iNterview » Interviews

Hadouken!

iNterview — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 12:27:45 +0000

Hadouken! are an english band that doesn’t like to be described as “new rave”. Maybe because they like to combine elements of rock and dance with its musical origin in the late 90s instead of being the wet dream of nowadays hipster scene. Think Underworld, Rage Against The Machine and The Prodigy. Originally formed in Leeds, West Yorkshire they started their own record label with Surface Noise Records even before writing the first Hadouken! songs. In February 2007 then a two song vinyl was released (”That Boy That Girl”/”Tuning In”) followed by two albums so far: “Music for an Accelerated Culture” (2008) and “For The Masses” (2010).
We met James and Alice in Berlin when they played the Jägermeister Rock:Liga finals confronting them with some very special questions asked by Lara Croft-like Berliner Annikki. Have fun watching this iNterview with Hadouken! talking about their influences, ancient times, hype reproaches, Beethoven and Big Brother nominations.

Hot Chip

iNterview — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 11:34:21 +0000

As you can see, this iNterview was done in late December 2009 up on the 12th floor of Berlin’s famous Weekend club. There’s the big Ferris wheel of the infamous Christmas market at Alexanderplatz in the background – a street market held during the four weeks of Advent prior to Christmas and sometimes also referred to as a Christkindlmarkt or Weihnachtsmarkt. But don’t worry; Alex Taylor and Owen Clarke didn’t talk to us about Christmas. Some of the topics discussed here include what they think of the term “electropop”, their ideas behind the new LP, tour habits, kick drums, passport checks, DIY, DJing in Hong Kong, Ghandi, James Brown and… what their favourite toast is. Or rather, how they interpreted that particular question. Have a look for yourself and watch the lovely Helen Feng from China ask this round of questions right from downtown Beijing. Didn’t we tell you that one of the big advantages of our nifty little format is that it doesn’t matter where the interviewer is or where the questions are recorded? This is a great example of our concept’s potential. And hey, in addition to the new Hot Chip record, be sure to check out Helen’s radio show on Hit FM in China, as well as her bands Pet Conspiracy (electroclash) and Ziyo (rock) while you’re at it.

So sit back and relax, launch the embedded player of your choice (either on YouTube or head on over to Vimeo), turn HD on and pour yourself a Jägermeister (thanks for the support guys!) to enjoy this very special iNterview. It not only marks the close of our pilot phase in which we demonstrated that this media format makes total sense and works for everyone involved—you, the bands, us and our sponsor—, but it also proves that Hot Chip’s humour is maybe best described as the most Monty Pythonesque in British electropop. And we mean that as one hell of a compliment. Thumbs up guys for that one lesson: that you don’t have to laugh to be funny!

Hot Chip were formed in the year 2000 in London by Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard. With the worldwide release of “One Life Stand” over the next couple of weeks, a total of four official studio albums will now be out. The band worked on self-released songs for a couple of years before completing its current line-up through the full-time addition of occasional collaborators Owen Clarke, Felix Martin and, later on, Al Doyle in 2003. The debut LP “Coming Strong” on Moshi Moshi Records followed in 2004, with deals for other regions that were signed with DFA and EMI. Hell yeah. Later signed to EMI, it was their 2006 album “The Warning” which then received a Mercury Prize nomination, generated a great deal of attention from critics and attracted a much wider audience. Remember the singles “Boy From School” or “Over and Over”? Of course you do, unless you were living on a lonely island without any access to such top-notch indie/electropop at the time. The album “Made in the Dark” was released in early 2008 and now the start of 2010 will be greeted with the release of “One Life Stand“, yet another stunning album with songs that are “more mid-tempo and disco influenced”, as Taylor told the NME. We think the single—also called “One Life Stand”—really proves this. Parts of the video for the song are used in this iNterview episode. Don’t miss their stunning live performances to witness their charming and schizoid-like stage personalities.

