Hey guys, so today is your second day of tour, how was last night?
Joe: Interesting
Alex: It was a very good first show of tour, like, we’ve definitely had worse. We’ve had some shows where the tour starts off really ropey and then it kinda goes up from there, so it’s fine but last night wasn’t actually that bad. (To Joe) you lost your strap a few times.
Joe: Yeah I did, three times. That was terrible (laughs). But again, I’d rather have the worst show ever at the beginning of tour rather than right at the end.
Connor: You said that now, so all of them have to be amazing.
Which date would you say that you are most excited for?
Joe: So we’re doing Bath, which is our hometown on Monday which’ll be the biggest show we’ve ever done in our hometown.
Alex: Well my mum’s coming to see us play and she hasn’t seen us play in like five years? So she’ll think the reason we’re playing there is because we’re a big band, which is hilarious. So like if she had to come and see us play I’d rather it was at Komedia which is like one of the biggest venues in Bath.
If you didn’t play the instruments that you play, what would you play?
Joe: I’d definitely play drums.
Alex: I don’t know, I think I’d do something completely different, like the keyboard.
Connor: That’s not completely different, you could have gone with like bagpipes or something.
Joe: Keyboard’s quite a natural instrument.
Connor: (directed to Joe and Alex) can you play keyboard?
Joe: I could shred a key.
Connor: You could do the keyboard beat.
If you guys could play any venue what would it be?
Connor: I’ve done mine, Koko.
Alex: Ah yeah, mine was Koko for like a good while and then we played it a bunch.
Joe: And like we’ve done it now so we can tick it off the list, but seriously I’d love to play a massive show in London like Brixton or the Roundhouse or the Forum. I’d also love to play in the states even if it was just for 10 minutes.
Alex: Just land and borrow an acoustic guitar in an airport carpark and bam you’ve played in the states.
Joe: We’ve been quite lucky because we’ve managed to get over to Europe a lot recently which has been amazing actually because when I really think about it, it’s been about 3 times for over 7 shows in different places over this year; which is crazy as it isn’t just the UK for us anymore and it would be great to expand on that one day.
Alex: I’d love to play in Japan that’d be amazing.
So as you’re on tour with Deaf Havana, it’s only right to ask if you’ve supported them for a while or..?
Joe: When Fools and Worthless Liars came out, I was like this is absolutely amazing, it was just so good. And we always sort of, kept an eye on them for any new stuff and then we met them in Sweden of all places earlier this year and it was like ‘oh! Look at this, we all get on.’
Alex: They’re that kind of band where we all play the same kinds of shows and festivals but we never really had an opportunity to meet them, and then when we finally did we were like ‘ah they’re legends.’
Connor: Trigger is a banger of a song, I also really like Hunstanton Pier which I know is a really obvious choice for some people and even the music video was like the first time I’d ever seen time-lapsed footage and I know that’s mental but they did like really cool sweeping things, and I thought that’s amazing and I then decided I quite liked it from there.
Your new album ‘Pleasantries’ came out this year, are there any plans for a third?
Alex: Yeah, so it’s like we’re in the writing process now but we’re still trying to decide what we actually want to do. The way that our process works is that we’ll write a bunch of songs, and then we’ll write even more and they sound completely different so they’ll end up getting binned. At the minute we have like 10 or 12 songs but at the minute they’re quite varied, so once we settle on a sound we can change the other ones to fit that. We are writing but we don’t have any plans to record for the moment as the album only came out this year so we still have life in that one.
What would your favourite and least favourite songs be off the album if you had to pick?
Alex: My least favourite is Anaemia because there was another song that I really wanted to put on the album that I loved, and (the band) voted against it.
Joe: We act like a very democratic union when it comes to song choices so we all vote on songs and if we all love it then it starts at the top.
Alex: But yeah anyway, this song I really liked but they didn’t so it just didn’t make it on to the album.
Joe: It’ll be on the next one I reckon.
Alex: It was before it’s time, people weren’t ready for it yet.
Joe: My favourite would be Wasted. Anyday.
Alex: I agree.
You released the album on different musical formats so what would your favourites be?
Joe: Vinyl definitely.
Alex: I like cassette because no one listens to them, so you could just not put anything on it and they’d never know because it wouldn’t get played.
Connor: Vinyl would be mine too, it’s just a nice format. Pretty sizeable and has nice artwork.
Joe: I have vinyl frames everywhere, all over my house and I just love it because it’s some of my favourite artwork.
Participants were ages 37-69 months. There were 36 boys and 36 girls. They all went to Stanford university nursery.
Connor: I think my favourite thing about vinyl is that I can just pop it on a listen to the whole album instead of skipping through.
What would your tour necessities be?
Joe: Alcohol.
Alex: Water, and somewhere to charge my phone. We’re on the bus with Deaf Havana, which is like a luxury for us, but if you don’t get a bunk near a plug socket you’re screwed.
Connor: Fruit and shower is mine, and I know it sounds ridiculous but like there’s only so much junk food you can eat before you need something healthy. I mean we have a bowl of strawberries over there and it’s the best thing in the world.
Musically wise, what would your guilty pleasures be?
Joe: Guilty pleasures? Ah it’s endless.
Connor: Are they guilty though? Like I love Taylor Swift, I think she’s amazing and I’m not ashamed of it.
Alex: Yeah, she’s amazing.
Connor: There’s nothing I listen to that I’m like woah shouldn’t tell people about that.
Joe: Land Down Under by Men At Work is one of my favourite songs, so is Africa by Toto.
Alex: Dude, Bruno Mars’ new album is incredible.
Joe: Is it really? I didn’t even realise he had a new one.
Alex: 24k Magic is great. That would be my guilty pleasure, but again, I’m not ashamed of it.
Joe: For me, just pop music in general is great.
And then to finish things off, do you prefer your old album or your new album?
Alex: New album, for sure.
Joe: In our defense, we wrote the first record two years before it came out, and we almost did the same with Pleasantries, we’d just been told by everyone that we needed to do an album and we were like okay, let’s do an album. What do we do? So we went in and we were so naive and the second record we went in with 11 songs and straight away we were just better musicians and could direct how it sounded more. Usually, you get a list of things that need changing but we only had like two with this album which was incredible.
Thank you guys very much!
Thank you!