Larrikin Love Interview

Roomthirteen met up with Larrikin Love (guitarist Micko Larkin, bassist Alfie Ambrose, drummer Coz Kerrigan and singer Ed Larrikin) to talk about who they are, their new material and tour madness!

R13: So introducing Larrikin Love...
CK: I'm Coz and I play...
EL: I'm Ed and I sing.
ML: I'm Micko.
EL: Alfie's gone to get cigarettes, he'll be back soon.
R13: A little about the band?
EL: There's four and a half of us because we have a fiddle player but he won't leave his other band [The Holloways], so until he leaves them he's just a half.
ML: We're a bit rinky dinky.
EL: We live in London, we come from a mixture of backgrounds and play an ecletic range of music.

R13: You guys kind of coined the term 'Thamesbeat' to describe your sound?
EL: We made that up as a joke.
CK: And it got a bit out of hand.
EL: We did an interview with NME and they said "How would you define your sound?" and Alfie said as a joke "Thamesbeat", you know like Merseybeat the Liverpool scene. The next week it was like "Here is the sound of Thamesbeat".
ML: Alfie created a monster.
R13: How would you describe your sound then?
ML: It's a bit rinky dinky.
EL: It's like Irish-y, folky, gypsy ska skiffle,reggae, punk.
R13: What inspired you to go in that direction?
EL: Just because we come from so many different places.
ML: We've been brought up on a lot of Irish traditional music.
CK: And alot of Jazz as well.
EL: So it comes from quite different directions. It's not like we actually wanted to sound like anything, it just sort of happened.

R13: Does it annoy you when you are compared to the likes of The Libertines and Pete Doherty?
EL: Yeah. It doesn't really happen anymore.
CK: Well not since our last single. And the fact that we're not really about that.
EL: It got really boring, at one stage there was more being said [in our press] about Pete from The Libertines than about us.
CK: People would be judging on one of the songs, I think that now people know more of the songs I think people are realising it's not like that.
R13: Who would you like to be compared to?
ML: I find it quite nice when people compare us to The Pogues.
EL: Yeah, The Pogues, I like that. We all love The Pogues, the music is fucking great and Shane MacGowen is great.

R13: So tonight you're playing the 'Levi's One To Watch' gig at Cardiff Barfly?
ML: Yeah, one night. It's separate from our tour.
EL: We did one down in London a while back. We got asked to do this Levi's One To Watch night by the Barfly as they're in conjunction with it.
R13: How's the tour going then?
EL: We are on like the hugest tour ever - forty dates, with like four days off and it's just stupid. But I guess you got to do it once.
ML: It has its moments, there's been so many gigs that have been really, really good.
CK: I think the Cork night was one of the best nights I've had and we just played to ten of our friends.
ML: Except for the two people that bought tickets.
EL: That was definitely one of the best nights. There's been nights we've played to four hundred people and the reaction hasn't been as good. We've had a chance to test new songs as well.
R13: How are you coping with touring, is there anything you've learnt?
ML: Not to eat shit all day, not to eat fast food all the time.
CK: I don't mind, I've got used to it.
EL: I'm not coping very well.
R13: Do you get homesick?
CK: I'm not homesick, just missing people that are there.
EL: All we're doing is getting up and travelling, you don't get a chance to look round, you're just playing the same songs every night. When you're playing for that hour everything is great but after forty days you just want to do something else.
CK: It's hard to play to crowds that aren't really getting into it. There's been a lot of places where lots of people have enjoyed it but haven't really danced and got into it. But for some it's the first time they've heard us and don't really know the songs.

R13: You've had different support bands throughout the tour, who have you enjoyed playing with the most?
ML: In Galway there was this really amazing instrumental band.
EL: The Jung Turks. It was mad, just an acoustic guitar and a drummer. It was kind of Celtic/Spanish. Really, really crazy.
ML: The drummer was a proper funky jazz drummer, they were just amazing. You could really appreciate the guitar.
EL: Really innovative.
ML: Roland Shanks were good. Jamie T is obviously amazing. I thought Last Gang were really good as well.
EL: We're going to have our friends Airhammer come out and do a couple of gigs with us, they're an incredible band that are just a two-piece with a mp3 drum machine. They're a bit like a cabaret theatre act and they play show tunes.
ML: Show band tunes with punk rock.
R13: Which has been your favourite night so far?
CK: Leeds was mad. They broke the barrier down at the front, people went crazy.
ML: The Irish dates were really good. Belfast was good.

R13: New single out on the 3rd April 'Edwould', haven't you made a video for it?
EL: Yeah, our friend Joe Marcantonio who has done our last videos, made it. This time we were given a little bit of money so we went all out. We got an old Buick, a beautiful old car and went to a forest in Essex. The start is shot in a really cinematic way as if it's a short film with music put to it.
CK: It's more of a short film than a music video.
EL: We're burying Rob Skipper our fiddle player, who's the ghost of Edwould. It's a driving movie through the beautiful countryside. Then there's this really odd shot of what is supposed to be the Virgin Mary, it turns into Gollum or something so this spindly old man is watching us. Yeah, it's a small piece of cinema.

R13: How's the new album going that you're working on with Ian Gore?
ML: It's really brilliant, fucking alright.
R13: Have you got many tracks done?
EL: We've got about three quarters of the way through. Ian's a really clever young man.
ML: He's a really good producer, fucking awesome.
R13: So you're enjoying it?
All: Yeah.
R13 Do you prefer the studio to touring?
All: Yeah.
CK: I'm all about the studio, I love it.
ML: I like playing live.
EL: Yeah, but just not every day of the week.
R13 Are any of the tracks from your first EP 'Six Queens' going to feature on the album?
EL: We've redone 'Six Queens', we've made that much bigger. We've re-recorded all the songs but dropped 'Little Boy Lost'.
R13: Happier with them?
EL: Oh they're much better. They sound bigger and like they belong on an album.
CK: They're more of a reflection of where we stand now.

R13: Have you got any festivals lined up this summer?
EL: I think we have but we haven't been told.
CK: Leeds and Reading and apparently T in the Park.
R13 Any you'd like to play?
CK: Bestival.
AA: I'd like to play the Truck Festival, it's meant to be the best festival.

R13: You're all quite young, have you had trouble arranging the band around college?
CK: I never went. I did my first year. But the second year there were more and more gigs so I packed it in.
EL: Me and Al had jobs and stuff but I quit my job when it became a bit more demanding.
R13: So you do the band full time then?
EL: We have been for seven or eight months now.

R13: There's a lot of references to someone called 'Alice', designer of the website and other things...?
EL: That's her over there [points to pretty blonde]. She's our artistic director. When I first started writing songs and stuff, she did my first cover.
AA: I remember that.
EL: Then it was her idea the whole Larrikin Love thing and now it's a partnership and we work hand in hand. I really want to find that 'Eddie Romance' cover now. It's one of the greatest covers.
R13: So when is the website going to be back up and running?
EL: Apparently next week according to our manager.
CK: But we've heard that before.

R13: Anything else you'd like to add?
EL: We're a bit tired but we're much better when we're on stage. We're really looking forward to tonight. Thank you very much.
R13: Thank you.