 19th on Memphis Industries

Goose

At any given moment, you can be beavering away, as busy as a bee, running around like a headless chicken. The lively, energetic and outright crazed work ethics of Belgian sleaze-mongers, Goose, provide yet another beast for the list of industrious kinship.

Since the 2006 release of their debut album - Bring It On - the wall of synth purveyors have been popping up with exponential frequency: on remixes for Shitdisco, Futureheads and The Cribs; jumping between Europe, Japan and Australia with scene-chums MSTRKRFT and Digitalism; and even during the high-fiving goal celebrations of the NHL ice hockey league. ‘Busy’ has so adamantly attached itself to the band that they even lent their name to a brand of free condoms at this year’s Pukkelpop festival.

Out of breath and chugging for air, base.ad recently caught up with lead singer, Mickael Karkousse, during a very brief work hiatus. “We arrive home, we drop our stuff, we go to sleep and then the day after we’re back in the studio. Then, at the end of the week, back on the road. That’s how it goes,” he confessed, with a lilting Dutch-French cadence.

Take a gander at Goose’s upcoming schedule and you’ll find November 22nd pencilled firmly into the never-ending tour. Along with YouTube favourites Ok Go and electro master Kissy Sell Out, they play the Smirnoff Electric Cabaret at Koko, which Karkousse promises “will have more like a New Year’s Eve vibe”.

This desire to party was precisely the catalyst that delivered the band to their current format. A decade ago they were a covers band, disillusioned with music and their hometown of Kortrijk, Belgium. “After a while we wanted to find our own sound and we knew there was something more than guitars. We really wrote this album out of something that we needed for ourselves. We didn’t tour a lot so our hometown was our environment. Our inspiration, the emptiness of the city. There was nothing going on”.

Their boredom was exasperated by the cost of expensive mic equipment and thus, four years ago, Goose made the experimental transition to computers. The result is layer upon layer of breakdown-and-crescendo electrock, both hardy AND magnetic. Ironically, considering their former apathy towards Belgium life, the album has since won them the Best Alternative accolade at the 2007 Belgian TMF Awards.

Now that they’ve recently completed the final touches to a Martin Solveig remix, work has begun on their second album which Karkousse hopes, very much, to be out at the end of 2008. “We’ve spent so much time at home in the past that now we want to be on tour all the time. The sooner we get the album done, the faster we’re back on tour”