DJANGO DJANGO THURSDAY | SOLUS
Quench caught up with Vinnie and Tom, one of half of Django Django, just before they took to the stage. What’s your response been to your recent success? Vinnie: It’s been a pretty strange year; we released the album back in January and before that we were playing to audiences of about 50 or 60, and then, in the summer, we were playing to... Tom: And now we’re playing to audiences of 70 – 80...! V: Yeah, it’s been a rapid increase! Yeah, it’s been a really good summer, with festivals in Japan and Australia; we just got back from the States, and we’re just about to embark on a UK tour, and then a European tour after that. So it’s been pretty fast moving. I saw you when you were playing Benicàssim – quite a sunny, holiday festival; where has been the best place
you’ve played? T: I would say Sicily. V: Ah, Sicily was pretty good. We played in a medieval village, with Alt-J and Primal Scream. T: A dream line-up; Primal Scream were one of my favourite bands growing up so to share a stage with them, and with Alt-J, who we’ve been seeing around the circuit quite a lot and we think they’re great, so it was really nice festival. A really nice, small size. V: We turned up and I saw the kick-drum from Primal Scream, with the Screamadelica logo, and was like, there must be a cover band playing tonight! And then we told that it was Primal Scream, and that we were on just before them. Speaking of Alt-J, who were also nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, how does it feel to receive a nomination for your album, Django Django? V: It kind of felt like we had gate-crashed
Supporting exciting up-and-coming bands Django Django and Egyptian Hip Hop on Thursday night were the equally exciting Wild Swim, an Oxford-based band, whose lush, layered songs made a splash in the Union on Thursday.
understanding of where we want things to go. We’re a lot less rocky now.
After such an impressive debut, have you got any plans for a second album, or are you just focusing on the tour right now? V: it’s only after that we’re going to start. We’ve started writing some ideas and we’ve got some clues where we want to take it, but it’s only at the end we’re going to get the chance to start
Would you say things are on the up at the moment? We were in The Guardian yesterday… that’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to us! But other things are coming up too… we’re playing the O2 Academy in Oxford, and going to Leeds and London next week. Quite the tour! Yeah, but not in a very organised way. We’re travelling in a Toyota Yaris, and that is the bandwagon, with all our equipment. If you don’t get the train… it’s very cosy.
Grizzly Bear, Radiohead obviously are a masWild Beasts a lot.
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Rosey Brown
to work through the ideas and begin to map it out. T: I think it will be a lot more stripped-back. I think this album was kind of like a car crash of all of the ideas we’ve been building up; the next one will be a lot more planned. V: You say that now! T: I’m not saying it will be minimal, but it will be a lot more focused. the Cardiff Arts Institute. Is it nice to be invited back to a larger venue like Solus? V: We’ve had two gigs in Cardiff before and they were both totally amazing; it’s great to be back. The band who are supporting us tonight, and on the rest of our tour (Gulp) are from Cardiff, and our drummer is related to their singer, so it’s like one big, happy family. Kit Denison
There’s nothing particularly experimental, tropical or bluesy about the Experimental Tropic Blues Band. They are, however, a good, oldfashioned rock band comprising long hair, tight jeans, sexual innuendos and infectiously catchy riffs and rhythms who will keep you entertained from
So, excited for S N? Is the Cardiff Students’ Union quite a big venue for you? Yeah, might even be the biggest venue we’ve played! We played a vast club in Oxford called The Regal; it was pretty much a warehouse… but it was empty… and we were only 14.
How would you say your sound has developed? I think as time’s gone on we’ve picked up
it and those were nominated, it’s hard to get your head around it, something we watched when we were teenagers. It’s really nice to be considered for it.
THE EXPERIMENTAL TROPIC BLUES BAND
WILD SWIM
You’ve been going quite a few years then? We were a school band for years and years, making terrible music.
the party and we were going to get found out! It was kind of surreal because we did that album in our drummer’s bedroom. We had no label and it was all done on our really limited equipment, so it’s very surreal to see it next to Richard Hawley and The Maccabees. We grew up with the Mercury Prize, from the
Unlike many bands of this type, there was no pretension to the show at all, and as I found out after their gig, they all turned out to be lovely guys when I got a quick interview with lead singer/ guitarist Dirty Coq (real name AJ). So, you’ve travelled from Belgium to get here, how do Belgian audiences differ from UK audiences? Oh, I don’t know, I don’t think audiences from other countries differ greatly, they’re all more or less the same. Maybe in the cities like London there is some difference. How long are you in the UK for? And where else have you played? We’re just touring here for four days. We played London, but I can’t remember the
in Bristol, and tomorrow we are going back to London, but I don’t know where! [He turns to drummer Devil D’Inferno and starts speaking You seem to have a lot of different main ones were? It is hard to say because we all listen to very different stuff; of course, The Spencer Blues Explosion, The Cramps, all that kind of thing. We also very much like Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Electronic Music, a lot of bands from Japan. Are you seeing any other bands while you’re here? How have you found Cardiff? I think so, but I don’t know which bands. I’d love to see Liars, but they’re not playing in the morning. I heard Pulled Apart By Horses sound check earlier, so I might stick around for them. I love it here, the streets smell of rock’n’roll! I bumped into him again later coming out of Propaganda, and I think it’s safe to say they took full advantage of what Cardiff’s nightlife has to offer. Stephen Springate