Photo: Press
After their awesome Secret Garden Party show, we caught a word with Teleman frontman Tom Sanders, in the middle of their hectic festival schedule, to talk ad libing vs ‘impact gigs’, the K-word and steering away from skittle sandwiches...
How was the gig at Secret Garden Party?
"It was great. It’s a funny festival. Not many people seem to be there for the music necessarily. The music was like a real sideshow, a bi-product of all these people being there. A friend of mine was amazed that we had such a big crowd. He’d been seeing all these bands and there was no one watching them because people were busy just doing other stuff, whatever that might be. These are bands that normally pull pretty good crowds.
"I didn’t think there was going to be anyone there [at our SGP gig]. At the peak it wasn’t rammed. I think the people that came to see us were our fans rather than just random people though."
How do playing festivals compare to playing your own shows?
"It’s something you think about a lot. You jump from doing a tour into festival season and you suddenly realise a lot of these people listening to you have never heard you before. They’ve just kind of wandered in or were walking past and so there’s this pressure there to grab people and show them the best you’ve got, because it’s their introduction to you, so you want to make it really strong.
"That can tailor how you write your setlist as well. You’re thinking if 60, 70 per cent of these people aren’t going to know any of our music, what would you choose to play them as your introduction? Whereas, if you’re playing a sold out show, and it’s you’re own show, you can be so creative with the setlist. You can pick some really unusual songs, you can do a lot of the slow ones. You can have a lot more fun I think.
"In a way you’re doing more of a showcase at the festivals. That can be really fun too. It’s much more high impact and obviously it’s more intense because you’ve got to get off the stage bang on time, otherwise some guy can just come on and cut your gig or come running on with his watch telling you to get off. The changeover is really quick. So there’s this really intense experience of getting rushed on and getting rushed off and just doing this quite high impact gig.
"They can be really thrilling, the festival shows, whereas your own live shows a more relaxed and you can ad lib a lot more. There’s no pressure to get all the songs fitted into a 45-minute slot. You also have the pressure when it’s your own show. You say to yourself: “wow, all these people have paid to come and see us, they’re our fans.” You really want to deliver something special to them and make sure it’s the best you can do.
"It’s these different dynamics between the two kinds of show. I don’t know which one I prefer. Both have their challenges and their rewards."
Do you have favourite songs to play live?
"Yeah definitely. I don’t want to name particular songs but there are definitely songs that we really struggle to get that excitement when we’re recording it, and when you’re listening back we’re like: “yes, we really nailed it in the recording”, but we struggle to get that in the live performance, which can be very frustrating. There are some songs you spend years trying to nail live but it doesn’t feel the same as on the record.
"I’m really happy to say I haven’t got bored of our songs yet - even the ones that we’ve been playing since 2014. I’m still really enjoying those. None of the songs feel boring. Playing ‘Dusseldorf’, for example, every time it’s so fun to play. It’s got this great energy to play live.
Many bands get compared to other bands. Do you get annoyed by any comparisons made to Telemen?
" It niggles me all the time to be honest. It’s helpful to reference a band or two to get the ballpark of who you’re talking about, but it can be really annoying. For us it’s this whole Kraftwerk thing. We clearly don’t sound anything like Kraftwerk. I don’t think we do anyway. We’re pretty far removed from anything Kraftwerk sound like. But again and again that’s the only thing we kept reading was Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk."
Favourite festival you’ve played?
"One That I had a great time at was Tramlines in Sheffield. We played it on the same day as Secret Garden Party. We played Tramlines that afternoon [before Secret Garden Party the same evening] and it was just a brilliant festival. It was the opposite of Secret Garden Party, which I love by the way, but Secret Garden Party is crazy and cool and Tramlines was not cool, but it was fun, and people were genuinely loving the music. It had this real simplicity about it. It was a humble festival. Humble and simple. People are just having a good time and discovering new music. They were just really chuffed that we’d come to there town, whereas Secret Garden Party is real chaos - it’s nice to do something really refreshing in that respect."
Is there a question that you’re completely sick of answering?
"It’s my own problem but I struggle with questions about influences. you often get asked on the radio: “what’s the last record you bought?”, “what’s your favourite song of all time?”, “favourite album of all time?”, “what are the last five records you bought?”. Fuck, I can’t remember - I go completely blank. Then when I’m walking home I think, actually, I do know my favourite song or album of all time. I don’t like talking about influences. To me, it’s not very clear what they are, so you feel like you have to come up with something, but it ends up feeling disingenuous."
Any rider must-haves while you’re on tour?
"Our rider is pretty grown up, I have to be honest. It’s a pretty healthy rider. You’ve got your avocados, coconut waters, you’ve got salmon, brown bread - it’s fucking boring. But, you’ve got to be good to yourself when you’re on a long tour. You don’t want to be cramming white bread and skittles into your face every day. No skittle sandwiches that’s for sure."
Teleman's remaining UK tour dates are below. For tickets and more information, visit here.
Saturday 27th August – Victorious Festival, Southsea
Thursday 1st September - End of the Road Festival, Salisbury
Friday 2nd September – Into The Great Wide Open, Holland
Sunday 4th September - Festival No. 6, Portmeirion
Tuesday 18th October - Welly, Hull
Wednesday 19th October - Café Drummond, Aberdeen
Thursday 20th October - Electric Circus, Edinburgh
Friday 21st October - Queens Social Club, Sheffield
Saturday 22nd October - Leaf, Liverpool
Sunday 23rd October - Cookie, Leicester
Monday 24th October - Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Tuesday 25th October - Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
Wednesday 26th October - Junction, Cambridge
Thursday 27th October - Academy, Oxford
Friday 28th October - Music Hall, Ramsgate
Sunday 30th October - Sub89, Reading
Monday 31st October - Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Tuesday 1st November - Forum, London
Wednesday 2nd November - Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton
Thursday 3rd November - Globe, Cardiff
Saturday 5th November - Limelight 2, Belfast
Sunday 6th November - Workmans, Dublin
