Shy Child Interview – 3/2/10

I had the pleasure of meeting Nate and Pete from Shy Child on Wednesday for a chat at the Social. Thanks again to Matt at Stayloose for arranging it, twas an absolute pleasure. Scribed below is a slightly shorter version of our chat. If you fancy the full, unabridged, coffee cup clinking version you can download the audio here in the next few days. Their album ‘Liquid Love’ is out on March 1st.

M – Yeah it works surprisingly well, so welcome to London guys, is this yr first time over. (the phone, for recording)

Pete – You got your phones all cracked there, I like that.

M – It happened the other night actually; I managed to fall in a river.

Pete – Where?

M – Near Banbury, sort of Oxfordshire, and ended up in hospital for a few days which was hilarious. But the phone survived all of that time and then got a little bit wet, which did not agree.

So it’s been a while since your third album, apart from working on number four what you guys been up to?

Nate – That’s pretty much sucked our live the past twelve months, now we are just ready to play and tour,

M – Generally Live the rock and roll lifestyle?

Pete – Nooo, I buy into the cliché, I’ll do it, I don’t care, I embrace it!

M – It’s not a bad way of living.

Pete – It’s not great, it’s not bad it’s not good. It is good, am I complaining?

Nate – It’s a bit wishy washy,

Pete – I’m going with the flow man, what’s wishy washy about that? That’s cool; it’s a cool attitude.

Nate – What, wishy washy is a cool attitude?

M – Maybe demure is a better way of looking at it?

Nate – That makes me think, your that your demure, so you don’t put out.

M – Casually acceptant of the stardom being forced upon you.

Pete – Yeah, I’ll buy that.

M – I’m a huge fan of the new album, that tune disconnected, hmmmm, yes it’s a lovely bit of euphoric pop, do you guys have any particular favorites?

Nate – I like ‘Take Us Apart’, probably my favorite right now.

Pete – I like the way that ‘Open Up The Sky’ came out, it’s in the middle of the record. I like that one right now. It changes, I’ve listened to it so much lately.

Nate – There is not a track which stands out as one I don’t like, you know I’m like skip that.

Pete – I’m not yet sick of it, I know that day will come when I can’t listen to it. But the fact it hasn’t happened yet for me.

Nate – It’s a good sign. A really good sign.

M – I take it you must be loving playing the album live, it’s had a lot of positive reaction, how’s it going down live?

Pete – We’ve only played two shows so far with the new set up.

M – Pray tell, what’s new?

Pete – We have two new band members, which we wanted to add as the album has so many vocal harmonies and other bits that I can’t play with just two hands.

M – It’s just been you guys up until now…

Nate – Yeah, and then we added a bass player and another singer.

M – They couldn’t make it over to London I take it?

Pete – No their here, we played with them last night.

M – Are they hiding away in a hotel room recovering?

Nate – Pretty much.

M – So there has been a lot of talk about how the accessibility of digital single has destroyed the album as an art form, I know ACDC were up in arms about it last year, what are your thoughts on that?

Pete – The album as an art form for me is totally overrated, I think recorded music in general as a sellable item is overrated.

Nate – I don’t have any allegiance to the album as a format to express whatever you want to do.

Pete – Singles are cool, two hour tracks are cool, whatever the format to me is not that interesting.

Nate – It’s about the content. In fact, if people stopped thinking about the album as an art form there are a lot of cool things you could do, lots of ideas. You know lets record and release a single every month.

Pete – Yeah, or make a movie. Have your music only accessible in a video. Not even release the track. This idea of the album as the quintessential product of a band or artist is very outdated. I mean The Beatles, yeah they had great albums, The Beatles mastered that. Who’s mastered it since than?

Nate – I like old albums just for what they are, I like putting on a record but mostly I just want to hear a good song. I just want to hear some good music, I don’t care if there are like ten or twelve tracks.

Pete – But I suppose it’s harder to market a single coming out every month, the way the business is structured it’s entirely around albums, which is why everyone is freaking out.

M – So it’s more the labels not the artists?

Pete – It’s the labels, the radio…..

M – I’m a great believer that once music has been released it becomes part of the popular conscience, in a sense it belongs to the population after that point as different people have the right to interact with it as they choose. Would you agree with that?

