Slow Club: “if you call us twee, we’ll kick you in the tits”

Slow Club

Muso’s Guide caught up with Slow Club in Aberdeen last month whilst they were supporting Jamie T. Here’s what they had to say on the then forthcoming release of their debut album Yeah, So:

The album is out soon, some of the material has been about for a while now. How did you decide what went on, what stayed off?

Charles Watson:  Most of it is pretty new actually; there are re-recordings of older songs though. It felt like an accurate representation of what we were playing live really and were enthusiastic about. There was no label pressure to leave any song on or off, although a few people made suggestions. It came together over time. I think we finalised the track listing on the last day.

There’s also the special edition isn’t there, with some b-sides / early singles and live tracks from Union Chapel to round things up.

C: That’s right.

One of my favourite venues, I wasn’t that gig but each time I’ve been there I’ve been blown away. Must be about 600 or so capacity?

C: Yeah, one of the biggest gigs we’d played at the time.

Rebecca Taylor: Something like that, not sure if we filled it out but our parents came and that kind of thing being just before Christmas as well. It’s really lovely.

So with the bonus CD was that because you wanted to put out a package or more to get the live stuff a proper release.

C: That was more the label’s idea, because we had ‘Wild Blue Milk’, ‘Christmas TV’ and ‘Me and You’ as well as those live songs.

Moshi Moshi are usually quite on the ball with that sort of thing, I did get even more of a sense from the Moshi Moshi 10th Anniversary Party {Held at Matter last year} that everything is quite close knit and family like.

Both: Oh yeah.

Charles: It’s a really nice label to be involved with; it’s weird because nearly all the bands we’ve played with are Moshi bands like The Wave Pictures, The Mae Shi and so on.

On the album there are the faster, singalong tracks but also a few slower, more reflective numbers with a fair amount of heartbreak as well.

R [in a country accent]: Aw yeah!

A few that made me go ‘’aw’ on there actually…

R: Which ones?

The opening line of ‘I Was Unconscious, It Was A Dream’: “I let you say ‘I love you’ / When I know I’ll never say it back” With the song-writing, how does that work between the two of you?

C: We don’t really have a set system. We come up with stuff and work on it together, bounce ideas off each other. We don’t spend much time in the practice room; a lot of it is just on acoustic guitars with anything else added later on. We spend a lot of time on the vocal harmonies.

R: We talk a lot about what we want to put out and we’re quite a professional writing partnership.

Have you been writing any new material after the album was finished?

R: No, we’d have liked to do some but there just hasn’t been time. It’s been a little frustrating, we’ve both been writing separately but not together which has been a bit shit. We like to work through it and that’s how a song happens. We’ve just not been able to, hopefully soon.

Are you hoping for another release, maybe an EP, later in the year?

R: We’re throwing the idea around of two EPs.

C: We’ve thought about doing a Christmas EP and a stripped-down one…

R: Sexy music, red wine

C: … with acoustic guitars and closed harmonies.

This is funny because I had a dream last night…

R: About me?

[Rebecca laughs]

…more of a late night vision anyway, about you and acts on your label covering Phil Spector’s ‘A Christmas Wish For You’.

C: We’ve been talking about that today with Andy, who’s driving us at the moment. Just discussing different Christmas songs and we all agreed that’s the best Christmas album. That ‘Silent Night’ on the end, with creepy Spector’s into. Woah.

R:  We’re going to do two EP’s the Christmas one and the chilled one with more of the emotional shit. They’re going to be wicked, can’t wait.

What’s on the Slow Club stereo at the moment?

R: Charles is well into Bhangra pop.

C: There’s a compilation called Sleepwalking Through the Mekong I’ve been playing a lot and stuff like it. It’s more about the vocals, really amazing vocal sounds then the actual songs for me. It’s basically people in the east and Indian sub-continent trying to do Shaft style soundtracks and there’s a real charm in the way that they don’t quite manage to pull it off in their Bollywood style.

R: Also DJ Skrew, who was this guy in Texas, he’s dead now, that used to drink drowsy cough syrup and sit on his porch doing this really lush slowed down, hip-hop and it’s the most lush, horrible hip-hop in the world, I love it. He made hundreds of mix tapes and had a shop he sold them in. It’s great.

Having heard the album… someone gave it to me

R: Was it a man called Mr. Illegal Download Man?

He might have given it to my someone! I didn’t ask. I’m still going to buy it as I really like it, I like the flow on it, way that you each have a solo spot before ‘Our Brilliant Friends’ and ‘Too Much Crunking’

R: It’s actually called ‘Boys On Their Birthdays’

C: We’re not sure where someone’s got that from,

It’s not called that then, just a made up guess at the title.

R: Yeah, make sure you mention that!

When describing you, a lot of writes mention the White Stripes’ song [Rebecca rolls her eyes and groans] ‘I Can Tell That We Are Going To Be Friends’ Does that annoy you?

R: Yeeah.

C: For me when people say that, it just makes me think they’re an idiot. If you actually listen to that song…

R: Some of our earlier stuff is a bit like that, duets and such. But now it’s just a lazy thing to say.

I think some of it is the boy-girl duo element. It’s not like it’s the sound they are known for. It is their only famous song that is that, hate to use the term, but twee.

R: Yeah, don’t say that.

It strikes me as strange because you wouldn’t say a band sounded like Led Zeppelin if you meant they sounded like their quieter, rustic folk songs.

C: It’s just a bit lazy, likening a band to one song

R: We’d kick ‘em in the tits if they said that

C: Mention that as well; that if you call us twee, we’ll kick you in the tits

R: and in the bollocks. And break your toes with a hammer.

C: Like a painful xylophone

Does this mean you prefer anti-folk instead?

R: Nooooo!

C: We’re not lo-fi at all, we’ve been called punk-folk but shout-folk is probably the closest anyone has come to it. Someone once called us ‘Cutes Manoeuvre’

R: Horrible

C: Good play on words though

R: Yeah, but still horrible. Cute, have you met me? Have you met Charles? Well Charles is quite nice but I’m horrible!  We’re in no way cute.

Finally, Rebecca has a reputation for telling jokes on stage.

R: I have to rely on my comedic skills to get laid.

But recently not so much….the jokes I mean!

R: Ha, I’ve been told to shut up a few times! I don’t feel that funny anymore anyway.

Slow Club’s album Yeah, So is out now on Moshi Moshi. They are playing a few dates across Canada and the USA in August before playing V Festival on the Friday at the Weston Park site. They are expected to tour the UK again in the autumn.