EVERYTHING EVERYTHING

Manchester based band Everything Everything have been building up a fan base since they started taking music seriously two years ago.  Having spent the summer gigging and playing festivals (and getting the support of Radio 1) the band today release their new single My Kz, Ur Bf (that’s My Keys, Your Boyfriend for those who can’t handle text speak). Bassist of the band, Jeremy shares with us the history of the band’s formation, his experiences and his political opinions.

Describe your music in five wordsIconoclastic, restless, changeable, futurist pop.

What are your biggest influences in making music?Basic touchstones we all share include Radiohead, Michael Jackson, The Beatles (both the music they made and their anything-goes attitude towards their own sound/influences). We all come from different corners of the pop spectrum too; Mike trained as a jazz drummer, I was immersed in post-rock and post hardcore for years, as well as, for some reason, Kraftwerk. Jonathan was able to see the musical merit and sheer audacity in lots of highly commercial RnB. Our influences are not exclusively musical too, there’s literature and art in there too.

Who would you most like to collaborate with?Michael Jackson until recently. McCartney, maybe. Dr Dre. It’s difficult to imagine any other artist within the context of our own music, so we’ll go with someone like these in the hope of absorbing some of their hard-earnt musical understanding and wisdom.

You say you are from Newcastle and the surrounding area… and Kent.  How did you all meet?I’m the one from Kent. Jonathan and I met at university in Salford in 2003, and played in bands together there. He knew Mike and Al from school in Northumberland. When we all finished university we wanted to put a band together so we all moved into a house in Manchester. Our first rehearsal was just over two years ago.

Where is your favourite place to gig in Manchester?Night and Day for that inimitable dive club feel and the memories! The Deaf Institute for the opulent surroundings and a unique room.

Have you had any crazy live performance experiences?We played ANY show we were offered for about the first nine months, just so we could try to hone the songs and the live show. One or two of those shows were extraordinarily and charmingly amateurish in terms of promotion/venue/PA. We played to disintersted people in one or two pubs just on the floor next to the bar with one mic between us all and the bar staff turning our amps down throughout the set.

According to your MySpace, the new single My Kz, Ur Bf imagines “what it would be like to try and have any kind of normal relationship if your country was being bombed constantly by an occupying nation, from the point of view of a self-obsessed, post-traumatic stress disordered R&B lothario” – so it sounds like you are getting political with your music.  What prompted this?  What is your opinion of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan/against ‘terror’?How could anyone with half a brain ignore their social and political surroundings? It wasn’t a concious effort to write a ‘protest song’ or anything like that. I think a lot of Jonathan’s lyrics explore the personal and the political and, indeed, where the twain meet. In the case of My Kz, Ur Bf, he was struck by the unbelievably trivial and mundane nature of the lyrical output from chart pop and RnB in the USA, the same country that has waged two ill-advised, illegal and ongoing wars since 9/11. 9/11 and its legacy have dominated our adult lives, it almost feels like it’s all we’ve ever known. We’re a decidedly left wing bunch and, as such, feel extremely let down by New Labour. A supposedly socialist government shouldn’t go to war, especially two ill-founded conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you think you would have careers in politics if you weren’t making music?No. Mickey would be a marine biologist, Jonathan would be a horror filmmaker, I’d be a second-rate journalist and Al would be a high-flying academic. Politics does intrigue us though. DO NOT VOTE FOR DAVID CAMERON. I fear that most young people are highly disenchanted will not vote, which plays right into the hands of Cameron and his cronies. Those that will vote may be too young or shortsighted to remember Thatcher and her dreadful legacy of self-preservation and personal gain, and will be caught up in this buzz-word/concept ‘change’ and will bandwagon it to the ballot box and vote Tory. I believe in the state and in caring for those less fortunate than ourselves and I really fucking hate the Tories.

You’ve been at Reading & Leeds this summer – do you enjoy performing at festivals and what do you think makes it a different experience?The mud and rain and (at our level) dragging the gear across the site in a storm can be a drag. But, fundamentally, yes. We love the actual 30 minutes we’re on stage, and I love the municipality and scale of festivals. I think they display how people are still able to get together and celebrate and enjoy art in huge numbers, and just get along and have a party (something less corporate like Glastonbury especially). I always get a little tingle of that at festivals, it’s my one concession to hippyness!

What has been your highlight of the summer?Playing Reading festival to a warm enthusiastic crowd who knew the words (and were acting out the videos in some cases…) as the sun came down was pretty special.

Everything Everything’s new single My Keys, Your Boyfriend is out today on Young And Lost Club.
[Originally published on wonderlandmagazine.com/blog, October 2009]