Nate – Absolutely, I just read this interview with Brian Eon about how music sales are non-existent and over the past decade they are getting lower, like shockingly low.  The point being that the history of music and popular culture is so small and special and weird that why should we be afraid to let it go?

Nate – It’s only been a few decades, it worked it kind of didn’t work let’s move on.

M – Interesting, how would you guys move the record industry on, what would be your utopian plan?

Nate – I don’t know, we have to work in the confines of the industry for better or worse.

M – It’s very soft deterministic in that sense, freedom within a box. So, the three bands that screamed out to me on the last album are Midnight Juggernaughts, Chromeo and the Klaxons. I understand you remixed a Midnight Juggernaughts track too?

Pete – Yeah, it’s not our best remix.

Nate – We dropped the ball with that remix. Their a band I really enjoyed touring with, all three of those bands I like.

M – Would you say there is any particular affinity between you guys?

Pete – I mean Klaxons we’ve toured with them, we’ve played with Chromeo but not toured, we toured with the Midnight Juggernaughts too.

M – I’ll have to skip ahead now, on the subject of touring. You’ve played with Blork, Hot Chip and Muse. Any particular highlights there or incriminating stories you’d like to share?

Nate – I don’t know, all those shows you mentioned were very strange for different reasons. We were with Bjork at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, which was really intense and weird.  It was outside on the steps of the opera house, we were facing the Opera House, which was cool, nothing that incriminating though.

Pete – The Muse show was at a huge arena so again it was very surreal.

Nate – That was the most surreal show, the crowd was so far away that you couldn’t read them at all. You couldn’t see anyone’s faces.

Pete – I don’t know why people play such big shows, the stage was massive and we were set up in like 5ft by 5ft of it.

Nate – This like taped off little square.

Pete – What was the other band?

M – Hot Chip…

Pete – We toured with them in the States. We were in a shitty old car.

Nate – Like a station wagon. It was just us two and our friend was driving us, and they were on a tour bus. So they could drive fifteen hours and it’s not a big deal, they could sleep or whatever. We had no such luxuries. We’d have to do like twelve hour drives and not sleep.

M – They didn’t share?

Nate – It’s cool, I wouldn’t share either. Whatever, it’s not their fault. There were a lot of people on that bus. They have a big band. I just remember being Chicago and having to be in Seattle two days later which is like an insane distance.

Pete – We made it.

Nate – Yeah, we did make it. But I remember Hot Chip’s tour manager was convinced we weren’t going to show up.

Pete – Our car sounded really crappy.

Nate – Oh, it wouldn’t steer properly.

M – Sounds like a bit of a calamity. Though it must have been quite entertaining.

Pete – Yeah, they were a great band to tour with, great fun to watch.

M – What do you think of their new album?

Nate – I’ve only heard a few songs from it.

M – And there I was thinking you guys being famed musicians would be more in the know than me.

Nate – I like the tracks I’ve heard a lot, that one song called ‘Take It In’ I really like that one. What’s that other one?

Pete – Stand…….?

Nate – One Life Stand….

M – Really interesting album title I thought, clever.

M – So Brooklyn, it’s a bit of a cultural hotbed at the minute? What with Chairlift, TV on The Radio, you guys, there is a lot of interesting music coming out of there right now. Can you shed any insight on the ‘scene’ as such?

Nate – I don’t know, I don’t feel we function in a scene, there are some great bands coming out of there though. I think it’s funny because people think of New York City, in a musical sense as Brooklyn. I mean bands might not be from Brooklyn, but if there in anyway a part of New York City, it’s like yeah, they are from Brooklyn.

M – would you say things have moved forward from that Rock resurgence that The Strokes brought forth?

Pete – Yeah, there is definitely a new wave, it started about two years ago. There are still a lot of guitars though. Guitars are cool, I’m not good at playing them but I like them.

M – I wouldn’t even try. So to festivals, you guys have played Leeds / Reading and Bestival, do you have any comments on the variation between the two?

Pete – Reading was great, I don’t remember Leeds that much.

Nate – Leeds was like, kind of like Reading.

Pete – Yeah, but it was like the day after right? I wish we could have stayed at Bestival longer, we got there on the first day and had to leave as we had a show somewhere else. I wish we could have stayed a day or two.

