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The Sailplanes interview taken from Thinking About
Verse zine, June 2005
"LIKE MOST PLACES in the country, there are still lots of Britpop/Oasis bands
lingering like a bad smell" They're right too. During the past couple of
years, we, the music-buying public have been subjected to a tidal wave of bland,
pointless and passionless indie bands. Bands that we are led to believe are the
saviours of "Rock 'n' Roll". Bands that recall the sounds of Joy Division
and The Smiths but have none of the charisma and intellect that caused those groups
to be so important in the history of alternative music. London's The Sailplanes
don't subscribe to this trend, and instantly from their first demo they clearly
have what it takes to become something special. When questioned about their influences,
Tim and Stacey (who both alternate vocals and play guitar) take this opportunity
to reel off a list of bands and artists with an enviable passion, some evident
in their music, others not so, including Sonic
Youth (Tim - "I'm a particular fan of Murray Street and Sonic Nurse-
the quiet albums- they've got less satisfying noise than Daydream Nation or Sister,
but the depth is incredible"), Sleater-Kinney,
Electrelane,
Julie Driscoll (Stacey - "...for her astounding voice."), Mission
of Burma... it continues.
In fact, it's The Sailplanes' way with words that has made this article so difficult
to write. On one hand, I could try to intertwine their answers with descriptive
paragraphs like the one above, and on the other, I could just simply copy and
paste them onto this very page. You see, The Sailplanes have their own voice,
one that has been lost in the aforementioned tidal wave, and one that will continue
to be lost if bands like this aren't given the chance to be heard. The bassless
three-piece formation they favour would leave most bands' music sounding weak
and watered down, but here this is not the case. Tim manages to sum up their sound
fantastically "We're all about downsizing, the beauty of economy." Strong
words, but as you can probably tell from this gushing feature, I would completely
agree. Forming mostly out of frustration with other projects, the three members
required a new, fresh way of working. Stacey is first to comment "I was previously
in a project that amounted to nothing apart from recording in the bedroom and
the odd demo. After attempting to expand and find more members, it fizzled out
for many reasons. A main point being that I found writing frustrating as I didn’t
get the input I needed from the other member. The Sailplanes works really well
as Tim puts in equal amount of time and effort, we’re likeminded in that
respect."
Tim: "Stacey and myself write an entire song, then
the other thinks up an interesting guitar part to fit. Whoever writes it sings
it. That way we each have full creative control, at least for half of the time.
I believe Husker Du worked this way. It's the best way to do things if you've
two strong songwriters in a group." This is clearly something that Stacey
agrees with - “It really works well with us both writing a song and then
the other coming up with parts. We then show Ady who adds some fancy drumming.
I really like the way we work, as previous bands have involved pointless jamming
or lack of effort on the other person’s part.”
One subject that seems to stir interest, particularly in Tim, is their local music
scene, and he takes another opportunity to name check more bands. "The London
scene is difficult - because it's so huge. 'The scene' will mean a whole different
crop of bands depending upon who you ask. There's lots of interesting post-rock
things going on, like October
All Over from Stoke Newington who're really noisy but quite accessible. Mifune
do a great post-Shellac
kind of bass-heavy math rock with shouty female vocals, and they're definitely
worth checking out. There's supposedly a New
Cross scene too, but the bands from that one seem to be hanging on the coat-tails
of the urchin/Art Brut garage thing and aren't particularly interesting in their
own right. London suffers from being too cliquey in that you get a whole bunch
of garage bands with haircuts pretending to be art-rock springing-up all of a
sudden and anything that’s different has a hard time getting accepted."
Speaking of being accepted, what's next? (Ady) “More recording and playing
live lots, hopefully getting people interested in us.“ Tim's ambitions stretch
further "Really playing lots of shows, perhaps a bit of travelling- I'd like
to take the band to Berlin and Stockholm. We're in the process of recording our
first album on a shoestring - three or four songs at a time. Swoosh was the first
part of this process." (Stacey) “I second that, we hope to get out
there and play some and gigs and then move onto taking Europe by storm…ahem”
Why should people listen to The Sailplanes? (Tim) "Because we don't strum
our guitars much, we don't do 'big rock' and I'm very self-conscious about cheesy
choruses." (Stacey) “We don’t sound like most of the crap that’s
around at the moment. Avoiding cheesiness at all times is important" (Tim)
"You'd be surprised the by the amount of noise we three can kick-up."
And once again, they're right.
Darren Walker, Thinking About Verse.
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