Young Rebel Set: “we are a melting pot of creativity”

Young Rebel Set

Muso’s Guide’s Paul Wilson went along to Manchester’s Ruby Lounge to meet hotly-tipped Teesside newcomers Young Rebel Set, and get the lowdown on their creative ethos, tour antics and other such. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Matt Chipchase, Patrick Jordan and Andy Parmley of Young Rebel Set…

Your new digital EP, ‘Won’t Get Up Again’, is coming out on 2nd May on your own label, Our Broadcast, as have your last few releases – do you think the DIY approach has been beneficial to the progression of Young Rebel Set?

Matt Chipchase: I think it’s the right approach to take, for the moment, with all the major labels having some difficulty. It’s pointless to get signed to a major label when you’re not safe in your predicament – you get signed up and then six months later you’re dropped again. When we find a label we’re happy with, we want to be there for a long time and to be happy with it. We’ve found within the industry, that the whole rigmarole of getting in there and sorting everything out takes a massive part out of the creative side of everything so the less of that we can do the better.

Andy: DIY is what it is at the end of the day. We release what we want to release, with limited input from management and things like that.

So would that be a major factor if you were deciding between labels – the extent of the creative control they would allow you to have over your music?

Patrick Jordan: It would have to be!

Matt: The ethos behind our music is one of longevity. There’s no fashion statements. The music is there to stay so we need to be in a happy home for quite a while.

You’re from Teesside and yourselves alongside the likes of The Chapman Family are viewed as the leading lights of the region musically, what would be your assessment of the Teesside music scene in general?

Andy: I wouldn’t say there was a scene up there.

Matt: It’s not like in London where everybody follows a niche – whether it be glowsticks and you follow the hype behind one band. There’s definitely a love of live music in Teesside but there’s no scene. I don’t think it needs one because everyone there just loves a good drink and a party. You don’t need a technicolour t-shirt up there to say you love a certain band up there. There isn’t any cult followings, you’ll see a good mixture of everybody from forty year olds to daft kids – some with glowsticks – all sitting happily within a venue and just enjoying the music. If London could do that then every venue would be packed out. Down there you get looked down on if you haven’t got the right look or whatever.

Visitors to your MySpace page can receive a free download of ‘Borders’ once they’ve signed up to your mailing list. Where do YRS stand on the current filesharing debate?

Matt: I couldn’t give a shit if somebody illegally downloaded our music, to be honest. As long as someone then comes along and buys a ticket to see us then I’m happy.

Patrick: It’s definitely an issue that needs addressing, though.

Andy: The real fans will always end up paying for the music that they like and they’ll always turn out to watch you, so I think it all works out in the end.

Patrick: If you could get a fanbase of about a thousand people to buy your album and come to your gigs, you could make a living out of it and there are loads of bands that are doing that. I think record labels need to address the argument better themselves. There’s still loads of independent labels doing very well for themselves – Rough Trade are doing well and so are Fierce Panda.

Andy: We’d rather have people listen to our music than be put off by having to pay ten quid. That’s not to say they shouldn’t pay for it by any means! We are from Teesside you know!

Matt: If we catch you, we won’t be happy about it! Stealing is wrong – just don’t get caught.

You’ve done a couple of headline tours now -  is there anywhere you find that the band gets a better reception than others?

Andy: Germany!

Matt: Europe is amazing. Just the hospitality and the venues. We played nine sell out shows and two Dutch shows. To do all of that unheard of was great. We just rolled up there, expecting nothing and every venue was rammed with people singing our songs. I think the English can definitely take a leaf out of the Germans book there. They’re more inclined than the English to listen to new music just on a whim. Of course, our hometown gigs are always our favourites because that’s where our mates are and we do it for them first and foremost. We’re still unheard of in many places in this country so the first crowd you play to are just listening as they haven’t heard that many of your songs, everyone is listening so when you’re in the band you feel a bit disappointed if they don’t know you but you have to recognise that it’s their first time hearing you whereas we know the songs back to front.

