INTERVIEWING THE LONG BLONDES (By Ben Shafran)

The first interview of 2006 is with the hottest Sheffield band since, erm, Arctic Monkeys. We caught up with The Long Blondes on the last night of the NME New Bands Tour to discuss the Sheffield, signing for Rough Trade, and backstage run-ins with Marilyn Manson.

How’s the tour going?

Dorian (guitar): It’s been going really well. This is the last night, obviously, and it’s just got better as the tour has been going on. The audiences have been really good. The general reaction to all four bands [Boy Kill Boy, The Automatic, ¡Forward, Russia! and The Long Blondes] has been really pleasing and the other three bands have been a joy to get on with.

Can you tell us how the band formed?

Screech (drums): I can’t remember, it was so long ago… A forum for compulsive liars (laughs). We all sort of claimed we could play musical instruments and thought we’d form the best band in the world. It turned out that we couldn’t but we thought we’d continue anyway, for want of anything better to do.
Dorian: It was too late to stop.

When you formed, did you have a set of ideas of what you wanted the band to sound like and look like?

Dorian: Well, look like… no. We kind of got together because we looked like we did anyway. We didn’t choose a look. I mean, would you choose to wear yellow trousers? (laughs, pointing at Screech, who is wearing a kind of spandex yellow trousers).

Sound like… the idea of that was just that none of us have ever been in a band before, so we just thought “it’s not as if anyone’s going to come in and start riffing”. We just thought we’d sound how we can. It was more a matter of playing to our strengths.

You’ve been getting a lot of support from the likes of NME and Steve Lamacq. That must have made it easier to reach audiences…

Screech: Any support is good support. And when it’s coming from people as high up as NME and Steve it’s always helpful. It can’t hurt to have people writing about your music and it getting played on the radio. It means people are aware of us. So yeah, it’s been really helpful.

Does it also mean there’s added pressure?

Screech: I don’t think so.

Dorian: We like the pressure though. It’s better to have pressure than to have no interest at all, you know? I think a lot of bands at the moment would kill for the kind of pressure that we’ve got (laughs).

So now that you’ve signed to Rough Trade, do you feel like you’ve got it made?

Dorian: Well, we’ve still got to do gigs, the album… it’s not like we don’t have to do anything at all. I just want to be like Bono, who just gets money for being Bono (laughs). Yeah, I’ve still got to come to Camden… It’s not a bed of roses by any means.
It’s good to be with Rough Trade though, because they’ve basically got the same idea as us, you know? We grew up liking the bands that they released and it’s just nice to hopefully continue that legacy.

They seem to be very good at marketing fashionable bands

Screech: That’s not necessarily true, they also have Dr. Dog. They’ve got a very diverse roster, so I don’t think it’s dictated by by fashion. I think they just like what they like and it just happens that they have immaculate taste.

Dorian: I think what happens is they sign bands because they are good, and then they become fashionable. So hopefully we’ll carry on that – here’s that word again – legacy.

How are you progressing with writing your debut album?

Dorian: Well, as soon as we finish this tour, which is tonight, we’re going to start recording the album. In a couple of weeks’ time we’re going to start putting together a couple of extra tracks. Writing songs isn’t the problem. Easy, really easy. Don’t believe what any other band tells you. Hopefully the album will be out later this year, around September-October.

Would you re-record older songs for the album?

Dorian: We may or may not, it depends. We’re kind of in a weird position where a lot of the things people are just picking up on we’ve been playing for a year or so. We always get people saying “I can’t believe you don’t play this song any more”, and we’re like “oh, we’ve forgotten about that song”.

We’re possibly going to re-record a couple of the older ones, but only because we weren’t happy with the original recordings in the first place. We don’t want to flog the same songs over and over again. It’s just that certain things, like “Giddy Stratospheres” for example, which we released as a single and seems to be popular, but I can’t listen to it, so we’re going to re-record that. But we’ve got plenty [of songs]. We’re just a bubbling pot of creativity (laughs), so we don’t need to rest on our laurels.

What do you think is the commercial potential of the band? How far can you go?

Dorian: All the way! Whatever that means…

Well, it was quite nice getting the Radar [new bands] award from NME. I mean, the previous winners were Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand, and that’s something we want to achieve. We want to be at those bands’ level, and we know that we’ve got the songs and we’ve got everything that you need to be in that situation. It’s nice that now we’re signed we are able to put everything into it. We just want as many people as possible to hear our songs and enjoy them.

The Sheffield scene has been hyped a lot recently, do you feel a connection to bands like Milburn, Bromheads Jacket and Arctic Monkeys or do you see yourselves as outsiders to that group because your sound is very different to theirs?

Screech: I think we are much more in line with people like the Human League and Pulp than we are with Arctic Monkeys and Milburn if you’re looking at some sort of Sheffield heritage thing. We’ve got much more in common with Sheffield past than we have with Sheffield present.

How excited are you about playing Reading and Leeds festivals?

Both: Very!

Dorian: I’ve never been to Reading, but Leeds… a lot of the best times of my youth were spent at Leeds Festival. I may or may not have stolen a golf cart backstage… (laughs). Honestly, I can’t wait to play Reading and Leeds, it’s the best festival ever.

Screech: Thank you Carling.

Do you have any favourite memories from going to the festival over the years?

Screech: We saw Iron Maiden last year. They were amazing. Absolutely the best gig I saw last year, they were unbelievable. The guitarist was swinging a guitar around on his head!

Dorian: While they were watching Iron Maiden, we actually saw Marilyn Manson walk past backstage, which was quite a nice touch. You don’t see that every day… I shouted “Brian!” but he didn’t answer for some reason.

I understand that the band consists of two couples (plus singer Kate Jackson). Are you ever worried that you might end up in a Fleetwood Mac type of situation?

Screech: I’d love to be in a Fleetwood Mac situation! They had loads of money, they were out of their minds on coke all the time, and they made one of the best albums ever!

Dorian: And we’ve got no money and no coke…

Screech: But we are going to have one of the best albums ever (laughs).

Dorian: I don’t think it’s a problem. ABBA, for example, is the best a band can do really. So if we can make an album like ABBA did, then we’ll be quite happy. Seriously, no irony intended.

Finally, what does the future hold for The Long Blondes?

Screech: Messy divorces! No… I’m not even thinking past Reading and Leeds. If I can make it past then I’ll be happy. Anything after that is a bonus.

Thanks to Dorian and Screech for taking the time to be interviewed.
The Long Blondes will be playing the NME/Radio 1 Stage at Reading on the Friday.
Picture 1 is copyright of Andrew Kendall, pictures 2 is copyright of BBC Oxford, and picture 3 is from The Long Blondes'