Interview with Nine Black Alps :: Wessex Scene Online

Interview with Nine Black Alps

21st March 2006
Jack Marshall

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May 06 - Interview with Citizen Cope
Jun 06 - Interview with Vinnie from Less Than Jake
Jan 08 - Interview with ASH
Nov 07 - Five Minutes with.... Erik Chandler (Bowling for Soup)
Jun 07 - Sophie Ellis-Bextor Interview

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How’s the tour going so far?
Fast! I don’t really check up too much on the venues before hand, so I tend to turn up and just s**t myself really. Some of the places we’ve been playing are just a lot bigger than I ever expected.

Have you ever played in a leisure centre before?
No this is our first leisure centre. We had to go and get fish and chips from the pool-side café earlier which was weird, eating food with the smell of chlorine everywhere isn’t nice.

Do you enjoy touring?
Yeah I do. I get worried about doing my voice in though because I have to shout for an hour every night. The others can just go out and get pissed and have fun, I always think that I have to focus a bit more and try and be good. People pay money to come and see us, so it’s not really fair if I can’t sing because I’ve been out partying too hard the night before.

So it’s not all sex, drugs and rock’n’roll then?
Well, im trying…[laughs]…no, no, it never was!

There’s obvious comparisons between yourselves and Nirvana, is this an association you’re proud of or keen to get away from?
"I don’t think we’re trying to get away from it really, if we sound like them then we sound like them. On the first album we just went for the songs that had worked really well live, simplicity really, and Nirvana were one of the last bands to do that really well I think.

Do you see yourselves as a grunge band then?
I don’t think so, when I think of grunge I think of bands like Puddle of Mud, and Nickleback. I just don’t think we really fit in anywhere. When we go abroad we’re always lumped in with the ‘new English guitar explosion’, I don’t mind, but I don’t think a lot of those bands really have that much to do with us.

You’re from Manchester but don’t really fit into the scene there, would you say you have more of an U.S. sound?
Definitely. When you grow up in the north, every indie club you go to just plays the Stone Roses and The Charlatans all the time. It seemed more fun to try and get away from that repetition. We just play the music we love really.

Are you pleased with your debut album ‘Everything Is’
I am, but I can’t listen to it. I don’t mind playing the songs, but when you’ve heard it a million times the idea of listening to it again just kills me. The recording process just took too long. I thought a half hour guitar rock record could be recorded in about two weeks, but it ended up taking us about two months and a load of money, which is stupid. When I record at home it’s generally just the first take. I thought as long as long as I’m roughly in tune, and playing vaguely the right sort of chord then that would be okay, but apparently that’s not good enough to sell records!

The album could be criticised for being a little over-produced, do you agree?
Yeah I’d go along with that. Yeah totally. We were only playing live for about four months before we went into the studio, so we were still trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to do. It does sound a bit like some sort of weird jigsaw puzzle that’s just been thrown together. I just wanted to make a record that is sort of timeless and could fit into any era, I don’t think it sounds like a 2005 album.

You’ve had three top 40 hits, would you say you’re targeting a mainstream audience?
No I don’t think so. I think we’ve reached a level now where we can just survive doing this. We’re playing to a thousand people every night which is more than I ever expected. I don’t think we really have the right sound for daytime radio, unless we go disco, which could happen…"

What can we expect from the second album then?
I’ve written loads of pop songs, and loads of mellow acoustic ones. I just wanna do something that’s a bit less verse-chorus-verse, maybe something a bit more atmospheric. I don’t think it’s going to be too weird though.

How was it playing the festivals last year?
I think we were pretty much the only band to play every single festival lat year, I’m not sure why it worked out like that. By the end of the festival season we were all just completely dead. A lot of the time we were on fairly early, like two in the afternoon, so the rest of the weekend was just obliteration! Not very professional, but it was good fun.

Can we expect to see you at festivals this summer then?
Hopefully yeah! We haven’t got any booked yet though. We’re gonna be in America for ages promoting the release of the album over there, it’s only just come out so we’re gonna try and ‘crack the States’! Apparently we’re getting quite a lot of radio play over there, so hopefully it will take off.