|
Words: Lauren Murphy
They may have a reputation as one of the most raucous live acts that Ireland has seen for years, but when I catch up with Fight Like Apes in the bar of a Dublin hotel, they're as welcoming and genial as any band I've met. I spoke to MayKay [vocals/synths/recorder], Jamie (Pockets) [synths/samples/vocals], Tom [bass] and Adrian [drums] ahead of the release of their fab debut album 'Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion'.
So guys, big congrats on the album, it's quite an achievement. How does it feel to be finally releasing it - nervous, confident, both?
MayKay: Completely confident. Well, we're nervous about silly things, not nervous about what people will think about it, because there's nothing we can do about that, but..
Jamie: Nervous about getting sick or something, when we're about to go on tour..
MayKay: Yeah, not nervous about the reception to the album's gonna get - because first of all, it's completely out of our hands, and second of all, we love it, so we don't really… eh, care. (laughs)
How did the recording go in Seattle, and what was it like working with such a big-name producer like John Goodmanson?
Jamie: He was amazing. It was definitely nice to have someone with that experience when you're recording your first album. Before, we'd been so involved with the EPs that it was just a case of recording them live and sitting there, and having to worry about mixing and stuff. With John, it was just like having a mentor, it was a big comfort. That was exactly what we needed. We wanted to go to Seattle so that we could get into our own little world for a month, and hearing his stories about the city, and the grunge scene there and his involvement in it, it brought this kind of fairytale quality to the whole thing.
Speaking of fairytales, you must feel like you're in a permanent dream-state these days - everything's going so well for you. Could you have envisaged, even a year ago, that you'd have recorded your debut album with a renowned producer in Seattle, and would be doing so well here and in the UK?
MayKay: I think we definitely hoped we'd be in this position. There are so many things that have happened that just weren't on the cards.
Jamie: It was nearly a worry at the start that we were gonna rush it, and do it too fast. I mean, maybe before the second EP we could have done the album, but it would have been way too early. It's been nice to be able to bide our time and wait for the right time to do it, and we're really happy with it now - we've had the experience of both EPs, so we knew what to expect.
MayKay: Yeah, it was so worth waiting for, in retrospect. The payoff [with waiting] is that whatever happens with the album, if we could do it ten times over, we'd still do it the exact same way. A major thing for us is being happy with it 100%, and being able to stand by it.
So you're not one of those 'perfectionist' bands who listen back to what they've recorded and nitpick, saying 'We should have done this, we should have done that'?
MayKay: No, I love [listening back to the album] because it reminds me of recording. We've never been picky about little things like that - missing beats on recordings, or something - because if you start doing that, we'll just lose anything that we are, and probably just stop caring about the important stuff.
The past six months have been particularly hectic for you, in terms of press exposure and success in the UK. What's kept your feet on the ground?
MayKay: We're not mega-rich or mega-famous (laughs). We've done some really great things, and we're all ready proud of that - but at the same time, we're no massive fish in the great scheme of things - yet. I'd imagine we'll get very ungrounded in the future (laughs),but right now we've nothing to be ungrounded about.
Jamie: I think the workload has kinda kept us grounded, too. We've so many gigs at the moment that we can't afford to lose ourselves and get a big ego, because you're playing every different kind of gig imaginable. In Ireland, we're in a very different position to where we are in England at the moment - over there, we're working towards something, so we never really got to go down the whole route of 'Yayyy, we're doing well in Ireland'. Hopefully, we'll just keep going to different countries and keep being humbled.
Is going to the UK and having to play dingy little clubs on a Tuesday night disheartening, when you know that you could comfortably fill venues at home?
Tom: Sometimes, definitely.
MayKay: Yeah, sometimes it is, but it's refreshing as well - you need a kick up the ass a lot of the time. We realised that playing those tiny gigs to ten people, even though they can piss you off, is what makes the bigger gigs more satisfying.
Jamie: You kinda start to see why Irish bands often don't do that well abroad, and it's nothing to do with the quality of the music. I think it's genuinely due to the fact that once they start to do well over here, they really don't wanna go and start all over again in the UK.
MayKay: I think it just takes a serious amount of balls to dig your feet in and realise that it's not going to happen overnight. It's something we've never spoken about, though - we've never given ourselves time, or given ourselves excuses. It's always been 'Let's just keep doing it, and see what happens'. That's why the last little while has been great - we can see the work paying off, and it's amazing. And even if you play to ten people, if they're ten fans afterwards, it's cool.
Has there been one moment, though, even in Ireland, where you've thought 'Fucking hell - we've made it, we're doing it, we're living the dream'?
Jamie: You play big festivals, and you play big gigs, but last week we played a gig in London and suddenly we realised that, as MayKay said, the work had paid off. The crowd was jammed, and we'd suddenly broken through the 'London arm-folders', and people were going crazy, climbing across each other. That was a big moment for me - moreso than even Oxegen or Glastonbury or any of the festivals - although Reading and Leeds were amazing.
Tom: Oxegen was amazing for me, there were so many people there.
Yeah, your Oxegen set was great - even I was surprised by how many people came to see you.
MayKay: That's the thing. We can say all the things we want about Ireland being small, and there not being that much to do here, but being away in the UK and coming home to that crowd was just.. God, when I walked on stage, I was just like (looks to sky) 'God, thank you, thank you, thank you Ireland!' (laughs)
You've toured/become friends with a few big bands like We Are Scientists, The Von Bondies, Los Campesinos!. Have you taken any advice from, or swapped any stories with any of them?
MayKay: I think The Von Bondies was our first taste of that kind of life.
