Kings of Leon

Stricken City are Midlands-raised, London-based four piece who yield a back-to-basics kind of indie pop. Riding the 2001 post-punk wave of indie style makers, The Strokes and Kings Of Leon, in their formative years, they hit a mark between The Kills and Young Marble Giants with their DIY output. Amelia’s Magazine caught up with the brains and the beauty (they have both in equal measure before you jump to any conclusions) of the band, Rebecca Raa and Iain Pettifer at the launch of debut mini-album, Songs About People I Know, whilst they cut-out self designed (by Raa) bunting decor. We discuss the trials and tribulations of being unsigned, finding names and dealing with band members losses.

It seems like this album has happened fairly quickly for a new band, has it been a much longer story from your perspective?

I: Yes. We did two singles at the end of last year and the plan was that early this year, rather than put another single out, to do something more substantial. So we thought we’d put something out in May and it’s taken until October. Some of the songs on it are quite old now. Killing Time and Five Metres Apart are both the first songs we ever wrote about four years ago, so it’s a relief to have those done. But there’s a couple on there, which were written just before finished recording it.

R: It feels like this could’ve been our second album almost.

Tell me about what touring you’ve done.

R: The last thing we did was a support tour with Maximo Park, which wasn’t really promoting our stuff but we’re doing a little UK tour for our stuff, then a few shows in New York.

Wow, New York?

I: Yeah, there’s a little American label putting out the album over there, so we’re going to go out and do some shows for that. A press guy over there liked us and put us out to a few people and this tiny little label got back. We hadn’t heard of them but they sent us all the records they’d released and there was all this lovely packaging and artwork. A lot of effort had gone into them, really caringly done, so we agreed.

R: They’re gonna do a lovely 12” which will be white with some splatters on it so I’m looking forward to seeing that.

What’s been your best live experience so far?

Both: Paris.

I: It was the end of last year, we were playing with The Kabeedies and Hatcham Social. So it was quite a nice English line-up in the Flèche d’Or. It’s like an old station bar, really weird and old, like how you imagine old Paris to be. The stage has a red curtain and it draws across. It was picked by a massive French TV station the day before we played. Like at 6 o’clock, to millions of viewers. A bit like The Culture Show but more mainstream. They played a bit of our video on that and we found this thing on youtube the other day that was like video wars, where one girl picks a video and then a guy picks a video and there’s a clapometer and I think we beat T Pain. So the next day when we played in Paris and all the kids knew the words to our songs.

Illustrations from album artwork by Rebecca Raa.

R: It was so full and we were like, ‘this is bizarre’.

How did you meet?

R: We met at school in Northampton.

I: There have been about 10 different members of the band since it started. Mike joined last August. He lived with our manager’s. We were struggling for a bass player for ages and it wasn’t for like a few months, our manager suddenly realized his flat mate played bass and Mike joined. Kit joined years ago now, through a mutual friend.

How is the music scene of Northampton?

R: I think it got better since we left.

I: I think it got better then it got worse didn’t it?

R: A lot of Emo kids. It’s got some good venues. You saw The Libertines and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs there.

I: There was a really good period just before I left where The Libertines played, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Kills. But we’ve lived in London since we were 18. We grew up there but it’s not really got anything to do with the band anymore.

Which bands were you listening to then?

R: When we were there it was The Kills, Kings Of Leon, Libertines.

I: Yeah, 2001. I had better taste than that though. I listened to all those bands, but my sister had a boyfriend at the time that was a bit older. He made her mixtapes which I took. Things like Young Marble Giants, Slint, it’s hard to find like-minded people like that.

Are there any individuals that you’re particularly thankful to?

R: So many. We’ve totally relied on people for favours and support. Because we’re not signed, we have to do everything ourselves. Money has got to come from somewhere.

How do you manage to put your recordings out, being unsigned?

I: The first 7” was through our manager’s label at the time, which she doesn’t do anymore, Adventures Close To Home, who put out Free Blood and Holy Hail. The second one we did with Blue Flowers which was good but there’s only so much a small label like that can do.

