 | (RZ) Die englische Version des Klangschau Exklusiv-Interviews mit der Go! Team Frontfrau Ninja und dem Mastermind Ian. Die deutsche Version dieses Interviews gibts hier. |
Let’s start with your live performances. For all those poor souls who are staying at home tonight, what are they going to miss. I’m pretty sure they’re gonna miss a lot.
Ian: [laughs] Ahem, I don’t know. We’re on stage so I don’t actually know what it’s like. We have never seen ourselves. But what can I say? It’s pretty noisy. But there’s a tough noise limiter on the show tonight. So maybe not so noisy.
It’s pretty chaotic. A lot of instrument swapping. We got samples. We got two drum kits. And literally after each song everyone runs across the stage to do something else and then you got Ninja doing her thing over top of it. Yeah, we like to keep it kinda messy and exciting.
Reading about your concerts, all that positive energy and the confetti I couldn’t help but think about a Flaming Lips concert. Have you ever been to one?
Ian: We won’t have any confetti on stage tonight. I don’t think the Flaming Lips were an influence. But we had that comparison quite a lot. Kinda the manicness or something. I think we kinda stand alone as a band, hopefully. There was no other band we were looking towards to copy or anything like that. Yeah, we’re just doing our thing.
Now for your record Thunder, Lightning, Strike. I usually don’t ask the question cause usually the answers are quite boring. But I’m pretty sure your answer’s gonna be quite interesting. How the hell did you record that record? It’s in a positive sense so chaotic and there’s so much stuff going on. I guess there must be quite a story behind it. I hope.
Ian: Oh you’re building up. [laughs] It’s not the best story. You know, after work going home, digging out records, trying things out, getting little samples, putting them on tape, storing them away for years, writing melodies, singing into my phone. You know, just collecting stuff and then trying stick things together. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. When it works you know straight away that you got a song. And then you try and build something else. You get a verse, you get a chorus or you get a middle eight or whatever. So you build and build. Sometimes over month, sometimes years, sometimes a day. You see, a lot of trial and error.
And then it’s how you mix that with live instruments. Everything is layered. Not just a sample that’s looped for three minutes. It’s a lot of stuff plus live instruments. Band, recorder, glockenspiel, two drum kits and stuff.
Yeah, that’s how it evolved really. The funny thing about it is that I did lots of it myself and brought the band in later to try to turn it into a live thing. So it’s kind of the wrong way round, if you know what I mean.
You just mentioned the band. What are the musical backgrounds of all the people involved in the Go! Team? I guess there must be quite some different backgrounds.
Ninja: Yeah, we’re all six completely different people with completely different musical taste. Sam plays loads of instruments. Banjo, guitar, drums and stuff. He kinda likes folky type music. We like everything. Everyone likes everything. It’s a weird thing. We’re all into different music. I don’t even know what Jamie is into. What’s Jamie into?
Ian: Jamie is into analogy little scratchy noises and funky stuff and stuff like Super Furry Animals and the Beta Band. Chi is really into the Divine Comedy. I don’t know what else she’s into. Kaori is into noisy Japanese stuff like the Polysics and Melt Banana. Kinda noisy guitary stuff. And Ninja’s into…
Ninja: I don’t know what I’m into. I’m into like Hiphop. But then I like classical music. But than I like a bit of Jazz. But then I really like sort of big band music like rat pack stuff. I’ve got a really weird taste in music. I don’t know how we all came together. I shouldn’t work. But I think it does.
That’s just what I wanna ask next. How did you guys meet?
Ninja: Ian kind of found as all in different ways. He found a couple of us through adverts and through friends of friends. Just in random ways really. So we didn’t all know each other until we met up to do rehearsals in the studio. By that time I thought everybody else knew each other. So I thought I was a new person. But I think everybody was a new person. But I think everyone was just meeting for the first time. So we didn’t know each other for years or anything like that. We met everybody for the first time. It’s lucky that it worked out.
Now for a little something I read on a BBC homepage. Apparently McDonalds offered you quite some money to get one of your songs for an advert. But you turned them down. Wasn’t it kinda tempting to earn that extra money and get that extra promotion?
Ian: Not for me personally. No.
Ninja: They just wanted to give aus extra BigMacs and fries and we wanted money. But they just wanted to pay us in food. So we had to turn them down. [laughs]
Ian: Just a couple of weeks ago I had three offers in one week. One was a yoghurt. One was a department store in America. Another was – what was it? - a clothing shop. So there’s every week something coming in. Whether it’s a theme tune or whatever. It’s a dilemma I always have. Week after week. It goes form guilt that I’ve turned down that money to pride that I’ve said no and stood up for the principals. I’m always disappointed when bands put their name to a product. Put their music to a product. For me it just changes the song in some way. Particularly with the Go! Team music I think a lot of advertising executives kinda like the upbeatness of it and want to attach it to their products and stuff. And for me it would just ruin it. Every time I saw it on telly I’d be crinching. Yeah, much to the annoyance of the publishing people I’ve said no to every advert that’s come up so far.
Already any car commercials? I could pretty much imagine a Go! Team song being played to one of those trendy off-road thingies.
Ian: Ahem, not a car. But a few couple of mobile phones. And petrol, but not a car.
Now for a collaboration that seems to have worked out. I read Kevin Shields quite liked your concert and wanted to do some remixes or probably already did. I haven’t heard them yet. How did you meet him in the first place.
Ian: Yeah, he turned up at one of our concert in the Electirc Ballroom in London and our label boss called him afterwards and said ‘What do you think of it?’ and he liked the gig and wanted to do remix for us. We got Ladyflash coming out in a few weeks and Kevin Shields wanted to do a mix of Huddle Formation and Ladyflash and merge the two songs. So we just gave it to him. I heard it the other day and it’s pretty hot. It’s not like a My Bloody Valentine song. He made something new. A new song out of two songs. If you heard it you wouldn’t think it was Kevin Shields but that’s what he wanted to do.
Well, you’re quite over the top and he’s quite over the top so I was expecting probably the most over the top thing ever. How could you describe it?
Ian: It’s like the Go! Team but even more so. Like I said he merged two songs. It’s kinda chanty and its [he sings] You can check it out on our Myspace site.
I’m gonna check it out as soon as I get home. Did you actually meet Kevin Shields or did you just send the tapes? Ian: That’s the thing with remixes you never really meet the person. They just send you the audio file through and your there in your bedroom just doing it. You never actually find out what they think of it or whatever. I’ve done a few. I’ve done Bloc Party, Roots Manuva, Hot Chip, Polyphonic Spree. I’ve never heard anything back from them. And finally for the future. What direction is the Go! Team gonna take next?
Ninja: Left! [laughs] We don’t know. Well we’re going to Australia for three weeks in January for the Big Day Out Tour. We’ve got a big UK tour as well coming after that in February. We’ve got some dates in Ireland and France. After that we’re going to America for a few weeks. We’re gonna be really tired. It’s gonna be really busy. That’s it really because Ian has a lot of work to do, havent’ you Ian? Ian: Yes. I mean we have two new songs which we play live. It’s a slow process to write songs. You can’t just pick up an acoustic guitar an knock out a Go! Team Song. Ninja: We’re not Coldplay. Ian: I guess it’ll be out this time next year. But who knows. I think from May onwards it’s a back in the studio type of thing. Hopefully I’ll have some songs to do by then. 5.12.2005, Mascotte, Zurich (Switzerland)
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