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DT
What are your names and what do you play in the band?
Jon
I'm Jon and I play bass and sing
Lou I'm Lou I play guitar and sing
Blake I'm Blake, I play drums
DT What was it that made you start the band?
Lou
Err
Blake Money
(Laughs)
Lou Umm I dunno, Guns 'n' Roses I suppose
(Laughs)
Lou - if I'm being honest
Jon I dunno, I just started playing guitar, wanted
to be in a band, that's what you wanna do. Me and Lou were in
other bands before, and we got together, made love, and started
a band.
Lou Just to play gigs I spose was the first reason
to start the band
Jon I've never really thought about it
Lou No, that's a really hard question you'd imagine
that'd be really easy. Right, just put the chicks, and the drugs
(Laughs)
DT What other bands, apart from Guns 'n' Roses, would you say have influenced you?
(Laughs)
Lou Umm Ingrid Malmsteen, Steve Vai, I was well into
metal actually when I was really young, my cousin got me into
it, must've been when I was about 10. I had an older sister who
was a goth, so err I kinda got into that, so I guess bands like
Metallica and that, then Green Day came along and got everyone
into punk. Then dig a little bit deeper and bands like NOFX, Descendants,
stuff like that
Blake Pantera
Lou Pantera, always a winner
DT What does a normal day on tour consist of?
Jon
Waking up fairly close to midday, after we set the alarm for 9
or 10
Lou Either slept on someone's floor or in the van,
probably too close to each other
Blake Worrying that you're not gunna find a toilet
before you do actually shit yourself
Jon Yeh the toilet usually gets punished first of
all, and then find the nearest kettle
Lou It seems to be on this tour, cus Blake's new,
but generally the morning is punctuated with his anus
Blake It's been quite bad!
Lou So we've just been getting used to that
Blake I don't usually fart a lot, but I am farting
a lot at the moment, excessive farting
Lou I think he's nervous
(Laughs)
Blake I find it's when I'm not doing anything, I
mean when I'm drumming I won't fart
Lou Fuck off, where were we playing the other day?
(Laughs)
Lou Leicester
Blake Yeh but that was intense, that was like a big
fart. It's cus I haven't toured for a while so all the moving
around. But once I get all that out my system it'll be alright
Jon I reckon you joined the band and something died
inside you
Lou The Pantera fan inside you died
Blake Pantera is trying to crawl out my ass
Lou So where are we, we are at about midday we pay
ourselves £3 a day to get breakfast, usually the nearest
greasy spoons café or a tescos café or something
Jon But tescos don't serve breakfast after midday
anymore which sucks
Lou Yeh anyway then we drive to the gig, then we
unload the gear, then we sound check, then we hang around, then
we play the gig, then we drink some beer then we go to someone's
house or we stay in the van and sleep.
DT Sounds like fun, what are your favourite places to play on tour?
Lou
Gotta say Bridgwater, never played here before though
Jon Bridgwater is definitely in my top 1 of all time,
Blakey?
Blake Gotta say Bridgwater
DT Have you had a chance to wander round today?
Jon
I met some people at the bus stop, well not met they told us how
to get here, they seemed nice
Lou And there's loadsa things in Bridgwater called
Blake
Blake Yeh my name, like Admiral Blake, Blakes Arms
Lou Do you know why that is?
DT I don't actually
Blake
Obviously some legend called Blake came here and took over, that's
what I've assumed
Lou Not you though
Blake Nah not me, I'm probably related to him though,
first name ways
(Laughs)
Lou But yeh it looks really nice. We're from Watford
though so everything looks quite nice
DT Are there any funny stories you've got from when you've been on tour?
Lou
Haha, ohh cripes
Blake Umm
Lou No
Blake Come back to that one I'll think of a good
one, won't be true it'll be a lie
(Laughs)
DT Ok, umm what are your favourite bands you've toured with?
Jon
Lightyear
Blake Captain Everything
Jon Death by Stereo
Lou They were really cool weren't they, I mean we
went to Canada, and like in England we couldn't tour with Death
By Stereo cus their fans would murder us. But in Canada they can
like appreciate both, it's quite nice
DT What's the best thing about playing live?
Jon
I like tinnitus
(Laughs)
Jon I get weird fetishes like that so I'm quite lucky
Lou Listen to this, get this next to the recorder
(BIG crunching noise followed by Laughs)
Lou That's from four years of touring
DT You wanna go back to the funny story question now?
Blake
Umm no not just yet
Lou C'mon let's think we've played with some funny
bands. Have we ever been in trouble with the police?
