I was "gladdened".

1. I wrote a review of recent John Vanderslice/Mountain Goats show for my school's newspaper. I was not involved in picking the headline.

2. In totally unrelated news, check out the new Lucky Soul track from their upcoming album. It's gonna be friggen sweet.

3. And in my necessary plug of my brother, he's releasing his first EP, called Flagship. You can get it from him for 6 dollars, check him out here.

Look out for another new post soon, it will probably exceed even your highest expectations in terms of pretension. Yeah, be excited.

Interview: Castanets (10.5.08)

Despite frequently including other musicians, Castanets is essentially one man: Ray Raposa. The recordings, the concerts, and the music itself all come from his current interpretation of his own ideas. I spoke to Ray over the phone right before the release of City of Refuge. We talked about what that album signals for the direction of Castanets, as well as his thoughts on live performance and on his other new album (which is already recorded). During our conversation, Raposa was lost in Rhode Island, sitting in a coffee shop and wondering where he was going to go next.

Your album’s coming out Tuesday. Are you doing anything special to commemorate it?

No, not at all. This album was done a year ago, so I can’t even begin to relate to who I was when I recorded it, let alone get excited enough to do something significant regarding its release.

Is that a strange feeling, being detached from something that is old to you but new for everyone hearing it for the first time?

No, it’s fine. It’s a matter of taking responsibility for what I’ve made. It’s not a turning point or anything significant. It’s just something that happened a little while ago.

You recorded it in a motel, which doesn’t seem like the most ideal recording situation. What was that like?

I wouldn’t describe it as not being ideal. It was in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, so there was nothing going on outside. It really couldn’t have been more low-key. The records before were in places where I had a lot of friends — San Diego being one example — so it was easy for me to get distracted or for things to get out of hand. Being in a motel was perfect – I didn’t know anyone; I didn’t want to call anyone; I couldn’t go meet with anyone. It was just me. I was grateful for it.

How long are you in Rhode Island for?

No idea. A day, a week, I hope. I don’t remember why I came. We’ll say a week.

Then will you go back to New York?

For a little bit, and then back out on tour with Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. A lot of people are writing about him these days. He has at least one song that’s an absolute motherfucker, probably more, but there’s definitely one that’s just unbelievable. So that tour starts in a couple weeks, then to Europe, and back out here again. It’s pretty busy, but that’s to my advantage – I get restless otherwise. I end up in places like Providence, with no goddamn idea what I’m doing here, barefoot in the rain, asking people for maps and trying to find the coffee shop my friend works at. Turns out this is the wrong one.

Your tours often incorporate several other musicians. Will you be bringing many people with you on this one?

I think this tour’s going to be a four-piece. I like having people on tour with me because it frees things up – I know what songs would sound like if it were just me playing them, but that’s not exciting for me or for anyone to know exactly how they’re going to sound night after night. When I have folks with me, especially when they’re smart thinkers, I feel like it adds a capacity for expansion. That’s something important to me.

Increasingly, I feel like bands these days are very well-rehearsed, doing their thing the same way night after night, and that works for them. I have a certain admiration for that, but I can’t envision wanting to pursue it. I would feel like a con artist. I think it’s a matter of being honest with the songs. There’s a big difference between playing DC on a Tuesday and Brooklyn on a Friday, and I would feel like I was cheating people if I did it the same way both times. That’s my issue and not anyone else’s, but it’s important.

Personally, I do get disappointed when I leave a show feeling like I could have just sat at home and listened to the record and gotten the same thing. Is that what you’re trying to avoid?

Yes, definitely. I wish that more musicians were on that wavelength for shows. That’s the difference I want to make, to avoid sounding like that.

Did you have many other people playing on this record with you?

There are people on it, but it’s a much more solitary record than the others. By nature of the circumstances – I was alone in a hotel in Nevada – it was done mostly by myself. I sent things out to Jana [Hunter] and Sufjan [Stevens] for them to use in their parts, but it doesn’t sound like a band record or anything. It was just a function of the fact that I couldn’t exactly fly everyone out to where I was. This is as far as I’m interested in pushing my music in that direction. The record coming out next is already done, and it sounds very rock ‘n’ roll in a good-time kind of way.

So it will have a much bigger sound?