M – It’s a great festival, so your playing a couple of UK dates,….

Pete – Yeah, we’re playing London tomorrow, and then two weeks in March, no a week in the UK and a week in Europe. We’re playing on March 1^st at the ICA.

M – And what are your plans for the summer?

Pete – Festivals, we’ll be finding out soon.

M – So has there been a plan, and if so has it worked?

Pete – We planned on expending the band and I think that was successful, we planned on pulling off these new songs and I think that was successful, we don’t have a master plan though, like long term goals.

Nate – It’s more like you want to make god laugh, make a plan.

Pete – He will, he’s a vengeful God, why? Whhhy.

Nate – Nah, Gods cool.

M – I’m not so sure…..

Pete – If there is a God, he doesn’t have a big white beard, he doesn’t live in the clouds. I know that much.

Nate – What if he does? Then you’ll feel stupid.

Pete – Then I’m wrong.

Nate – These stereotypes exist for a reason you know.

Pete – The vengeful God Stereotype, maybe for Michelangelo.

M – So, outside of God, which artist do you think is the most interesting at the minute?

Pete – I really liked playing with ‘O Children’, band we played with last night. I don’t want to say what genre they are, it’s rock. Really enigmatic.

Nate – They have a vibe.

M – What’s the most pleasurable thing about making and performing music to you guys?

Pete – It’s a lot of things. I think if we tried to figure that out it would be a bad thing. I want the magic to still be there.

Nate – It’s fun, the studio process is really fun particularly.

M – Is there anything particularly interesting in your world you’d like to share with us today?  Apart from whether or not God is vengeful, his physical appearance and manifestation to us.

Pete – Let’s come up with a topic and we’ll just riff on it…..

Nate – I can’t just…give us a topic and we’ll….

M – Ok, now you’re putting me on the spot. Never a good idea,

Pete – Flipping the script….

M – You come here with a list of questions and suddenly oh god,

Pete- Uhhhhm, what’s with this coffee. It’s the sort of coffee you keep on pouring milk into and it doesn’t turn white.

M – As New Yorkers, your quite into coffee? Any variation between the UK and US?

Pete – I’m a coffee Nazi.

Nate – In London I tend to have Cappuccinos, those are safer in London. If your going to make one you have to have the kit. And kind of know what your doing.

M – Unlike instant coffee.

Pete – Yeah, you might get that stuff, what’s it called – Nescafe Gold? I was complaining about some instant recently, and the guy who served it was all like what’s wrong? Don’t you like it? Why are you such a purist? It’s just a coffee. I was like what, this shit obviously sucks. I’m not being a little bitch by saying this is obviously bad.

Nate – Make him like a really crappy cup of tea and then ask him what’s the matter, why don’t you like it.

Pete – Ahh, he just can’t understand why that would be so egregious.

Nate – He’s a tea guy.

M – We’re not all completely obsessed with tea over here.

Pete – What do you drink?

M – Predominately coffee. A bit of a purist too, not a fan of the gold Blend. So dead or alive who would be your favorite artist to sit down and have a coffee with?

Pete – Dead or alive, they might not be a musician. Some other mind-bending character, Andy Warhol? That would be an interesting conversation.

John Cage?

Nate – Good one. What would you talk about with Albert Eisler?

Pete – Just hang, just hang out. I feel like the cult of artist personality has got really diluted in the past ten or twenty years. You know, the cult of the artist, as like an auteur personality today that is not so distinct, do you know what I mean?

M – Would you say that is to do with the monetization of culture?

Pete – Absolutely,

Nate – But at the same time, it is what is.

Pete – I know, I’m not complaining, it’s cool.

M – Are you going to see any London culture whilst you’re here?

Nate – Nah,

M – We’ve got our galleries too.

Pete – Yeah, I’m into all that stuff.

Nate – What’s at the Tate these days?

M – I think they have a big black box. People have been getting injured.

Nate – Nice.

M – And what’s your name about, any reasons in particular?

Nate – Nothing in particular,

Pete – We just liked that it was weird and a little awkward,

Nate – It’s really to hard to say apparently if your French. Like Sha sha or something? They told us once in an interview that our name was really to hard to say if you were French.

And there you go.