Jon Yeh Russian police
Blake Tell him about Russia!
Lou That wasn't really funny though
Jon It was petrifying, scaring, and life-threatening
DT Would it not be funny for us though?
Lou
Ok well we thought we got across the Russian border, we were going
from Estonia to Russia, and we didn't realise you have the Estonian
border, No Mans Land, then the Russian border, we thought the
first one was just the Russian border. And everyone we had been
talking to, all the Estonians were like (quality Estonian accent)
"You are going to die", "It was nice to know you
haha"
(Laughs)
Lou Like this guy the night before bought us a bottle
of champagne didn't he, and he was like "It was nice knowing
you"
(Laughs)
Lou So we were all shitting ourselves, let's be honest,
absolutely cacking it, and we get to the border and this guy who
we think is Russian just waves us through and goes "Good
Luck"
(Laughs)
Lou Just like that, and we're all like Yeah!! There's
video footage of all of us laughing isn't there, going that was
really easy hahaha, and then we got stopped by the Russians and
taken into an interrogation suite, and shouted at, and we thought
we were gunna die cus they all had guns
Blake Jon doesn't find it funny at all
Jon Actually like the hardest day of my life, and
driving to the gig as well through Russia on really dodgy roads
with no road signs, none of us can speak Russian, no one with
us could speak Russian, and we had to try and find the venue in
St. Petersburg
Lou Do you remember Rich, Jon? We pulled up in St.
Petersburg and our old drummer Rich, bless him, he phoned the
promoter and the promoter says (quality Russian accent)
"where are you?"
(Laughs)
Lou And Rich went, we're outside a shop with a red
sign
(Laughs)
Lou In St. Petersburg, which is like the second biggest
city in Russia!
DT How did you come across meeting Blake, were you mates already?
Lou
Yeh we've been mates for a couple of years haven't we? Do you
remember Grebo? Well Blake was in Grebo obviously, and then Rich
left Captain Everything and said we should carry on, and so Blake
was the first guy on the list really. And he's an amazing drummer,
wicked bloke and that. I don't think we would have carried on
if it was someone that we didn't really know
Jon I don't know any other drummers that can so what
Blake, or Rich did
Lou He's still not fast enough though
Blake No, but I'm getting there, I'm getting quicker
Lou We're taking him through a punishing routine
Blake It is gruelling yeh
(Laughs)
DT Are you enjoying being on tour with Captain Everything?
Blake
It's rubbish
(Laughs)
Blake Nah it's amazing, a lot of fun, yeh can't really
complain. £3 a day, is ample
(Laughs)
Lou It is!
Blake Nah it really is, it's amazing how far it stretches.
I steal money out the tin anyways, so I do quite well out of it
(Laughs)
Blake I bought some new shoes
(Laughs)
Blake Yeh it's been fun
DT You get free beer I suppose, so £3 isn't that bad
Lou Yeh,
especially on this tour, and the lovely promoters that have been
putting us on have been feeding us
(Blake farts)
Blake Pardon my anus
Lou You're going to get a first hand experience now
Blake It's a small room as well!
DT You're recording a new album now, is that right?
Lou November
we're doing it, after this tour. The songs are all written, so
we're just playing this tour to get Blake up to speed and what
not, well not up to speed that's nasty I don't mean that, but
just like getting comfortable being in the band. We were gunna
record before tour but we thought nah let's do a tour, so we all
get to know each other well. Cus like you can be best mates, but
then when you're in a band, and they start farting
Blake Constantly
Lou It's a different kettle of fish. It's like a
girlfriend, plus a brother
Jon Urgh
Lou Not like we have incestral sex or anything
(Laughs)
Lou We sleep next to each other every night
Blake Dangerously close
Lou So yeh, just getting to know each other then
recording afterwards in November and that's going to be really
good hopefully, in fact definitely I'd say
DT Would you like to say a few more things like that to get people to buy it?
Blake
Could be thee best album ever out to tape, I think in fairness
Lou It could be like, do you ever read big cheese?
The No Comply album review, it said 'One of the UK albums you
might hear this year'. It was meant to say one of the best but
there was a typo
(Laughs)
Lou So this is one of the albums you may hear this
year
(Laughs)
Lou That's the tag we're putting on the album, one
of the albums you may hear this year
DT That's about it then guys is there anything else you would like to add?
Lou
Thank you very much for the interview
DT No worries
Blake It's been lovely
Jon I love lamb
Blake Do you really love lamb?
Jon I love lamb
Lou And thanks to everyone who comes to see us