In an ideal world, where do YRS want to be in a year’s time?

Matt: Just to make enough to live off, really. The industry is such a hard place to be at the moment. We struggle to keep jobs. Everybody in the band wants to do it one hundred percent but you’ve got to juggle everything else and it’s hard. Everyone is doing it to the best of their ability and major sacrifices have to be made. It’d be nice if that bit of pressure came off it. I could be happy just playing music and live comfortably like that for the rest of my life.

Patrick: We want to get an album out as well.

What are the plans for the album?

Patrick: There are plans in the pipeline. There are dates, no solid dates but some of them are October/November time.

Is that being released through Our Broadcast as well?

Matt: It’s going to be on either a major label, an independent label or…something!

Patrick: We have the capability to do it ourselves so if it comes to that then that’s what we’ll do. A lot of people are wondering where it is, as we’ve had 3 releases now with no album. We are working hard on it and it has to be right, that is the main thing.

Matt: If we can get it out before the Christmas rush, then we will.

Andy: We don’t want to be battling it out with Simon Cowell.

Matt: Whenever it is, it won’t be coming out until it is right.

There are also some solo side-projects within the band. Andy performs as Leno and Matt performs as Billy The Kid – how do these solo projects work within the band dynamic and do the help the overall YRS cause?

Matt: For me, most of the stuff I do as Billy The Kid I end up doing with Young Rebel Set anyway. Some of it I will keep for myself if it doesn’t fit for the band but Billy The Kid are our songs at the basic level as they are first conceived by me. A lot of the emotion and empathy you can lose when you bring seven instruments so it’s good to go back to the songs at their original level as they were originally intended.

Patrick: It’s just good to try things out as a solo without trying to bring seven people’s perspectives on it in, we make a lot more progress like that.

Andrew: My songs are all just ideas to and we get out there and do some solo gigs to road-test them for the full band, get them out there and rework them where necessary.

Patrick: It’s one of our great strengths I think. If it’s right for the band, you bring to the rest of us. I write as well so there’s a few of us who can get it to fit the full band sound. It’s one of the reasons we have so many songs written and waiting to be recorded because we have people in the band who can bring these things to the table. It just depends which minds they are!

You’ve said you’ve toured Europe. Now seven lads on tour for that length of time must produce some stories. Are there any you can tell us?

[All laugh]

Andy: Oh God, a moderate one? I can’t even think of one! Well, our driver drove all the way from Belgium to Stockton and picked us up – drove all the way back to Belgium for the first gig in his hometown.

Matt: He was a big fan of vampire porn.

Andy: Yeah, a big vampire porn fan. Anyway, he was the most experienced yet inexperienced driver I’ve ever, ever known.

Matt: Luke nearly got arrested when he was running around the hotel with a gold leopard-print thong on. He was getting chased by the police and everything.

Matt: Seymour, our photographer, who drinks our entire rider and is extremely lazy – he managed to fall over whilst trying to shut a door whilst also trying to turn the light off on his way out. I still can’t get my head around it.

Last question, what can YRS offer that is different and unique to the current mainstream favourites such as your Florence & The Machines and your Ellie Gouldings?

Andy: Classic songwriting.

Matt: The thing you need to understand about Young Rebel Set is that we are not pretentious. We are not trying to be part of a scene. We don’t dictate who can come to our shows and who can’t. We’re just writing traditional, classic songs which will stand the test of time hopefully. That’s what we’re aiming for, to write something timeless and classic. Fashion has dictated music for so long that it’s just taken the longevity right out of it. You don’t get legends anymore. I think Laura Marling will be classed as a legend of our time, only time will tell. You don’t have to be right in the media limelight to be making good music and put on a great show, that’s what we’re about.

Patrick: The thing I love about being in the band is the whole melting pot of creativity that we have. We don’t say songs have to sound a certain way. We just say we have this great basic track let’s see what we want to add, we don’t restrict ourselves to shying away from certain things.

Matt: We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves to any kind of genre. We want to appeal to the biggest audience we can and build on that.

No related posts.