Certainly, the next one and probably the next couple of records. I like loud guitars and big beats. I want to represent that in some fashion. That’s what I listen to, and I really like hip-hop and rock ‘n’ roll and metal. None of that is one dude in a room; there’s a lot of interaction. At the end of the day, that’s what captivates me, so it’s a natural progression and not a conscious pursuit.

But at the same time I’ve been vigilant, bordering on militant, about not letting my listening habits get in the way of making records. When I’m recording, I don’t allow myself to listen to music because I’m very wary of subconsciously being influenced by it. I can tell you it would be really bad if hip-hop showed up somewhere in Castanets. I hate white people fucking with hip-hop. That’s not my place.

Also, I’m pretty sure Larry Clark just walked by. And if that’s not him, it’s the deadest ringer you’ll ever see.

I don't believe in the new year anymore!

But I do believe in Top 10 lists, and to quote one of my favorite discoveries of the year.... it's business time.


To be honest, I am pretty disappointed with the selection of good albums this year. Maybe it's just because last year was so incredible; not only were there several albums that I have listened to enough for them to become part of the very fiber of my being (Hissing Fauna, The Stage Names and Night Falls Over Kortedala to name a few), I also listened for the first time to several artists that I now consider among my favorite. This is not to say there weren't albums that I enjoyed this year, there were many. However, when I was deciding on this list, it was only difficult to pick which albums made it because of my apathy to even most of the albums I like. To put it a different way, there aren't any albums this year that I feel vastly improved the quality of my life. I know that discussing what albums came out in the last 365 days as opposed to the 365 before that is largely irrelevant, and I am happy that there are albums that I am that attached to. But I feel compelled to complain about it anyway. What else are blogs for?

Though this year may not have been great for albums, it was AMAZING for concerts. In the last few months I've been able to attend some of my favorite concerts of my life, and more importantly got to see Kevin Barnes ride a white horse in only tiny gold shorts. That experience alone easily makes up for any deficiency in good new music. Seeing Okkervil River live was also an unforgettable experience, and has sparked an obsession that now rivals my devotion to The Decemberists or The Mountain Goats.

One more note... there seems to be a lot of confusion about Bon Iver and whether to count his record as a 2007 or 08 release... lets just say that if For Emma was released this year, it would be number one, no contest. But I'll leave it off my list.

In other news, some of these albums are really great, and they are all 100% worth checking out

1. Fleet Foxes - s/t and Sun Giant EP (Also wins the award for "album I most wish was preformed in one of my school's a capella groups")



2. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lie Down In The Light


3. Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue ("I Need A Life" wins the "Hardest Song to Get Out of My Head Award")


4. Vampire Weekend - s/t (I know it's super overplayed and everywhere but I still love it.)


5. Shearwater - Rook ("Best Band I Discovered This Year")


6. The Dodos - Visiter ("Best Album with the Worst Cover Art")


7. Plant and Animals - Parc Avenue


8. Why? - Alopecia ("Other Best Band I Discovered This Year")


9. Dr. Dog - Fate


10. Ane Brun - Changing of the Seasons (why are all Swedish people so awesome?)


The last few on the list could be totally interchangeable with Department of Eagles, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Okkervil River's The Stand Ins and several others (my newest obsession being a few songs by MGMT, yeah I know I'm super late on this).

Thanks for reading, stay tuned for more news from the Super Awesome Squad soon!

Back With A Vengeance!

Since we last spoke, I've moved across the country and am in college! If you were wondering, college is Super Awesome. But Sophie and I decided that it's finally time to start posting again, so if you haven't noticed, there are three more interviews up today! They're all for TMT and have taken place over the past couple months. Hope you enjoy them, and see you soon.

Love
Zoe

Interview: the Octopus Project (10.22.08)

The sheer number of bands coming out of Austin these days scares me sometimes, especially because I know that for every group that gets recognition outside of the city, there’s like 100 that do not. I wonder just how many great bands get passed over each year. Luckily, for those of us who like our beats eccentric and danceable, The Octopus Project is on the national circuit for keeps. Composed of husband and wife duo Yvonne and Josh Lambert, friend Toto Miranda, and beloved newcomer Ryan Figg, the band produces a unique blend of wordless electro-pop with crazy instrumentation and a whole lot of reckless abandon.

I sat down with all four of the band members in October at their show at the Black Cat in DC, discussing their history and their music. Though devoted to their music, they find time for quite a few silly things, including a love of Riverdance and a propensity for mask-making.

---

Yvonne, how did you learn to play theremin? That’s a pretty rare instrument.

