28 Costumes @ Liverpool Music Week

United Kingdom | by Ross Purdie | 11 December 2007

28 Costumes have been involved with Liverpool Music Week since the beginning and were among the acts deemed good enough to be taken to SXSW by the LMW organiser Mike Deane.

The Flaming Lips’ singer Wayne Coyne selected the band to appear on the Jay Leno Show after watching them and their ‘Electrical Fever’ EP is out now on the Invicta Hi-Fi label.

VF: 28 Costumes: tell us a little bit about yourself.
Chris: “We’re a Liverpool based band and we have been for the last four years and we’re here at Liverpool Music Week doing an interview with Virtualfestivals.com.”

VF: You played at the Carling Academy on Friday, how did that go?
Tony: “It was great. I really enjoyed it. I didn’t expect it to be what it was when I read what the bill was. Then we got there we were in the big room with Good Shoes and Hot Club De Paris so it was a really good gig. We did a 20 minute set.”

C: “I think there were about 800 people in there when we played and we started at 8 O’clock, so it was overwhelming. When we watched Hot Club De Paris it was sold out by then, so we really enjoyed it.”

VF: How have you seen Liverpool Music Week evolve?
C: “We’ve been involved since the word go. It started in 2003 and it was basically in this really swanky pub that nobody ever really went to and it was big enough to fit three stages in. It was really good then because it was just Liverpool bands. Every night there was around 600 people there no matter what the line-up was, so everyone was always brilliant. It has got bigger each year and it seems it’s taken a massive leap from last year with bands like Hard-Fi. So Mike Deane has been really dedicated to it from day one. We did an event at SXSW as well. It was us, Hot Club De Paris, Eugene McGuinness and The Wombats and that was a Liverpool Music Week event as well.”

VF: What bands should people be looking out for this week?
C: “There are so many to choose from but one of the best one’s for me is on at Bumper [a venue] with Elle S’Apelle, Voo, SSS and Indica Ritual. That’s going to be a great night and then there is a night called Meshuggy which is just a long-running indie night that puts on some really good bands. Kong and Cowtown are playing. Then on Saturday there is another great night in Korova [another venue] with Down And Outs and Bow And Arrow – so there is loads. But they are my big ones.”

VF: With the likes of Hot Club De Paris and The Zutons coming out of Liverpool are there any up-and-coming bands you think are destined to gain great popularity?
C: “Elle S’Appelle are starting to do really well at the moment and we’re friends with Andy from Elle S’Appelle. We’ve done some recording with them and they came and did some shots of their video in our practice room and stuff. They’ve had a single out on Moshi Moshi and they’ve got so many people behind them. [Steve] Lamacq has been playing them loads.”

T: “They’re with Lamacq today.”

C: “Yeah they’re doing a session with him. I think they will be the next ones that start doing really well.”

VF: That ‘Little Flame’ tune is excellent. How would you explain your sound to people that haven’t heard you?
T: “We’ve tried to be really eclectic rather than just following a formula. So we try to write different songs and make our sets as varied as possible. Sometimes we write songs that are give out the best performances like three minute tunes, but there are tunes that are a lot darker, more atmosphere – bigger in scope. We’re starting to record a new album and early next year we’re going to come back with a completely new set and we’re going to take two months off gigging to write the album. We’re going to come back with a bigger, darker, spectacular sound.”

C: “Yeah I think we’re going to concentrate on the darker side because it’s sort of easy to write three and a half minute songs and there are loads of people doing it now. We’ve also run out of things to say in-between songs, so for this album at least, we’re going to try and condense the songs that we write into one area.”

VF: What makes it darker?
C: “It’s everything really. The lyrics always seem to be a lot more personal on the dark songs and the guitar parts are always bigger and epic opposed to quite stop-start, jangle riffs. We’re going to go more soundscape.”

VF: Is there anyone you can compare yourself to?
T: “Not that we sound like them, but we’re into creating soundscapes like Sigur Ros and groups like that. We sound sort of early The Cure. We are trying to recruit a new member for next year as well.”

VF: To do what?
T: “Loads of things. We were hoping to get a multi-instrumentalist really. We want someone that can play violin and keyboards.”

C: “And a little touch of glockenspiel, that would make it a little bit more exciting to watch live.”

VF: Is it a very guitar-based sound at the moment?
C: “It’s just guitars at the moment but we’re trying to introduce those instruments in the next year.”

VF: Have you got a producer yet for the new album?
T: “We’ve been thinking of a few people. We’ve always worked with the one producer mainly called Rob Whitely and with Tony Platt for the single. Tony Platt had worked with AC/DC and Led Zepplin and he’s this old guy who is says things like: ‘Right this is what we’re going to do,’ and he is very much like stick them in a room and play live.”

