ILL MURRAY
Interview, October 20011 by Alfi Shipp

Ill Murray are one of the most exciting bands to come out of Cambridge since the likes of Pilots Of The Sixth, The Shills and Ten City Nation. Rising like a dirty phoenix from the ashes of Boring Girls and Tread Water, with a post punk, garage rock vibe about them with the subtlest hint of indie, Ill Murray are set to burst onto the new music scene like a peach hitting a wall.
Having already supported punk band LetLive and played their debut London performance within their first 3 gigs, Ill Murray are set to be something big, so I caught up with the members of the band, Maxwell Tait, Will Carroll, Jack Hilbert and Dan Smith to discuss kettles, mud races, what’s next for this band, oh and their evident love for Bill Murray.

 
1 Describe Ill Murray in 3 words.
MT: Ooooohhhh coooorrrrr. You should have let us prepare for this.
JH: Like Bill Murray.
MT: No we haven’t got any beards in the band though.
WC: We could. Dan’s got a beard.
 
 2. What can we expect from Ill Murray in the coming months?
WC: EP
DS: EP album.
MT: It’s gonna be fucking sick
WC: We’re gonna rock the socks off the world
 
 3.When you are not with the band, where can you most likely be found, and doing what?
MT: Oh well...
DS: I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it.
WC: Well I’m err usually in..
DS: Spar
WC: Yeah in spar shop in Hadenham working
 
 4. You recently played your first London gig in Shoreditch, what sort of reaction did you receive?
JH: There were loads of hipsters.
DS: Bare hipsters, it was okay.
WC: Some people cheered and clapped.
JH: There were loads of leisure pirates.
MT: Yeah they were all leisure pirates weren’t they! They came down from Camden for their first gig.
 
 5. What’s so special about Bill Murray?
WC: What isn’t so special about Bill Murray?
JH: He was in lost in translation.
MT: He was in space jam!
JH: He was in stripes
DS: IT’S BILL FUCKING MURRAY
JH: He was in groundhog day
WC: Ghostbusters
DS: He’s a ghostbuster.
 
 6. How much of an influence have previous bands such as Boring Girls, Tread Water and The Proles had on Ill Murray?
WC: They don’t mean shit
MT: It’s all Dirty Cousins! (starts singing fuhai..)
 
 7. Who are your major musical influences that affect that music you are currently producing?
WC: Dirty Cousins.
JH: Sonic Youth
WC: Weezer

 8. Maxwell, Damon Albarn or Bill Murray?
JH: Bill Murray
MT: Nah hang on guys. Hey what if you combine the two? It’d be the best musical ever made.
WC: You should write it.
MT: nah I probably couldn’t it’d have to be Bill Murray.
JH: it’d be like Chinese opera.

 9. What can people expect from your gigs?
JH: Maxwell sweating a lot.
WC: Sweat, dancing girls, confetti
Sounds like a friendly fires gig
MT: crocodiles.
DS: CHEESEY PUFFS!
 
10. Now this one is the special R*E*P*E*A*T question, what’s best, chips or cream buns?
WC: It’s obviously chips.
MT: Yeah it’s obviously chips.
DS: I quite like both.
MT: (Maxwell's autism kicks in slightly) do cream buns get grown underground?
WC: Chips don’t exactly get grown underground
DS: Imagine a chip plant!
WC: How would they keep hot?
MT: Patio heater!
DS: It’d be a bit like growing weed … but chips.
MT: What? Like a plant you mean? Yeah I guess you’re right.
DS: If you’re doing it professionally, making a living out of it, you’d have to have UV lights and shit.
WC: Staff on hand at all times.
 
11. Who else, other than yourselves, should we be listening to at the moment?
WC: Dirty Cousins.
MT: Good Boys. (everybody laughs)
JH: Fleetwood Mac
WC: The Offspring
WC: I think people should listen to Audiofire.
JH: That big band. Oh wait Futureproof.
ME: Weren’t they on some tv programme?
WC: And also one of them was on Come Dine With Me, and their after dinner entertainment was Futureproof
 
12. Where do you see the band in a years time?
MT: On top of the world.
MT: No we’re gonna be having sex with Bono.
WC: What about The Edge?
MT: He wears a hat. What’s in your hat today The Edge? Chewing gum and cress. Nah we’re gonna play every festival next summer. And that’s sort of a year.
 
13.  Your music makes me tap my foot, but I tap my foot when the kettle boils, what makes your music more tapworthy than my mum’s kettle?
JH: But does our music make you want to lose control?
DS: What type of kettle is it because that’s quite a big factor.
It’s a errrrrr Dyson kettle.
WC: Dyson don’t make kettles?!
MT: Do they have a little ball on the bottom so you can roll it around?
MT: Do you have Parkinsons in your foot?
DS: That’s a baaad disease...
 and you can’t just get it in your foot
(we somehow get back to the topic of chips and cream buns)
DS: Oi how many buns are we talking?
The same weight of buns and chips...

14.  Have you considered entering the Maldon Mud Race?
JH: I reckon we’d win
DS: Right, what is it?
WC: I’m not gonna win the race. I wouldn’t win a race of any kind.
 
15. And finally, what do you think of other Cambridge bands?
DS: Oi I actually went on Audiofire’s actual website this morning, it genuinely made me a bit angry and sad.
WC: Have you seen the video ‘Introducing Audiofire’?
DS: I don’t want to.
MT: Hahaaa; nah the best thing’s the font for their logo, it looks like someone’s just pooed out some words.
DS: Oi let’s go to McDonalds.

http://www.illmurray.com/
http://illmurray.bandcamp.com/