Health

iNterview — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:37:53 +0000

Noise rock meets electronica: although Health are based in Los Angeles, they don’t sound like typical California stereotypes at all. Their style was once described as “artfully crafted noise and raw synth, haunting monotone vocals, and drum skills that are borderline insane.” There’s nothing really more to add except that they like to keep things in flux and do everything a little bit differently than other bands. For example, they became famous by playing several shows for free before they began giving regular concerts and recording their first self-titled album quasi live at their favourite venue, The Smell in L.A. The remix album “HEALTH/DISCO” followed immediately thereafter.
This iNterview with John Famiglietti and Jupiter Keyes was recorded in October 2009 when they played at the Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany shortly after the release of their critically acclaimed second album “Get Color“. It’s the first in a series of six iNterviews made possible by our generous sponsor, Jägermeister. The topics discussed here might be a few months old, but they’re still pretty fresh and interesting, or entertaining at the very least: Health’s 2008 tour with Nine Inch Nails, the importance of electronic music, L.A. sleaze rock prejudices, having Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine as the landlord of their rehearsal space, German umlauts, the band’s own very special merchandise and the other earth-shattering stuff mentioned here make it clear in any case that Health are not only seriously genre-bending musicians, but also a pretty funny band. So go ahead and worship them. And have fun watching.

P.S.: The video clip shown in this iNterview is “Die Slow” by Health.

Biffy Clyro

iNterview — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:45:54 +0000

Biffy Clyro are a phenomena. For nearly 15 years now the Scottish rock band has been churning out heavy, yet melodic, bass, drum and guitar-driven, triple-vocalist overloaded songs that are sometimes very complex, but always uplifting. All killers, no fillers. You can call them what you like: alternative rock, post-hardcore, experimental rock or maybe just the way power pop is defined in 2009.
And just for the record: Simon Neil (vocals, guitar) and the brothers Ben (vocals, drums) and James Johnston (bass, vocals) also happen to be extremely sympathetic and funny, which made them some of the best iNterview guests we’ve ever had in front of our cameras. We had a blast!
We were also lucky to get Uli from Berlin (Germany), Sabine from Hamburg (Germany) and Jack form Enfield (England) to ask some great questions that surprised the band. As could be expected, Biffy Clyro answered with all their entertaining charm and were also willing to do something very very special. Let’s just say it had something to do with musical chairs!
“After building a devoted cult following with their first three albums, the band expanded their following significantly with the release of their fourth, ‘Puzzle’ in 2007. The album was released to widespread critical acclaim, and went gold in the UK, selling over 100,000 units. Biffy Clyro’s popularity was built upon further in 2008 and 2009 with the release of the singles ‘Mountains’ and ‘That Golden Rule’, which both reached the top 10 of the UK singles chart. Their next album, 2009’s ‘Only Revolutions’ was also successful, reaching #8 in the UK charts and also going gold within days of its release.” Yes indeed, leave it to Wikipedia for the hard facts you just can’t ignore. Nothing else left to say other than: enjoy this very special episode of INterview!

Very special thanks go out to Sabine Klautzsch of Warner Music Germany for her trust in us, Tanju Boerue of Neuland Concerts for being incredibly helpful with the set, Neil Anderson for recognizing how much fun it was for the band and giving us the extra time we needed to finish this, the wonderful interviewers (Uli, Sabine and Jack), without whom this just wouldn’t have been possible, and, last but not least, Biffy Clyro for their stupendous performance. Thanks to everyone! Very much!

Amusement Parks On Fire

iNterview — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:50:16 +0000

Filmed in late November during the Jägermeister Rock:Liga Tour in Rostock, Germany, the latest episode of iNterview features Amusement Parks On Fire from Nottingham, UK being interviewed by their friend Brian Aubert, lead singer of the Silversun Pickups (who also recently got nominated for a Grammy). You’ll be surprised to find out who really records the APOF albums, whether the band prefers burritos or kebabs, what they think about the Terminator franchise, who likes Brian’s dog Stella the most and lots of other vital facts!
Amusement Parks On Fire were formed by Michael Feerick in 2004. He wrote and played all the instruments for the self-titled debut album released on Invada Records, a label run by Geoff Barrow of Portishead. Signed to V2 Records in 2005, their second album “Out of the Angeles” was recorded at Sigur Rós’ Sundlaugin studio in Iceland. The band is now a quintet comprised of Michael Feerick (vocals, guitar), Peter Dale (drums), Joe Hardy (keyboards/guitar/vocals), Daniel Knowles (guitar) and Gavin Poole (bass/vocals). This year in 2009, they’ve been working away on their third album in Los Angeles, which is set to be released in 2010. We’re looking forward to hearing more of their brilliant shoegaze-indie-something-rock stuff.