C: “He is more suited to the three and a half minute jangly songs because he’s very: ‘right go and do it’. We’re thinking of few different people though to be honest. We’ve just done some recording with Andy from Elle S’Appelle and we’re see what they sound like, but I don’t know how much time we’re hoping to go to Berlin to record it. We’ve worked with some guys in Berlin before.”

VF: It’s a good place to make a dark album.
T: “Yeah, especially if you go in February and its freezing. We toured last January and it was quite nice weather when we left here and when we got to Berlin in was minus 20 and under a foot of snow and some of us didn’t have coats! We did a gig and all got absolutely lashed and stayed in this hotel, walked out the door in denim jackets and there was snow up to our knees.”

VF: So you’ve learned your lesson for next time?
C: “Yeah, we’re going to go in pig skins.”

T: “Berlin has been good to us though. We’ve been there a few times and played some amazing gigs there, met some amazing people and we’ve just fallen in love with the place.”

VF: Many think of artists like David Hasselhoff in Berlin. Is there a big scene out there?
T: “There is a load of places that were built during the eighties on the east side. This guy did some sound-engineering for us and he’d got in trouble for trying to climb the wall in the eighties. He built this studio himself, which took him years to do, in this backstreet apartment with tonnes of concrete in the walls and stuff and the place has so much character to it. And we’re trying to record an album in there and this place is so inspiring and it’s something different to what we’ve done before.”

C: “We’ve been quite lucky as well because when we first went to Berlin we were hooked up with people who knew the scene and the underground, so we never went to the crap bars or the tourist bits. We’re immediately shown these really cool places like this massive building that had been converted into practice rooms that were seven storeys high and really long. Downstairs is a bar with a man-made beach outside, but in the building there are practice rooms where you can just go around and sit down and have a drink, even if a band is playing. Its places like that really made the experience unique.”

VF: Did you meet anyone famous over there?
C: “We played with The Bishops on the first night and they were nice guys and then we played with The Black Keys. They had played a gig earlier on with Pearl Jam and we were just having a drink with The Black Keys and Eddie Vedder [Pearl Jam] came in.  I didn’t really know who he was to be honest because I don’t really like Pearl Jam but someone recognised him. My girlfriend at the time was a huge fan so we went up to him and he men the size of houses around him. Then we went behind the curtain and everyone was really nice. There was a tiny Eddie Vedder saying: ‘Hi guys how are you?’”

VF: He’s a nice guy then?
C: “Yeah he’s dead nice actually. He drew my girlfriend a little picture and gave her a plectrum that said: ‘EV’ on it. That’s what I want to aspire to: a plectrum with my initials on it.”

VF: How would you compare the Berlin scene to the Liverpool scene?
C: “It’s difficult to say because where we live we know everything that’s been going on and the cliques and the way it works. I imagine there is not a lot of difference in the way it works but because Berlin is more exotic and new to us it makes it a lot more exciting. Plus we made a great group of friends who we hung out with. As a scene it’s just as healthy as here and there is this great club that we had a residency with called The Magnet Club - it was the best indie-pop club I’ve been to in my life. It was rammed and when we first played there no one knew us but there were still 400 people that went completely nuts and because we had that first great gig they kept coming back all week.”

T: “There is sense of energy to it that’s dead exciting. The lad who was booking the bands at Magnet at the time was the youngest major promoter in Berlin. He was telling me that when he was a kid they weren’t allowed to have a radio or anything so the parties are just like: ‘Woah, wow,’ because everything has exploded from when they were kids until now. It’s taking off and it’s exciting.”

C: “He also used the work ‘party’ more than anybody else ever. He was like: ‘Right guys we’re going to have a party after the gig. But after that party, that won’t be the real party, because we’re going to go to this party and that will be the real party until the party afterwards – that’ll be the real party!’”

VF: If Berlin is fresh and exciting would you say Liverpool is stuck in the past?
C: “The one thing that Berlin hasn’t got is one of the most famous bands in the history of music [The Beatles] holding it back. Well, not holding it back but everyone in the history of Liverpool mentions The Beatles. It’s inevitable but I suppose Berlin hasn’t got that rich music heritage, so it seems a lot fresher. The bands that came out of Liverpool four or five years ago were all on the bandwagon clique and you’ll read in the NME about bands in the ‘this is it’ pigeon hole.”

VF: Like what?
C: “Like The Coral, The Zutons and The Stands.”

T: “There was a whole scene at the time. A bandwagon that was their nightclub, The Bandits night at the time, at the Zanibar and The Zutons and The Coral spawned from there.”

VF: What was the night called?
C: “The Bandwagon. It was quite famous for a while. The NME jumped on board and make this whole fictitious scene that didn’t really exist.”

VF: Was that at the turn of the century?
C: “Yeah when The Coral first broke through.”

T: “In the last year it seems it doesn’t matter anymore. Most of the bands that have come through since Hot Club De Paris that haven’t become massive don’t really fit into any one scene which is kind of a good thing.”