Yvonne: Josh and I saw a documentary on Leon Theremin in 1999, and we both found it very exciting and liked the instrument’s history. We bought one on the internet, and I just happened to be the one who took to it. When we started playing together, we brought it in just to make weird noises. It took me two or three years for me to become comfortable playing melodies. I spent a lot of time with a tape recorder and headphones trying to mimic classical pieces that I was familiar with.

Your live show involves a lot of switching instruments. Did you all come in playing your instruments, or did anyone learn a new instrument to make that switching possible?

Josh: Everyone came in with their instrument, but Yvonne learned how to play guitar.

Yvonne: Still working on that one!

Toto: It’s also a product of our songwriting process. When we play a new song, it could be one person with a little snippet of music and an idea about where to go with it, or it could be a lot of people playing a lot of instruments. When we tour, the four of us, we have to work out the logistics of reproducing that sound. The switching really grows out of necessity — if in a song we want two guitars in the beginning, but a bass at the end, one of us has to run over to the other corner of the stage so we can do it.

Did you all grow up together or did you meet because of the music?

Josh: We’ve known each other since high school. I met Yvonne on my 18th birthday.

Yvonne: Toto and I grew up in the same neighborhood. We went to church together. Actually, we went to Sunday school together.

Toto: Well, we were both present when Sunday school was occurring. I wouldn’t really call it “going” or anything like that.

Yvonne: We weren’t particularly close then. I suppose we were as close as any 11-year-old boy and girl can be. Toto’s like my brother. But we all grew up in Houston. Ryan’s been with us for about a year now, and he’s the only true Austinite.

Toto: He gives us cred. That’s how we get into all the cool places in Austin.

Austin can be, for lack of a better word, sort of a clusterfuck of music. How did you break out of that bubble and into the national circuit?

Toto: For me, it really came from wanting to tour. When Peek-A-Boo decided to put out our first record, our producer was like “We’d love to put it out, but you guys would have to tour” and we were like “Have to? Golly gee, let’s go! Sounds like fun!” It’s something that we’re motivated to do for its own sake. It’s a boundary-expanding kind of adventure. Touring nationally did a lot for us as a band and helped us to focus our sound. All those different environments night after night really force you to figure out what’s going on specifically in your music.

So, touring is a highlight for everyone.

Josh: Definitely. It’s really cool to meet all these different people. When people come to shows and like it, we feel really good.

Your collaboration with Black Moth Super Rainbow came somewhat soon before your latest album. Do you think it had any influence on the record?

Toto: Maybe, just in the sense that we were part of it. We did those songs in a very similar way to how we do our songs. We take a bunch of different elements and layer them together, so in the case of the Black Moth stuff, it might be some of their music rather than one of our members playing something. Black Moth sent us a bunch of bits of their songs and we sent a bunch of our bits. When it came to actually doing the songs, instead of reaching for a guitar or drums, we would reach for a piece from Black Moth and stick that in the song. It was neat to use that to expand the palette of songs. I think in that way it certainly whetted our appetite to experiment with some new sounds.

So the entire project was over the internet; you never sat down together to make songs?

Yvonne: Completely. We didn’t even meet them until after the record was done. Technology is amazing.

As both an isolated phrase and a song title, I think “Copying Soup Onto Sexy Birdy” is one of the best combinations of words I’ve heard. How did that name come into being?”

Toto: It’s really a boring story. You would be disappointed if I told you. It’s better if you imagine it as being mysterious or something.

Josh: It’s not that bad! It’s pretty funny, I think.

Toto: Okay. There was a computer with a hard drive named Sexy Birdy. There was a song called Soup. When we dragged the song onto the hard drive, the little status window popped up and it said “Copying ‘Soup’ onto ‘Sexy Birdy’.” So that’s the story.

What do you think the absence of words in your songs adds to the music?

Josh: It challenges us to make things that are interesting to people who like songs with singing. And at the same time it makes things very easy. None of us have ever been the singer of a band. Well, except Ryan.

Ryan: It was in high school. It didn’t count.

Josh: It’s nice not to have the dynamic of one of us being the frontman, that not-really-collaborative arrangement where it’s supposed to be equal but the singer ends up being in charge anyways. It was never a decision to leave out lyrics; we just never felt the need to put them in.

Why did you start using masks in your videos and shows?”

