'It's... The Mobbs' was the album that saw typically English garage trio The Mobbs praised by numerous music critics, played by 6 Music's Steve Lamacq and go on to tour Europe. After performing acoustically at Spiral Archive Records, Bedge quizzed Joe, Jimi and Cheadle on the follow up 'Stiff Upper Lip & Trousers To Match'.
You've just played acoustic in Spiral Archive Records. How do you think that went?
Joe B. Humbled: Good fun. Considering we didn't practise we did very well!
Jimi The Dutch: Some of the songs we hadn't played in two years.
Cheadle: It wasn't too bad.
Well I thought it went well. The new album is out now 'Stiff Upper Lip & Trousers To Match. Difficult second album was it?
Joe: No, it's the third. The second was 'It's... The Mobbs' but that's only because of a demo album we did first time round. 'Stiff Upper Lip' was our difficult third album that actually went very well if I do say so myself. It's a progression from 'It's... The Mobbs' really. We were trying - not intentionally - not to have any slow tracks on the album.
Jimi: We were happy with 'It's... The Mobbs' but we wanted a more ferocious third album.
Joe: Less reverb. More ferocious. More non-stop
Cheadle: Don't listen to it when you're driving because you end up driving really, really fast. As I found out when I got caught speeding.
Joe (to Cheadle): You listened to our album?
Jimi: Joe just writes loads of songs and then we go and record them at a nice analogue studio on tape.
Did you all enjoy making that?
All: Yes.
Joe: We think you can record an album in a couple of days. It took three days to record the album. Put everything down over two days and then one day putting vocals on and then it's all mixed on the fourth. It took God seven days to make the Earth...
Cheadle: And on the fifth day Joe B. Humbled rested.
Jimi: No egos in this band.
Cheadle: Not much of a story to the album really.
Is there much of a story behind the name?
Joe: Not really. I realised the other day I get all these funny sort of sayings and things mainly from Spike Milligan stuff. I don't know why that is. I think maybe even though I'm millions of generations ahead my dad made me listen to The Goon Show. 'A Power of Good' (which is the second track) I suddenly realised when I was listening to it that Major Bloodnok sings, "I don't know who you are. I don't know where you come from. But you've done me a power of good." And that's like ancient!
And how has the album been recieved would you say?
Joe: Not brilliantly.
Jimi: Not as well as the last one.
Joe: Well we're not on a label. We're releasing it independantly. But the thing is though a lot of people know about it out of the UK because we play in Europe a lot, more than we do here.
Cheadle: Because it's all self-released we've scaled it back a bit because we don't have the money to send it to every single radio station on the globe.
Joe: It's a staggered release really. It's still being released.
Cheadle: But we've got no intentions of being a big band we just like to get around and do what we do.
Have you been on a little tour yet?
Joe: We do little weekend dates here and there which is our tour. A staggered tour. Staggered release, staggered tour.
Cheadle: We've been to Norway and Germany and Italy this year. Last year we went to Germany a couple of times, France, Holland, Spain.
Jimi: I like it over there. They're a lot more receptive in Europe. They like to dance. Whereas in England people like to watch and clap. [Jimi claps] There's an example of clapping.
Joe: English clapping.
So what's coming next?
Cheadle: Jimi's leaving us.
Jimi: I've had enough
Joe: We've got to train up a new bass player.
Cheadle: Secret codeword name: The Bishop.
Joe: We're just going to carry on in the same ilk really. We're not going to change anything. I don't believe in changing anything or progressing in any way, shape or form.
Cheadle: We might be bringing out a seven inch single soon.
Joe: I think our next single is going to be 'White Collar Worker' with the B-side 'Humbled'
Cheadle: Another single. New bass player. More European dates.
And what do you guys do outside of music?
Cheadle: Can we make up the answers? I'm a matchmaker. I make matches.
Jimi: He shaves dolphins.
Joe: We earn our keep, don't we? You can't do what we do unless you've got a naked woman in front.
Is that who The Bishop is?
Joe: Yeah, let's get him naked! We'll be famous by this time next year.
After that the conversation moved onto saunas, dogs and palindromes and it all got a bit weird.
Finally what words would you use to describe The Mobbs?
Joe: Blistering.
Cheadle: Racy.
Jimi: Smutty.
Cheadle: Smutty?
Joe: Like locomotive engine smut, yes.
Jimi: And if your life seems dull and dreary, it is.
Joe: That's not how to describe the album!
And on that note the interview drew to a close. The Mobbs' blisteringly smutty third album 'Stiff Upper Lip & Trousers to Match' is out now.
No comments:
Post a Comment