Q&A :: Logikparty

Words: John Balfe

Logikparty's long-awaited new album Oh Cult! has finally seen the light of day and it's been worth the wait. The Dublin group are one of the dozens of excellent bands playing the Meteor Camden Crawl Dublin, which takes place on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th May at various venues across Dublin. Wristbands can be obtained via entertainment.ie/tickets for the price for €40 for both nights or €25 for one.

John recently caught up with Gib from Logikparty for a pre-Camden Crawl chat.

Before you were booked to play, how familiar were you with the Camden Crawl gigs that have been going on in London?

Yes, yes! One of us was actually over for the Camden Crawl in London a few years ago. All reports were good.

Are there any names on the line-up that you're looking forward to checking out, time-permitting?

There a quite a few actually. Girls Names, Wounds, No Monster Club, Bantum, Angkorwat, Melodica Deathship immediately spring to mind. I would have loved to have seen Iceage but unfortunately they had to pull out. There's lots of great stuff going on. It has the makings of a fine weekend!

Your debut album Oh Cult! Has just been released to very positive reviews. It must be satisfying to see such a warm response towards it?

Oh yeah. Very much so. It was the culmination of two years work from writing to releasing so we're just delighted to have it out there. It's been generally well received too. This is obviously a good feeling for us. It's always nice to get a little praise for something you've put a lot of work into. Above all, we're happy with the thing ourselves. Looking forward to getting to work at the next batch of stuff now.

Do you get a sense that the last few years and all the gigs you played across the length and breadth of the country have been leading to the moment that Oh Cult! hit the shelves?

Kinda. This is our third release so I guess the lead up to Oh Cult! being released began when we started writing it. We recorded the album in London last year. It was initially pencilled in for an October 2011 release but for various reasons that fell through. The extra wait for us to get it out there made it even more frustrating but now that it's out, it's all good! Getting the finished vinyl copies into our hands was a pretty exciting day for us. Playing live is what we like best though. Energy from the audience... and other cliches...

How does the finished version of the album compare to the ideas you had of the music before it was recorded - did the songs grow organically during the recording process?

The finished versions are quite different actually. Our producer played a big part in the process. This is exactly what we wanted though. It was seriously difficult work but also a lot of fun. This is of the utmost importance for us! The songs evolved in the recording process for sure but I wouldn't describe it as 'organically'. Maybe 'mechanically' is a better way to put it! We re-structured a bunch of tunes, added bits to some and subtracted bits from others. The buzz in the studio was great though. It was in a tiny basement with no windows and we all literally lost track of time on more than one occasion. Cabin fever blues.

How does a Logikparty song tend to take shape during its creation?

Varies from song to song but it's always born in the rehearsal room though. It's never a case of 'hey lads, I have this really nice guitar part that I wrote at home last night'. That wouldn't work for us. It mostly stems from messing about in practice and if something we all dig starts happening, we work on it. If not we scrap it and get going on something else. A lot of our songs are written around the bass line actually. i guess that's obvious enough to those who've heard us tough. Sometimes something happens by mistake. On 'Drop City', Benni started goofing around on an organ line that sounded like circus side show music. Turned out to be one of our favourite tunes on the LP!

What can fans expect to see when you take to the stage at the Camden Crawl in May?

Hopefully 35 minutes of us having a good time and in turn the audience having a good time. Mostly stuff from the new LP with a few older tunes thrown in too if they make sense.

What are the plans for the rest of 2012?

More gigs to promote the album. A few more festival slots over the summer would be great! Getting back to the UK and maybe over to the continent would be also great. We'll see. We've already started working on new stuff too so I guess developing that will be an ongoing process throughout the year. Some of us have other projects on the go too so it would be nice to get those off the ground. What will be, will be!
 

Photo credit - Kieran Frost

Story by EI Team | 09:00 | Thursday 26th April 2012 | Music

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