Toto: We just went through a mask phase. The first one came from a Perez Prado record that Josh and Yvonne had. The cover was just this picture of his face sort of like [strikes school portrait pose]. We thought it was pretty funny, so we made masks out of it. The next one was Josh Xeroxing electrical outlets and blowing them up to face size. Those were the most successful.

Yvonne: That one stuck with people the most, and people gravitated towards it. After all, it is like a little face, so people could relate to it. Last night, someone came to our show with a homemade sparkplug mask around his neck. It was nice.

Josh: Sometimes a whole group of people will show up with masks. It’s pretty amazing that people are paying any attention at all in the first place, let alone enough to take the time to do something like that. To see someone wanting to show that not only are they paying attention, but they really like our stuff and know all the details is pretty impressive.

Can you think of a band that you’d be willing to do that sort of thing for?

Josh: Lord of the Dance, definitely.

Yvonne: That white shirt!

Josh: I’ve actually never seen them. But I’d still do it.

Does this mean we can look forward to another collaboration? The Octopus Project scores Riverdance or something along those lines?

Yvonne: That would be so much fun! We could get some dancers for our shows.

Josh: I guess we could make it happen. We’d need Riverdance though; there’s that little problem.

Toto: Yeah, it takes two for that tango to happen.

Interview: Los Campesinos!

A lot of people here on this lovely planet of ours are simply mediocre. These are the sort of people who do the same thing every day, who never jump up and down with abandon, and who worry about embarrassing themselves in public. Gareth Campesinos!, the lead singer of Welsh band Los Campesinos! is not one of these people. It’s hard to be when you’re at the forefront of the so-called twee revival.

Los Campesinos! are unique in that they are music fans first and musicians second. They proudly flaunt their influences, and Gareth in particular takes pride in his unpredictable taste. We talked about the band’s formation, the necessity for fun, and why the world shouldn’t write them off as “the band with the glockenspiel.” Gareth was in fact so eager to talk about music that he started the conversation before I could ask him anything.

---

Is that an Architecture in Helsinki shirt you’re wearing?

Yeah, it is! Good catch, I don’t think anyone’s figured it out before. I noticed during sound check that Tom is wearing a Deerhoof shirt. And last time the band was here, you wore a Xiu Xiu shirt. Do you purposefully wear band shirts from San Francisco when you play here?

No, it’s just because all the shirts I own are band t-shirts. I think I have over 100, and at least ten of them are Xiu Xiu shirts. It’s a weakness and a little bit of trying to be more interesting by wearing interesting bands’ t-shirts. It cuts out need for conversation and just moves right to a mutual recognition of a shared interest. Not that it’s ever really worked for me, though.

You’re still a relatively new band, so would you tell me about how the group formed and started playing?

The seven of us came together about two years ago. Initially, it was Neil, Harriet, and Ellen just jamming together. I lived with Neil, and when he started the band, I didn’t expect much to come of it. He met Tom at a pub in Cardiff and overheard Tom talking about The Decemberists. They didn’t know each other but started talking about being fans of that band. Tom started coming to practices, and he’s a very talented songwriter. I heard the demos and changed my mind about the band not going anywhere. So I told Neil that I was going to go to a practice, and all we had were these post-rock songs, which needed something else. Harriet plays the violin, and we thought that, although it’s a bit cliché, it would be a nice addition. Ellen and Aleks were friends, and she joined the band even before we heard her sing. We got to seven and called it quits there.

What do you like about having seven as opposed to the more traditional three or four?

Songwriting is a lot easier, and it gives us so much more scope to work with. When you’re just guitar, bass, and drums, you can’t go much of anywhere. But adding the keyboards, glockenspiel, and violin gives us such a broader capacity. There’s also more sound to hide behind if you mess up, which is nice. And more people to talk to if you fall out with somebody. More is more.

Other than the scope you said they provide, is there anything else about the specific instruments the band uses that you think adds to the overall effect?

I’ve actually come to resent the glockenspiel quite a bit. To a lot of people, it seems that we’ve become “that band with the glockenspiel.” We went in to a radio program once to do an acoustic session, and the host goes (assumes cheesy radio voice) “I want to see the guy with the glockenspiel!” And I’m just like “Oh, god, not again.” I think the violin is key. When Harriet plays solos or leads on the violin, it’s a lot more interesting, rather than on the guitar.

We’re working on new stuff at the moment with more instruments. When we tour again in October, we’re going to have a second drum kit and proper keyboards. We’re excited about that.