The video shown in this episode is “A Star Is Born“ from the EP of the same name out on V2 records. You can watch it here in full-length. (Thanks to Gary Mandel for his support by the way!)
And watch out for our special surprise guest “Schildkröte”, aka Franz Jarnach aka the sidekick from a German TV show called “Dittsche“.

Prefer to watch this on Vimeo instead of Youtube? No problem!

P.S.: the whole idea worked the other way around, to. Check out the Silversun Pickups interviewed by Amusement Parks On Fire.

Silversun Pickups

iNterview — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:31:33 +0000

In late November 2009 the Silversun Pickups took part in the Jägermeister Rock:Liga Tour. When they arrived in Rostock, Germany we had something very special prepared for them. Just one day before, in Hanover, we had invited their friends from Amusement Parks On Fire (who were also part of the same tour) to ask some exclusive questions. We also arranged for a very special guest to take part in the final iNterview experience. But see for yourself how Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger dealt with the situation. We promise you’ll enjoy it as much as everyone else involved in shooting this memorable episode. And as always: make sure you stay tuned in until the very end, it’s worth it. Enjoy!

Additional information: The Silversun Pickups are a band from Los Angeles, California. Brian Aubert (lead vocals, guitar), Nikki Monninger (bass, vocals), Christopher Guanlao (drums) and Joe Lester (keyboards) released their debut EP “Pikul” in the summer of 2005, followed by their debut album “Carnavas” in July 2006. “Swoon,” their second second full-length album, was released in April 2009 and marked a breakthrough of sorts for the alternative rock quartet hailing from L.A.’s Silver Lake music scene (which has brought forth the likes of Elliott Smith, Rilo Kiley and others). “The band’s sound, often encompassing multiple overdubs of distorted guitars, is frequently compared to that of The Smashing Pumpkins, while the band members have said they are heavily influenced by artists such as My Bloody Valentine, the Velvet Underground, Elliott Smith, Sonic Youth, Sweet, Modest Mouse, and Secret Machines as well as numerous other artists with lesser publicity,” says the omniscient Wikipedia. We say the single “Panic Switch” in particular has definitely widened the band’s audience ever since becoming a serious hit on alternative dance floors everywhere.
In early December 2009 the Silversun Pickups were nominated for a “Best New Artist” Grammy. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you guys!

Thanks again to both bands and their management, as well as Franz Jarnach, everbody else involved and all the nice people at the MAU Club in Rostock and Faust in Hanover for their help!

December 2009

The Films

iNterview — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:22:46 +0000

The Films are a four-piece band from Charleston, South Carolina (USA). They’ve toured with The Kooks in the past and released their EP “Black Shoes” in November 2006 on 7Hz Records, followed by the album “Don’t Dance Rattlesnake” in February 2007. The quartet’s second album is called “Oh, Scorpio” and came out in the fall of 2009. We met up with the band in Hanover at the Kulturzentrum Faust center, where they played the Jägermeister Rock:Liga Tour together with The Silversun Pickups and Amusement Parks On Fire. Watch Lucy and Garth–wonderfully dressed up–ask Michael and Kenneth some good questions, and check out that cute rocking horse in the background. We think we’ll call her Kati. Have fun!

December 2009

Best of 2008/2009

admin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:11:37 +0000

Five minutes and a few seconds from around 70 “iNterviews” in total which were completed over the past 15 months. Just to give you an impression of how “iNterview” works and how much fun it is. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and/or Twitter to stay informed about when the back catalogue goes online again.

December 2009

iNterview Opener (long version)

iNterview — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:00:24 +0000

This is the long version of the opener to every “iNterview” episode. It explains how the format works and is also simply a great piece of work to watch.

December 2009