The Maccabees interviewed by Joe Savins November 2006


Taking on the contorted sound of the capital, The Maccabees have rapidly built a fervent following of raggle-taggle indie urchins and uber pixie band aids delighted to have stumbled across a band of such genuine promise. Looking across the sea of Brighton bands in a scene that is both flooded and shallow they are the breath of fresh air so beloved of the Londoners that flood our shores each and every summer. Naive yes, but oh so confident.


Bouncing, brash, befuddled, The Maccabees invoke all those primal urges you�ve had in the past couple of years about the renaissance of the British scene. South London boys drawn by romantic intuition to hone their talents on the coast, their post punk styling with elements of drum and bass are bought bang up to date by the dirty driving bass and drums of Rupert Jarvis and Robert Dylan Thomas, the razor sharp twisting sibling guitar presence of Hugo and Felix White and the twitching, jerking, eyes to the ceiling feet to the dance floor vocals of Orlando Weeks. (Drowned in Sound)

 


What's the story behind The Maccabees?
Well we basically started out jamming and then we realised we had a couple of decent songs, so we recorded a cheap little EP which then got played around so we recorded it with a better quality and that's the EP which got us here.


Who are The Maccabees main influences?
TV, and not the actual sport Cricket, but the way it's played and conducted in general, um the clash, the Beatles and all the other big conventionally influential bands.


How has life changed since the band 'made it big'?
Well it's exactly the same as before, we're still travelling around the country in a clapped out van, but the big difference is people are actually beginning to show up to the shows now. I guess you could say it's changed because we don't have time for jobs anymore, which was a hard because I've given up extreme cage fighting for this (laughs).


You're recording your debut album, how is that coming along?
Its going really well actually, the label are just letting us get on with it and aren't pressurising us to change the sound of the band, which is something you hear about way too often. The songs are coming together really nicely and we're really happy with it, we all really hope that fans like it though and give them to a reason to stick with us.


You're off on a headlining tour after this, are you excited?
Yeah of course, I mean, we have done headlining shows before when we were building our profile, buts it the first time since we've hit this success that we've gone out on our own and we're hoping all the hard work has paid off and people will show up (laughs)


Finally, what's the next step in The Maccabees future?
Well after we've done these two tours we're going release the album in Spring, and we've basically going to tour our arses off and get people hearing the record because we're really proud of it.

Joe 90

Reada a review of thie gig here

Thanks to Warren at Chuff Media for sorting this out