Jamie: I think they were really important to us in that sense - they were the first band that kind of set us aside and said 'Here, listen, I love how you're crazy, and you love to party and stuff, but you can’t do that every night'. I remember we bumped into Jason [Stollsteimer, Von Bondies frontman] and said 'Hey, Jason, we did it! We don't party every night now!', and he was so proud of us (laughs).
MayKay: Yeah, he was so right, though. The first thing he told me was "You can't party every night, and whenever you see a vegetable, eat it." I was like (shrugs) 'Alright, man', but it made so much sense. You cannot get vegetables on the road. Ginsters microwavable slices from service stations is as far as it goes (laughs).They were really important to us, though, they'd give us advice in a completely uncondescending way, because, plain and simple, we were inexperienced, and they knew that, and wanted to help us out. The great thing now is talking to bands like Johnny Foreigner and Los Campesinos!, who are obviously ahead of us, but still on the same page. It's great just having a conversation with someone else 'So, did you go out after the gig last night?' and they'll say 'No, we've a gig tonight', so we think 'Oh great, you don't go out either'. (laughs)
Jamie: And it's nice to meet bands like that because they're so enthusiastic as well. You always hear these stories about bitter musicians, but you meet Johnny Foreigner and Los Campesinos!, and you think 'Yayyy, we're all still having a good time, it hasn't all gone tits-up yet.' (laughs) Maybe it's the age group thing, we're all around the same age.
MayKay: They're probably just nice, as well.
Jamie: Yeah, they're just nice. (laughs)
Touring so much and bumping into these bands must mean that you've had some mad/weird experiences..
MayKay: The lead singer from the Kaiser Chiefs saw Jamie and said 'Is that the guy from Fight Like Apes?'.
Jamie: I was wrestling a girl at the time, as well, so it was a fairly embarrassing situation for all concerned.
MayKay: Maybe that's why he recognised you (laughs). What else has happened? It's funny hearing about little things like Jonathan Ross has played us and said that he loves the band, that kind of thing is really cool - and Phill Jupitus is a fan, too. Experiences like that are very odd. The maddest things that happen in general are like, being backstage at festivals. You're sitting around with Jaguar Love and Stephen Malkmus and Kasabian and The Breeders… all these people just hanging around in the backstage areas, and us being allowed in there, too. It's like 'Shit, someone is going to throw us out, someone's gonna realise we're not supposed to be in here', but after a while, you realise that are, and you try to throw your shoulders back, and click at people, and stuff. That doesn't work, though.
Jamie: We learned about 'the click', but I can't get my fingers to do it. The lead singer from Kasabian, when he clicks his fingers, he can make bottles of wine and boxes of cigarettes appear at will. Some guy goes running to get them.
You're a band who always try to make an 'event' out of your live performances - that's something that comes across as being very important to you. How many sets of pots and pans have you gone through at this stage?
Tom: You can actually buy them really cheap!
MayKay: The thing is [the use of props] doesn't happen at every gig, it's just whatever we're feeling on the day, and if we're passing a pound shop or something…
Tom: At our London gig, we found ceramic toilet seats backstage, so they were fun to use.
MayKay: Yeah, more and more people are getting hurt by us now (laughs).I think people notice that the gigs are an event, it's not just a set of twelve songs kind-of-thing. That's the only real concrete decision we've ever made as a band - we do not want to play a setlist on stage, we want to actually make it a performance, and put on a big show. It was always meant to be an entertainment thing, never just a list of songs.
Tom: Even if we have a setlist written, we rarely follow it, anyway. It's good to have, so that we don't forget anything, but they get mixed up.
MayKay: I do forget sometimes what songs we have, though. I get onstage and think 'Shit, we only have six songs, what are we going to play?'!
Jamie: We do stupid things like forgetting to play the single we've just released, too.
MayKay: Oh, we always do that. Our manager or booking agent despair when we say things like 'This is our last song, goodnight' and forget to play the single.
What are your favourite songs from the album?
Tom: I love 'Telephone..'. It's the hidden track. Oh, the real title is 'Telephone the Real Ham Jackson'. It's named after a promoter from Bristol, we drank his bar.
MayKay: He made this really lovely mistake, after a gig we'd played with The Von Bondies in Bristol.. I still can't believe the words got out of his mouth, he was like 'Guys, just pour your own drinks'. We were like '….OK!'. Anyway, his name still makes no sense. I think my favourite at the moment - it changes anytime I listen to it - would be 'Digifucker'. First of all, there's so many genres and different parts involved in that song, but it reminds me of that time in Seattle.
Tom: Who played the drill, was it you?
There's a drill?!
Tom: Yeah, we found out the drill was in the key of 'C' (laughs)
MayKay: Yeah, it was me. We pretty much wrote and re-arranged it, and it all happened so easily. The big thing was that we weren't going to play it live, but we figured it out now and it's one of my favourite live tracks. Plus, I get to say 'Did you stick things up her?' and talk about toast in the same song, which is very exciting.
Adrian: I'd have to go with two - 'Snore Bore Whore' and 'Tie Me Up With Jackets'.
Jamie: I'm in the 'Digifucker' camp.
That's a sentence I can safely say that I never thought I'd hear… so what's next for the rest of the year, more touring? Are you going to release the album in the UK?
MayKay: Yeah, at the moment, we've released 'Lend Me Your Face' over there now as a single. We're gonna release 'Jake Summers' soon, but I think it's just a case of seeing how it's going. Hopefully January is the plan for the album in the UK - everything's going really nicely over there. Other than that, we've got a really cool Irish tour to support the release, and we'll keep on truckin' in the UK. It's become far less of a job and much more of a mystery adventure. Which, to be honest, is really all that we wanted.
**********
| 