C: “All the Liverpool bands drink together, you don’t really see a Zuton walking down the street, not that we’re mates with them, but everyone gets on fine and they’re dead supportive.”

VF: What’s next for you guys?
C: “We’re going to write the album. Maybe we’re going to release a single first, we’re see how the recordings sound and then come back in March for a tour, the album and singles.”

VF: Is it going to be a nationwide tour?
T: “It should be a European tour. We’re going to try and get some Dutch dates, French dates and obviously German dates.”

VF: The whole Germany thing, is that just one side of the European offensive?
C: “We’ve got a booking agent in Ireland so we can go back there and the same with Germany. So we just need to get a bit of a tour of France really.”

T: “We’ll try and get a few Dutch dates and we’ll go up and down the UK in a Mercedes van.”

VF: How long have you been together?
C: “It’s always been be and Tony, we founded the band in 2002 and then we wrote the songs together and jammed the songs and practiced them throughout the year. Then we had a drum and bass player join, but overall since 2002.”

VF: Is touring still fun?
T: “I don’t think it can ever not be fun because something exciting always happens, and if not exciting something interesting does.”

C: “We’re on a shoestring in a crappy van, well we can’t say crappy van because it’s served us so well, but it smells.”

VF: What are the best stories?
C: “Whenever anyone asks us that I can never think of one because there are so many. One that springs to mind is in Ireland is when we were doing a press conference for a festival in Kilkee.”

VF: What’s the festival called?
C: “Cois Fharraige, it’s a Gaelic name that means ‘by the sea.’ We got lashed after the press conference, which was right on the beach, and it got to ten at night so we did the clichéd thing and took all our clothes off and lasted about two minutes in the water. Tony robbed all our clothes and ran off back to apartment. So we were left in this dead sleepy village surrounded by old Irish people saying things like: ‘Oh what’s going on there?’ We were legging it through and me and Geoff got back to the apartment and Ally couldn’t find the fucking door because he was so pissed. So we were shouting: ‘It’s just to the left, go up the stairs and there’s the front door.’ And he was shouting: ‘Just let me in, stop being shady.’ So we thought: ‘fuck this we’ll phone the police’ and we said: ‘There’s a maniac outside running around and shouting and he’s completely naked.’[The band laughs hysterically] There’s another time when we were in Berlin with insane sound engineer that travelled with us. We were in this tiny bar that was full of people and he had this all-weather Royal Mail jacket on.”

T: “Where he got it from I don’t know. It must have been worth a couple of hundred quid.”

C: “So we were in this bar having a smoke and a drink and we’re sniffing and were like: ‘It stinks man,’ and there was loads of smoke coming from behind us. We were like ‘Scott mate you’re on fire!’ He must have lit a ciggy and put it into his pocket, so he was like: ‘Shit!’ He took out his wallet and put it out and he was like: ‘Phew. Jesus Christ.’ Carried on going through the story he was telling before we told him he was on fire and he was still on fire!”

VF: How has Liverpool Music Week been in terms of debauchery?
C: “Not so much yet but its early doors. It started on Thursday and at the New Young Pony Club gig. Friday it got a bit much actually after the Good Shoes gig. It’s starting from tonight. It’s all downhill from here really.”

VF: Does it still feel like a real festival?
C: “Yeah especially this year with so many bands playing. It’s always got bigger each year and has always got more impressive and that’s more like a festival. The amount of bands compared to last year is just incredible. There must been a thousand bands or something.”

VF: Are most from Liverpool?
C: “A lot are from Liverpool but I’d say about a third aren’t, like Remi Nicole and that.”

Ally: “I think Mike [Deane] is trying to do something like SXSW. Obviously he can’t do it on that scale.”

VF: Liverpool has got a lot of venues.
C: “Yeah it has, but saying that there are a lot of places that aren’t actually venues that have been turned into venues.”

VF: It’s like Brighton who have done this with the Great Escape and Manchester have done it with In The City, but they’re more industry.
C: “That’s what’s more enjoyable about it because you’re not thinking such-and-such might turn up - you just play. We’ve played In The City a couple of times and it’s not like real gigs. But in Liverpool we’ve always done something special. Last year we had a king-size duvet full of balloons and we just kept it on stage and nobody knew what it was. Then during one of the songs we blast it into the audience and all of sudden there were tonnes of balloons everywhere.”

VF: Are there any secrets you can give away for your set this week have you got any special lined up?
T: “We have actually. But I don’t think we’re going to start giving it away yet because it starts to get predictable, so we’re going to keep it under our hat until the night.”

C: “Last year I threw a load of lollipops out and a girl was like: ‘What about me?’ So I threw one out and it twatted her right in the eye! No it was her lip and she came up to me afterwards and she had a big fat lip and I was like: ‘I’m so sorry.’”

T: “A freebie turned into an assault.”