As they prepare for their UK tour with Friendly Fires, Hockey talk to me about being back here, their upcoming album, thoughts on their success so far and hopes the future. They also mention that they’ve added Glastonbury to their already impressive list of festivals this summer.
Tom: Hey guys, how are you doing? You’ve only been back in England for a few days…
Jerm: Yeah we’ve been here since Sunday, so this is day four. The first day we were zombies we played Saturday night in San Fransicso and didn’t go to sleep we had to be at the airport at 5am on Sunday morning; we flew all day and night and when we got here it was morning again! So we stayed up all day on Sunday here, just totally out of it, we went to the Tate museum and looked at some stuff.
Anthony: That is something I recommend; if you ever have travel delirium where you haven’t slept for three days just go to a surreal art gallery and it’s like you’re on mushrooms or something! Everything started moving it was like ‘Wow, art is wonderful!’
Tom: Hah, you’re meeting up with Friendly Fires over here, aren’t you?
Ben: Yeah, we’re meeting up over here in England for a tour and that’s starts Friday, no Saturday, in Bristol. We played the Cooler in Bristol once before in February with Passion Pit, so already been over there once; it’s really cool actually. I think there’s a University there and that’s where we’re playing, so it’s really exciting.
Tom: So you guys are around here for a month or so, finishing your tour in late May. Are you thinking of going anywhere else with Friendly Fires or is it just going to be the UK?
All: Just UK.
Tom: Ah cool, I know you have The Great Escape festival planned for late May, do you have any other festivals lined up?
Jerm: Yeah we do, we just found out we’re doing Glastonbury. We’re also doing T in the Park, Oxegen, some festivals back in the States, Hove and some in Germany, Sweden and Norway.
Anthony: In the States we’re doing Lollapalooza, Sasquatch and Bonnaroo; Phish are doing a couple of shows there so that’s a massive deal!
Tom: Now, your albums been pushed back, it’s not coming out till August now.
Ben: Yeah, that sounds bad. We’re not sure what to think of that, but it’s probably okay, I think it’s all for the best.
Anthony: I think the dates like August 24th, they’re not going to put it back again we swear; we’ll trash this place!
Tom: Yeah well it says a lot that you’ve been able to book so many festivals without an official album; I know a lot of festivals are hesitant about using bands until they hear debut albums so it’s good you’ve managed to get so many. If you’re playing Glastonbury, does that mean you’re thinking of sticking around in the UK for some of the summer?
Jerm: Yeah, I think so; I think we’re only going home for one or two shows. One in Portland and then Sasquatch in Washington and then we’re coming back.
Tom: Cool, obviously you did the demo yourself, did you find that any of your creative freedom has been limited since you singed to Capital/Virgin for working on the official release?
Ben: Well no because all we had to do was the remixing from our demo. That was the cool thing when we signed with them, it didn’t feel scary because they wanted the album the way we made it.
Jerm: I mean we recorded some songs at a proper studio in Portland, but we specified that Ben produced the demo and we wanted Ben to produce whatever we did.
Ben: Yeah we learned after that the company was afraid that we were going to make changes.
Jerm: It was a really good situation where we had something that represented what we did. It’s not like there’s a record that doesn’t exist yet and they’re like ‘We want this producer and these arrangements for these songs’ or something like that. A lot is up to us.
Tom: It’s a pretty impressive thing, there aren’t many bands that just recorded an album themselves, put it out and then suddenly catch the attention of some Major’s. How does it make you feel? It must be so surreal.
Ben: Yeah, it’s pretty ideal I guess!
Jerm: I think it’s a new era for music where stuff like recording equipment’s easier and it’s kind of trickled down to people like ourselves where, you know, we just did the record in our basement, in our house in Portland. I think it’s a good testament to having a laptop and Pro-tools set up. It was good you know, because in the studio you’re paying by the hour, by the day, by the week but at home you can totally lose your mind you know, and we did. We spent a week just trying to find the right snare sound; putting a mic all around the room-
Anthony: - that god-damn snare sound!
Jerm: Yeah we did all kinds of things to do the mic; put a sock over it, put anything over it. Most bands can’t wait to rush in to a studio and get it cut within two weeks otherwise its going to cost them their entire budget so that was really cool.
Tom: I’m guessing for when you next work on a record you’re going to try and keep low key and under the radar, like for your first album?
Ben: Yeah we hope it will be the same kind of thing, though maybe with a few more microphones or something.
Tom: Ben and Jerm, it was you two that started the band off in LA, what made you decide to go Washington?
