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Media Archives
1995
May
New Musical
Express
Reload
June
Sunday
Mercury
August
New Musical
Express
November
What's On
December
Boneidle
1996
January
Raw
April
The War
Against
Silence
June
BoneIdle |
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Reload
May 1995
It was a sad day
when the announcement shattered the hearts of
the country's indie collective - The Wonderstuff
were to split. Would this be the end of the
indie scene as we knew it? And combined with the
end of Eat, what had the world come to? Okay,
this is somewhat an exaggeration, but it was a
real event. Great was my joy when almost a year
later I heard that parts of both these two bands
were to get together... It was then on the day
of a completely sold-out gig at the Jug Of Ale
that I found a somewhat apprehensive Malcolm
Treece.
First off, what
led to this new collective getting together?
Malcolm: "I've known Ange for years and they
(Eat) supported The Wonderstuff a few times
anyway and we just kept in touch. We just kinda
hung out, chatted and drank coffee mainly and
messed around and bit-by-bit did the writing.
That was last September... it is just a real
loose thing."
The band is
obviously strongly influenced by all members
past's and guitars play a vital role, but there
is more to it than that. "You sound really
blinkered if you say a guitar band, as there's a
lot more to it. We use guitars and samples, but
are more than just a guitar band. There are lots
of harmonies in there which hopefully might work
tonight."
They certainly
did. The music clearly wears its players former
lives on its sleeve. While maintaining the
melodic style of both it is also much stronger,
harsher and far more in-your-face. Few gigs sell
out and even fewer when the band is so new, yet
people were turned away or patiently waited for
a chance to sneak in. Malcolm, although modest,
finds this not unexpected. "I'm not surprised
people are here. There's a lot of train-spotters
in here seeing what's what, just to see if the
band are okay or to say they were at a certain
gig. I mean, we've all done that."
"I do feel we're
doing something because we want to and we're
enjoying it... I honestly think that the stuff
we write's great. I think it's exciting and got
that vibe. Towards the end of The Wonderstuff
we'd lost it a bit and got a bit jaded by it all
and got a bit insular." This comment obviously
led on to the need to dig deeper about those
Wonderstuff days. Are you glad you moved on? "I
was sad at the time, we'd gone a long way and we
were friends. We're still mates. It was just a
hard time and it's like everything that's sad in
life, you have to carry on."
And continue they
have, with a new line-up, new sound and a new
name. But what is this Weknowwhere youlive
business all about? "It was Ange actually, he
did some private investigation work on the side
for extra cash. Hanging outside people's houses
in a van with a camera all night and it came
from there. We thought it was a good name
because it sounded like nothing else."
With the bands
likely career prospects I suppose everything's
all lined up, including the record contract? "No
we haven't. We all signed up to Polydor
individually and there's a clause in the
contract that when the band splits up they have
a certain period of time to pick the band up
when you deliver demos. We did the demos, they
weren't sure and the 60 days expired." "We felt
that Polydor were the wrong label for us and
we've been with them for a while and we needed a
new challenge, a change. Now we've still got a
publishing deal, which is nice as it keeps
things ticking over. It's kind of like how we
started with The Wonderstuff - we got a
publishing deal first and then moved things
along."
So, to sum up,
what is your view of the band? "Basically, this
band is something we enjoy doing and as long as
it's enjoyable, like before with the Stuffies,
we'll do it... it feels right now." |