Where did the band name come from?

Neil used to be fluent in Spanish, but when he got to Uni and started drinking more, he kind of forgot. It’s sort of a hangover from that, I guess. It’s phonetically nice and aesthetically pleasing, but the literal meaning is insignificant to the band. I wasn’t even in the band when they came up with the name, but don’t think we thought we’d get anywhere or that anyone would care about us. If we’d expected to get anywhere close to where we are now, we probably would have tried to come up with a better band name. But it does the trick.

Are you planning on legally changing your names, Ramones-style?

Actually, the night we recorded our demos we were really happy with them and we were a bit drunk, and we went to a pub and the DJ played our songs. People actually liked them, and so we got really happy and said “If we ever play a gig in America, we’ll all legally change our names to Campesinos!” We didn’t expect anything to actually happen, but lo and behold, it has happened, but we’ve not [officially] changed our surnames. Nor do we intend to. We overshot our aims, which is a really good feeling.

Bimbo’s is a bigger venue than Great American Music Hall [where LC! Played in San Francisco on their last tour.] Have you been playing to bigger crowds across the board?

Definitely. On the East Coast, we sold out both our shows at the Bowery Ballroom, which was really nice, and tickets have sold really well for tonight as well. I also think we’ve been getting bigger crowds because we’re playing more all-ages venues, which I really like. Younger people have no inhibitions, so they’re a much more enthusiastic crowd to play to.

Are there differences between fans at home and here in the U.S.?

I think we definitely like the U.S. better. People who like us in this country and in Canada have heard about us through college radio or the internet. Whereas in the UK, it’s more of an enemy type thing where you have different sorts of music fans who like one thing and they’re very antagonistic toward those who like other things. In the NME, we get lumped in with a lot of other bands, and we get lads coming into our shows heckling us and trying to start trouble. It’s because the base of our music is upbeat and danceable and they like the more intense stuff, so they feel sort of angry toward us and like they need to defend their music. But I’m the biggest snob in the band, so if you talked to someone else I’m sure they’d say something different.

Though as much as I like touring the U.S., I do get incredibly homesick sometimes. I live with my sisters and my mum, and I miss them a lot. There’s also something ever-so-slightly soul-destroying about the monotony of the days. It’s intense and you don’t get to see anything other than the bus.

Both the band’s music and lyrics make your influences very clear, a good example being the similarity in title of your song “Knee-Deep at ATP” with [Camera Obscura’s song] “Knee-Deep at the NPL.” Why is that — sort of name-checking the older twee culture — so important?

First of all, you’re the only person to have caught that reference to Camera Obscura. But I guess it’s kind of inevitable for the band, because I write the lyrics, and most of what I do with my time and what I care about is listening to music, so I can only write about what I know and I only want to write about what I know. It’s inevitable that these reference points are going to come up in the songs. The whole movement with C86 and Riot Grrrl and K records is something I really wish I could have experienced properly, so I guess I’m trying to appropriate it for myself. It’s inevitable, but I think that some people don’t like it and think it’s a bit unnecessary. But it’s all I know, so it’s inevitable that it come up in the songs.

And in terms of the music, you really do like following them, as opposed to say Xiu Xiu, who I know you are a big fan of. I don’t hear that as much as, say, Tullycraft in your music.

That’s really the band as a whole having their say. I don’t have the ability to write music, and Tom [the band’s songwriter] isn’t as big a Xiu Xiu fan as I am. And we do certainly sound like those more twee bands, but the lyrics I write are often a lot darker than the songs might suggest. That’s certainly something that I’d like to develop more. A lot of the time we’re pigeonholed as being this ridiculously happy, upbeat, carefree band, which isn’t really the case. Hopefully the juxtaposition between the music and the lyrics is going to become more extreme. We’ll see how people react to it.

How do you hope people react to the music, or to seeing your live show?

Live, I think we make it a lot about enjoying ourselves. I guess we’re a bit selfish in that respect. We played a gig in Eugene a couple days ago, and although we didn’t play particularly well, we had such a good time. There were only about 40 people there, and Parenthetical Girls were in the audience crowd-surfing and moshing and fighting each other. I was really quite drunk, but I do remember being heckled to take my shirt off and I did. The set ended with me being led onto the dancefloor and Parenthetical Girls holding my legs and spinning me around and around. I have burns on my back. We really just want to have fun. If we were overly sincere, I don’t think it would work.