R: This one we were really lucky that Pure Groove were helping us because thisis the one that was going to cost a lot of money. That’s the problem, who puts up that initial investment?

I: It’s nice that people are helping and doing little bits for us but that we’re not tied to anything.

R: All our artwork and stuff we can do what we like with it. No one is telling us what to do.

You two write the songs, tell me about that process.

I: I tend to occasionally have a backlog of four or five ideas. Then either as a band we develop that, or Rebecca will pick it up and add to it.

R: Sing it in the kitchen, play it the lounge.

I: There’s a song that we’ve finished now that we’ll play tonight which took about three months from having the idea to getting it together. But then Pull The House Down, which is on the record, was literally written in a rehearsal with nothing pre-planned. The recording on there is the weekend after it was written. There’s a mix of real spontaneous stuff and drawn out processes.

Tell me about your music videos.

I: We forgot to make one for Five Metres Apart. There was a long process of ‘shall we make one?’… ‘yeah, we’ll talk about it at the weekend’. And it just never happened. The video stuff is really important to us. There’s a DVD with this album that has some short films we did on a Super 8. We don’t like to just do something for the sake of it. Whatever we do has to be a step up from what we’ve done previously. The whole aesthetic has to fit together nicely.

If one of you left the band, who would be the ultimate replacement?

R: I’ll leave and it can just be a boy band.

I: We’ll get Alex James in if Mike leaves. If you leave, we’ll get someone from Jimmy Eat World to do vocals and go Emo. There is an all male version of Stricken City, which is called Bison Bison Bison, so if she leaves we’ll revert to that. It happened once, it’s on myspace, it’s a secret.

R: It’s Ian’s dream.

I: Or Man Up, our other mythical band.

Who would you love to cover one of your songs?

R: A bit too ambitious maybe, but Dirty Projectors. It’d be so nice to hear what they would do with one of our songs, they have such amazing arrangements and vocals, I love them.

I: David Byrne would be good. I heard him do a cover of a Fiery Furnaces song once and he wrote a whole new verse. That’s his way of covering, it was really good.

If you had to play your music in a different style, what would you choose?

I: Bossanova, they used to do that in the 60s didn’t they? Every band’s album came out in a bossanova version. Beatles bossanova. Everybody loves bossanova.

Who are your friends in the biz?

R: Gold Panda, he’s our friend.

I: He did a remix of Lost Art, but it doesn’t sound anything like our song. You can play Spot The Stricken City in his remix, there’s a little guitar part of ours. But I really like it.

How did that remix come about?

I: We gave it to Andy from Tin Can Telephone to remix and he gave it to Gold Panda because he’d done both of our tracks. We started Gold Panda’s career.

R: We were his first remix, after us he got loads and gets paid really well for them now, thanks to us.

Tell me about the brackets you use in your name.

R: I was looking through a magazine and it’s really hard to get a recognisable logo or font or symbol, that makes people think of your band.

I: It’d be good if people started using it. If when they used our name, it had to have the brackets.

How did you decide on your name?

I: It was the name of a piece of sheet music – The Stricken City. It’s really hard to come up with names you like. We had one called The Smithereens after Richard Hell’s movie, but there already was a band called The Smithereens. All the good ones have been taken. Most bands have rubbish names but after a while you don’t question it. Like Razorlight, that’s a rubbish name.

R: Oasis?

I: I think if we started now maybe we’d come up with a really snappy one word name, like Wavves, Trees, Girls.

I: There’s a band called Women as well. And Men. When we were on tour we used to talk about being called Your Mum and Your Dad, so that if you went to see them you’d go, “what’d you do last night?” “I went to see Your Mum and Your Dad.”

Ian you studies film at university, is it still a part of your life?

I: Yeah, we always wanted to make a film, where one album would be the sound track to our film. So maybe one day we’ll do that. Like The Shadows and Rebecca will be our Cliff Richard.

Songs About People I Know is out now on Pure Groove Records.

Written by Katie Weatherall on Wednesday November 11th, 2009 6:38 pm

Categories ,gold panda, ,Hatcham Social, ,interview, ,Kings of Leon, ,libertines, ,Stricken City, ,The Kills, ,young marble giants

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