The Punk Archive: Are you looking forward to playing today?
Luke: Really looking forward to it, yeah. It's kinda the reason we're all here really, we're itching to get on stage. We haven't played for a few weeks, so it’ll be a good opportunity to shake off the rust!
The Punk Archive: It's a good line-up as well, isn't it…
Mike: Very good, British line-up.
James: It's nice and diverse, as well, within the scene.
The Punk Archive: Is there anyone else you're really looking forward to seeing?
Luke: I wanna watch the Kids in Glass Houses guys, obviously, it's the end of an era coming soon for them, plus we did a tour with them at the end of last year, which was good fun. They're great mates of ours.
Mike: We'll watch the Blitz Kids guys as well, they're touring with us during our headline tour.
The Punk Archive: You guys have always done the majority of things yourselves. Talk us through why you started out like that, and why you've persevered…
James: I think it was more of a mindset in the first place, probably, a stubborn mindset. Then, realising that if you're doing things yourself, they're actually getting done. If you're delegating and getting other people to do things, stuff doesn't get done, and you just end up really annoyed.
Mike: It's very easy to get frustrated in general. Every band will tell you how annoying some things are, and it's much easier to stomach if you've got yourself to blame, rather than someone else, or some company, or where you're part of a roster. So like James said, starting with that mindset at the very beginning. I don't think you'd be able to go from being pampered and labelled to doing it the way we've done it.
Luke: I think we have quite a specific vision of how we want to see stuff, which goes along with our band. We'd definitely have quite a hard time leaving some of that, albeit more boring, and indeed creative stuff in someone else's hands.
The Punk Archive: Have you kept that clear vision from day one?
Mike: I think effectively, yeah. Things have obviously changed and developed over the years, and a couple of line-up changes, but in general, there's this sort of connecting thing which goes between us where we essentially know what we're after. Whether it's attainable or not…we're yet to find out!
The Punk Archive: It's got to be fun trying to find out, though?
James: It has it's moments!
The Punk Archive: More fun moments, or more bad moments?
Luke: Depends whether you're on tour or not!
The Punk Archive: And tours are bad? Or tours are good?
Luke: Tours are GOOD. Sitting at home: not so good.
James: Yeah, being at home, sitting around thinking about being on tour and doing productive stuff.
The Punk Archive: So what do you think you would be doing if you weren't in Canterbury?
Luke: I'd be in another band!
The Punk Archive: (Laughing) OK, if you weren't in a band! Come on, help me out here!
Luke: Touring, with a band.
Mike: I think music was always meant to be in our lives, so I don't think we'd be too far away from what we're doing.
James: There is part of me, though, in all honesty which wouldn't want to have anything to do with the music industry as such, because some of it is just sharky and shit…so maybe I'd be in the mountains snowboarding, that'd be my second choice.
Mike: Something where you don't have to do any work!
The Punk Archive: So what does the rest of the year hold for you guys?
Mike: A lot more festivals like this one really, well, similar to this.
Luke: We've got a really fun summer booked. April is our first album three tour, going out with a couple of really good bands, so that should be really really fun, and then a really nice busy summer.
James: We're kinda waiting to see what happens after that really. Album out at the beginning of this year, received really well so far…
Mike: Probably a few more singles… we're just going to be driving it forward and seeing where that gets us. We've obviously got dreams and aspirations but we don't have success points where everything is good. You kinda need to just ride it out because there's so many…unsureties… everywhere.
The Punk Archive: So you mentioned the sharky nature of some of the music industry. How do you not get involved with that and keep your feet on the ground?
James: It's quite easy to not get involved with it really, to not do the socialising and networking as it were… that's where a lot of the bitching comes from I think, from those kind of meetings, and people trying to make friendships just for the sake of it. That's not genuine obviously, so if you don't involve yourself in it…
Luke: We've had some pitfalls, though, maybe in terms of management deals and things, people promising us the world but really they're promising us legal bills. It's pretty treacherous, and being a smaller band, we don't have the means to do that sort of stuff. At times, it's been quite sketchy: like why are these people literally taking the piss right now? But, you live and learn big time. We've been doing it for years now, you know: someone says to us “this could happen to your band”, and we're all straight faced and saying that we'll believe it when we see it… I think that's the important part of staying grounded, not believing anything anyone says! (laughs)
The Punk Archive: I think the refreshing honesty you have though does translate into your music, pervades through all your albums… You know, you get bands who try to do something because someone told them to, whereas that’s not the case with you…
All: Exactly.
Mike: And that's something which, since day one, we've tried to stay away from. We've never wanted to take influence from a band and then repeat that. We've always tried to write, you know, songs which don’t sound like any other band, and songs which don't sound like any other songs we've done. We've always just wanted to make really honest, good music.
The Punk Archive: In terms of the lyrics, where do you get those from? Daily life, or…
Mike: It's a bit of a strange one, the lyrics, isn't it…
James: Writing a song, really, if you're doing it for the right reasons, is a pretty self-indulgent activity. It's you on your own, or maybe two or three of you, but you're doing it there and then for you. Then, it's only weeks and months later that you realise thousands of people are going to hear this stuff, coming from literally a little self-indulgent episode in your bedroom. Wait, that sounds wrong… (everyone laughs).
Luke: From my point of view, the lyrics are in no way preconceived, like whether people are going to make this of this.
Mike: I quite like the lyrics being left open, as well, for interpretation. For me, if somebody can think that ‘for me, this means this’, then that's the cool thing.
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