I don’t really know what reactions I’d like people to have to our music. I guess I’d like people to “get” it. If people that like the same bands that we like enjoy our music, it’s extremely flattering because it means we’re doing something right. There was a kid in a Xiu Xiu t-shirt in the front row in Eugene, and so I got really excited about that.

It really sounds like you all are friends and enjoy being around each other. How does that help the band’s dynamic?

Well, we’re touring the world, and it’s a massive holiday, and it’s nice to be doing it with people you love and have fun with. It’s incredibly cheesy, but it makes it a lot more enjoyable.

Interview: Los Campesinos! (6.6.08)

A lot of people here on this lovely planet of ours are simply mediocre. These are the sort of people who do the same thing every day, who never jump up and down with abandon, and who worry about embarrassing themselves in public. Gareth Campesinos!, the lead singer of Welsh band Los Campesinos! is not one of these people. It’s hard to be when you’re at the forefront of the so-called twee revival.

Los Campesinos! are unique in that they are music fans first and musicians second. They proudly flaunt their influences, and Gareth in particular takes pride in his unpredictable taste. We talked about the band’s formation, the necessity for fun, and why the world shouldn’t write them off as “the band with the glockenspiel.” Gareth was in fact so eager to talk about music that he started the conversation before I could ask him anything.

---

Is that an Architecture in Helsinki shirt you’re wearing?

Yeah, it is! Good catch, I don’t think anyone’s figured it out before. I noticed during sound check that Tom is wearing a Deerhoof shirt. And last time the band was here, you wore a Xiu Xiu shirt. Do you purposefully wear band shirts from San Francisco when you play here?

No, it’s just because all the shirts I own are band t-shirts. I think I have over 100, and at least ten of them are Xiu Xiu shirts. It’s a weakness and a little bit of trying to be more interesting by wearing interesting bands’ t-shirts. It cuts out need for conversation and just moves right to a mutual recognition of a shared interest. Not that it’s ever really worked for me, though.

You’re still a relatively new band, so would you tell me about how the group formed and started playing?

The seven of us came together about two years ago. Initially, it was Neil, Harriet, and Ellen just jamming together. I lived with Neil, and when he started the band, I didn’t expect much to come of it. He met Tom at a pub in Cardiff and overheard Tom talking about The Decemberists. They didn’t know each other but started talking about being fans of that band. Tom started coming to practices, and he’s a very talented songwriter. I heard the demos and changed my mind about the band not going anywhere. So I told Neil that I was going to go to a practice, and all we had were these post-rock songs, which needed something else. Harriet plays the violin, and we thought that, although it’s a bit cliché, it would be a nice addition. Ellen and Aleks were friends, and she joined the band even before we heard her sing. We got to seven and called it quits there.

What do you like about having seven as opposed to the more traditional three or four?

Songwriting is a lot easier, and it gives us so much more scope to work with. When you’re just guitar, bass, and drums, you can’t go much of anywhere. But adding the keyboards, glockenspiel, and violin gives us such a broader capacity. There’s also more sound to hide behind if you mess up, which is nice. And more people to talk to if you fall out with somebody. More is more.

Other than the scope you said they provide, is there anything else about the specific instruments the band uses that you think adds to the overall effect?

I’ve actually come to resent the glockenspiel quite a bit. To a lot of people, it seems that we’ve become “that band with the glockenspiel.” We went in to a radio program once to do an acoustic session, and the host goes (assumes cheesy radio voice) “I want to see the guy with the glockenspiel!” And I’m just like “Oh, god, not again.” I think the violin is key. When Harriet plays solos or leads on the violin, it’s a lot more interesting, rather than on the guitar.

We’re working on new stuff at the moment with more instruments. When we tour again in October, we’re going to have a second drum kit and proper keyboards. We’re excited about that.

Where did the band name come from?

Neil used to be fluent in Spanish, but when he got to Uni and started drinking more, he kind of forgot. It’s sort of a hangover from that, I guess. It’s phonetically nice and aesthetically pleasing, but the literal meaning is insignificant to the band. I wasn’t even in the band when they came up with the name, but don’t think we thought we’d get anywhere or that anyone would care about us. If we’d expected to get anywhere close to where we are now, we probably would have tried to come up with a better band name. But it does the trick.

Are you planning on legally changing your names, Ramones-style?

