At the recent Black Winter Day festival Invey took the time out to catch up with us over a few drinks in the bar; discussing the impact of a female vocalist, influences and the future!
R13: You are hoping to record an album this year, how are you going to go about it…is there going to be a live feel to it as you are quite strong live?
Lee: It's not going to be over produced... That's the difficulty we have had though, bringing out the power of our live performances.
Clare: That's a complaint we get about our recording.
Ed: That's why we are looking into various different options we want to make sure we get the best performance.
R13: Do you get compared to other bands with female vocalists?
Clare: We used to, when we first started off all the time.
Lee: Garbage was one.
Clare: Yeah Garbage, you'd get comments like "This will make Garbage fans run for cover." but yeah it's always been female fronted bands all the time.
Lee: The thing is these days is that all the female fronted metal bands are Gothy and there is no way we could ever be compared to that.
Clare: Not so much now…now that it's clear we are so different, we've got the rap and 3 gifted musicians.
R13: How did you go about breaking out of the "We have a female vocalist" mould?
Clare: We did use it initially and that was the wrong think to do basically and this was before Lee and Ben were even in the band, but we did use it like all bands do. Then we developed a sound, I started rapping and I started screaming and I was just a singer before. Since I have started to understand what I want to do within the music, that whole thing has gone now. They can't lump us in or compare us really to anyone now and I think that's the problem they have.
Ed: They tried desperately to fit us in, but we are not another rip off of Machine Head or Blur.
Ben: What we do with our instruments has quite a diverse influence and we look for something more fresh then we have done before.
R13: What Kind of Influences are you talking about, what kind of bands?
Ben: Slayer, Slipknot you know the real heavy stuff and more influences in other areas as well.
Clare: *laughs* I love pop music, I used to be a dancer.
Lee: The thing about pop music that a lot of bands tend to forget is that you are people are supposed to enjoy what they are hearing…
Clare: And your supposed to enjoy what you’re doing and be totally in to what you are doing. You can't just sit down and think, right I am a heavy metal band so therefore I am going to write a heavy metal sound because that’s not representing who you are, it's just like following...you know.
Lee: The majority of the bands on the bill tonight will be starting their career. They don't seem to have that spark of their own individual personalities they are doing what is expected of them.
Clare: I can’t automatically think, "Ok the crowd is going to expect me to rap now" and just do that.
Ben: The thing about our music, I mean I did A Level music, and being told things like Beethoven's sonatas show that music is a very mathematical process but I think in our case it's a very organic process, it sort of grows at will. We write what seems right for what we want to do.
Lee: It doesn't matter that there isn't a section of this and a section of that and sometimes people say to us "Hey this new song has not got people shouting in it" but you know it was what we were doing at the time
Clare: 'I Take it' is pretty much classed as a pop song, whereas 'Bring It On' is pretty much shouting all the way through, it depends what mood I am in and what vibe I get.
Ben: What we do, is we just do what we do, its not like we have a plan it just grows.
Lee: Yeah the one thing you can say about us is we have never sat down to write like or sound like anything ever, we just wrote stuff that we like. Otherwise, you're as bad as Bloody Busted.
Clare: Exactly, although they have got their place in the industry.
Lee: They know what they are thought, that's the important thing to remember about them.
R13: Who do you think are the best of bands that you have performed with then?
Clare: American Head Charge they have just come of a tour with Slipknot, they were lovely, they were a really nice band and I saw a photo recently and I am not sure where the camera man was pointing.
Ben: Think he is (at the band) he's just grown a weird beard.
Clare: But they were just adorable and I loved them completely
Lee: I mean there are a few bands that I like playing with Panic Cell are always good fun. There are some bands you play with and they are just out there enjoying themselves.
Ed: What it all boils down too really is how you approach it. It's about having the right approach and the intention behind it.
R13: In five years time do you see yourselves together and where do you want to be?
Ed: Whether we are skint and starving...
Lee: I would like to be making enough money so that I can carry on doing what I love doing, which is writing, recording and going out and doing more shows. At the minute all 4 of us are held back by the fact that we have to work so we can’t get out there and really go for it all the time which I know all of us would love to do.
Ben: We don't care if we are in the back of some shitty transit with a hole in it and choking on the exhaust fumes.
Clare: Well actually I do care about that.
Ben: You can go in the front seat!
Ed: I don't think that any band can have a business plan as such and see ourselves in a particular place in 5 years time.
Ben: The band itself and its individuals 5 years on, will be in the hand of the fans.
R13: Does working full time cause any pressures or force you to choose between the two?
Clare: There is no choice.
Lee: Yeah, there is no choice, yeah you get shit from work all the time…
Clare: But you just in the end say sack me then. Basically Eddy (chatty) and I have been in it all the time and we said to our work you must take into consideration that when we are working for you we are in a band and that will come first…we work in a factory.
Ben: Yeah, I am a poor carpenter and I work for my next door neighbour so it’s not too bad
Lee: Yeah, it could be a lot worse.
Clare: The thing is we are the kind of people that would just say Fuck Off and get out of the job anyway, I mean we couldn't choose over the band.
Lee: There is no choice, if we were going to tour around Europe for a few weeks and work turned around and said "No you can't do that" I would say well then I am going to have to leave.
Clare: Yeah, the album…we have been told that we need to take a week off to record the album and 3 of us will lose our jobs over it…but it's not an issue
R13: Were you in any bands previously?
Ben: Yeah I used to be in this band called Electric Lettuces... best band ever.
Lee: You have got to get this... they had pyro's that were exploding lettuces on the front of the stage. I was in a band called Psychedelic Warthog
Clare: ...and this was the reason that they didn't choose the name of the band!
R13: How did you come about your band name?
Clare: Our band name was chosen by our previous bass player who was adorable and she was very good for how long she had been playing.
Lee: But she suffered from stage fright.
Clare: But she was nowhere near close to Lee or what we needed. However, she came up with the name and it's stunning name and we will keep it cause it's really good.
Lee: But the way we are now, we have previously been through a lot of changes, loads of different bass players and stuff but I can't see it ever changing again because everybody in the band now is…
Clare: A positive influence and we didn't have that before. They need to believe in the band and come all the way from Northampton, or Nottingham to rehearse.
Ben: Yes I am willing to travel an hour to hour and a half (70 miles) just to practice.
Ed: We are very lucky to have the band we’ve got. A lot of bands I talk to have a problem with 1 person or another and we don’t have that.
Clare: Yeah, we used to get people come up and say you have to get rid of your bass player, or you have to get rid of your drummer until we got these 2 and now that doesn't happen. Everyone is like yeah we want to manage you and yeah we want to produce you.
Lee: That's one of the worst things about being in a band our size is that every person thinks they can help us and it distracts you like mad.
R13: Do you find there is a particular song that really gets everyone going?
Clare: It's different for every person and all our songs are kind of different to each other so they kind of bring in different audiences. So you will get somebody that goes 'I Take It' that's your best song ever and its kind of poppy, whereas someone else will come along and say 'Bring it on', yeah, that rocks. So I guess we are kind of lucky in a way that you will get this audience there and some will really like this one and others this one.
Clare: There was this old woman that must have been like 60 and she was just loving it and going on about it so much. She was going on about the different styles that we have got. That was absolutely excellent, I love it when somebody you don't expect comes up to you. Especially as our age range is normally between about 16 and 30.
With thanks to Invey who are hoping to release an album later this year, and when you catch them live be sure (at his request) to throw knickers at Ben!! Find out where they are performing next at www.invey.co.uk