Jerm: We had a friend from college who lived out there, who we initially wanted to have in the band but it didn’t work out. Basically we just wanted to put a band together for what we were doing, which was very stripped down and became kind of theatrical; kind of like some like Hip Hop DJ’s where it’s not as much about the sound but more the attitude, and everyone wanting to have a good time and stuff. I think we wanted to start writing more straight forward songs, things less pent on live energy; songs like Song Away, more straight forward and an easier way of expressing our band.
Tom: Yeah, so what was it that made you decide to leave Washington for Portland if you already had your band together? Was it Portland’s great music scene?
Ben: I think that was definitely part of it, going to a place that had a great alternative scene, very arty and stuff, and we just thought if we could be a part of that then we’d really be making strides because although Washington was a lovely place to live it’s also kind of off the map. So that and we also happened to have one of Anthony’s friends live there and working for a band there and he just said Portland would be a really good place for us, and Portland’s a great place.
Tom: You guys have a huge list of influences, from Fleetwood Mac to MIA, do they play a big role in your sound or do you just try to do your own thing?
Jerm: Yeah, I always say Fleetwood Mac!
Anthony: I think when people ask us what our influences are we each give our own personal influences but that doesn’t really hold much bearing in the direction of the music. You know, Ben does most of the writing and especially production, so when I say I like Phish, you know, it’s kind of a half joke because our band clearly doesn’t sound anything like Phish!
Jerm: Yeah I think it’s also pretty random, I wouldn’t say we set out to sound any specific way, we just fill our heads with all kinds of music; whatever we happen to be into at the time. It’s not necessarily like we’re going to sound like this band or we want do this sort of thing, we’re just sort of throwing everything together and mixing it up in a big pot. I think the albums like that.
Tom: Now in the UK you’re signed to Virgin, do they have a big role whilst you’re over here or is it still mainly run by Capitol?
Ben: Virgin have a pretty hefty role actually –
Jerm: - I’d say more so than Capitol at the moment! When we first signed to Capitol they said at the beginning that they’d love for us to break the UK first, and that sounded so incredible to us, and that’s exactly how its gone. We played a lot of shows here and tried to get as much radio time as possible, so it’s been very UK focussed. Which is great and I think the reaction’s been good.
Anthony: The British people have been awesome. And sometimes when some people talk about Major labels they have this negative connotation of them like a bunch of fat, old white guys in suits but they’re really more like young, cool, awesome people that we like hanging out with and go have beers with.
Ben: Yeah, really good people.
Tom: Pleased to hear it, now you first came to England in December and been a couple of times since, so you’re obviously enjoying it. You’re getting good air time too, has it got to the being spotted in the street level yet or…?!
Jerm: No, no!
Anthony: Sometimes my moustache does, people just sit there talking to my moustache, they don’t realise there’s a person behind it.
Ben: We haven’t been back to the UK since our single got released. Too Fake was released about a week after we last left, so we haven’t had a chance to see if things have changed much, but maybe more people are aware of us now.
Jerm: We did the Jools Holland show last night too. It was awesome! It was like a dream! We played our first song and we were pretty nervous, but the second song was much better. It was the first time we’ve ever done live TV so it’s a really strange head game. It’s like recording a song that’s going to go out to a million people, in one take.
Anthony: Cat Stevens was there! Or Yusuf Islam as he’s now known. We met him after the show, Brian almost fell over his knees. It was incredible; he even said he enjoyed our music!
Brian: I listened to him on the plane ride over I just love his records.
Jerm: He was awesome, he looks just like a kind old man now; I could walk past him a hundred times and I wouldn’t know who he was, but an amazing voice!
Anthony: Speaking of that; I was always surprised with how well Roger Waters aged, I didn’t see that one coming he was kind of a crazy looking twenty-something, and he turned out like a normal dude! But they’re the Floyd, they can look however the fuck they want.
Tom: Would you guys ideally like to be like that; still playing music in your 60s?
Anthony: That’s pretty presumptuous!
Ben: Hah, I guess that’s the way we’d like to think of it, I know we’ve got a lot of ideas of what we want to do, but you know some people do like one record and people like Neil Diamond can keep making them so we’ll see.
Hockey will be kicking off their UK shows by playing The Roundhouse on Friday 24th April as part of the Camden Crawl, before heading to Bristol to start their tour with Friendly Fires.
- For ticket information on their upcoming tour go Here
Hockey’s debut album Mind Chaos will be available from 24th (UK) & 25th April (US)
- For more information on Hockey visit their MySpace page
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