Actually, the night we recorded our demos we were really happy with them and we were a bit drunk, and we went to a pub and the DJ played our songs. People actually liked them, and so we got really happy and said “If we ever play a gig in America, we’ll all legally change our names to Campesinos!” We didn’t expect anything to actually happen, but lo and behold, it has happened, but we’ve not [officially] changed our surnames. Nor do we intend to. We overshot our aims, which is a really good feeling.

Bimbo’s is a bigger venue than Great American Music Hall [where LC! Played in San Francisco on their last tour.] Have you been playing to bigger crowds across the board?

Definitely. On the East Coast, we sold out both our shows at the Bowery Ballroom, which was really nice, and tickets have sold really well for tonight as well. I also think we’ve been getting bigger crowds because we’re playing more all-ages venues, which I really like. Younger people have no inhibitions, so they’re a much more enthusiastic crowd to play to.

Are there differences between fans at home and here in the U.S.?

I think we definitely like the U.S. better. People who like us in this country and in Canada have heard about us through college radio or the internet. Whereas in the UK, it’s more of an enemy type thing where you have different sorts of music fans who like one thing and they’re very antagonistic toward those who like other things. In the NME, we get lumped in with a lot of other bands, and we get lads coming into our shows heckling us and trying to start trouble. It’s because the base of our music is upbeat and danceable and they like the more intense stuff, so they feel sort of angry toward us and like they need to defend their music. But I’m the biggest snob in the band, so if you talked to someone else I’m sure they’d say something different.

Though as much as I like touring the U.S., I do get incredibly homesick sometimes. I live with my sisters and my mum, and I miss them a lot. There’s also something ever-so-slightly soul-destroying about the monotony of the days. It’s intense and you don’t get to see anything other than the bus.

Both the band’s music and lyrics make your influences very clear, a good example being the similarity in title of your song “Knee-Deep at ATP” with [Camera Obscura’s song] “Knee-Deep at the NPL.” Why is that — sort of name-checking the older twee culture — so important?

First of all, you’re the only person to have caught that reference to Camera Obscura. But I guess it’s kind of inevitable for the band, because I write the lyrics, and most of what I do with my time and what I care about is listening to music, so I can only write about what I know and I only want to write about what I know. It’s inevitable that these reference points are going to come up in the songs. The whole movement with C86 and Riot Grrrl and K records is something I really wish I could have experienced properly, so I guess I’m trying to appropriate it for myself. It’s inevitable, but I think that some people don’t like it and think it’s a bit unnecessary. But it’s all I know, so it’s inevitable that it come up in the songs.

And in terms of the music, you really do like following them, as opposed to say Xiu Xiu, who I know you are a big fan of. I don’t hear that as much as, say, Tullycraft in your music.

That’s really the band as a whole having their say. I don’t have the ability to write music, and Tom [the band’s songwriter] isn’t as big a Xiu Xiu fan as I am. And we do certainly sound like those more twee bands, but the lyrics I write are often a lot darker than the songs might suggest. That’s certainly something that I’d like to develop more. A lot of the time we’re pigeonholed as being this ridiculously happy, upbeat, carefree band, which isn’t really the case. Hopefully the juxtaposition between the music and the lyrics is going to become more extreme. We’ll see how people react to it.

How do you hope people react to the music, or to seeing your live show?

Live, I think we make it a lot about enjoying ourselves. I guess we’re a bit selfish in that respect. We played a gig in Eugene a couple days ago, and although we didn’t play particularly well, we had such a good time. There were only about 40 people there, and Parenthetical Girls were in the audience crowd-surfing and moshing and fighting each other. I was really quite drunk, but I do remember being heckled to take my shirt off and I did. The set ended with me being led onto the dancefloor and Parenthetical Girls holding my legs and spinning me around and around. I have burns on my back. We really just want to have fun. If we were overly sincere, I don’t think it would work.

I don’t really know what reactions I’d like people to have to our music. I guess I’d like people to “get” it. If people that like the same bands that we like enjoy our music, it’s extremely flattering because it means we’re doing something right. There was a kid in a Xiu Xiu t-shirt in the front row in Eugene, and so I got really excited about that.

It really sounds like you all are friends and enjoy being around each other. How does that help the band’s dynamic?

Well, we’re touring the world, and it’s a massive holiday, and it’s nice to be doing it with people you love and have fun with. It’s incredibly cheesy, but it makes it a lot more enjoyable.