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Sometimes when you call someone for an interview it’s not a good time because they’re either in a rush, distracted or just not in the mood to tell you down a telephone why they think they’re new record is their best yet. Today, however, when I phone Tahita Bulmer – a woman with more presence than a poltergeist – she’s incredibly chatty, diligent and absorbing to listen to. So what’s the problem? Well, although it’s a July day in London, for Bulmer it may as well be a July day in the Amazon. “Sorry we’re just getting really, really badly rained upon. I think I might go somewhere where there is a little bit more shelter,” she explains, as she can be heard dashing for the “shelter” she speaks so longingly for. “It’s really quite insane out here,” she adds, “we’re just trying to walk across the Millennium Bridge and have got caught in the most hideous rain with people falling over and stuff.”
As raindrops crackle against the microphone she’s speaking into, the scene sounds dreary, damp and depressing, yet, as Bulmer roars with laughter at the whole thing, it sounds so sublimely New Young Pony Club as well – it’s unexpected yet ridiculously welcome.
You’ve probably heard of the New Young Pony Club, and if not, then you’ve definitely heard of something by the New Young Pony Club. Most likely in the shape of the five piece’s infamous ‘Ice Cream’ - a sleazy slice of electro glossed with hedonistic and teasing lyrics - which appeared as the soundtrack to Intel’s Core Duo 2 processor campaign last year. “I can give you what you want,” sings Bulmer seductively on the song, as a voice over woman tells consumers – in an equally as suggestive way - to “Multiply your possibilities.” It’s not thirty seconds long, but for New Young Pony Club, its instant effect has made their four years of trying to make it in the music industry look like a life time.
“I think we were very wary in the beginning because it was so early on,” admits Bulmer, about the campaign, “but then it’s a worldwide advert that was going to be played prime time, several times a night around the world so...” she pauses. “People that we had advising us were saying that if you were going to get that on MTV then you would jump at the chance and here is an advertising agency and a company going, ‘we’re going to pay you some money to do it as well.’” As Bulmer reveals, being signed to an independent label – the Australian imprint, Modular, whose other artists include, Wolfmother – also facilitated their decision. “It wasn’t a huge amount of money but it really helped,” she chuckles.
The money that the advert brought them might not have been much but it’s been instrumental in bringing the New Young Pony Club to the position that they’re at now - that is, at the general release stage of their long awaited debut album, ‘Fantastic Playroom.’ Bulmer’s voice sounds overjoyed at the mention of the pop-punk-electro dance album (yes, it’s a certified genre dodger) finally being in the shops. “We’ve been looking forward to this time, if we’d have had our chance we’d have released it a lot earlier really, we’ve been champing at the bit, to use a sport analogy, to get this released and let people hear it because it feels like there’s just been a lot of hype and there hasn’t really been any...” she suddenly changes direction. “Well there has been some music but there hasn’t been lots of music to show off basically, so it’s nice to have something that people can listen to and go ‘oh yeah, they are really good’ or ‘oh yeah, I hate them,’ you know?”
Like New Young Pony Club’s early independent singles, ‘Ice Cream,’ ‘The Bomb’ and ‘Get Lucky’ – which all appear on the album – ‘Fantastic Playroom’ is a provocative record about living in the moment. An album which talks as liberally about sex, relationships and social shenanigans almost as liberally as those said things happen in the 21st century. Indeed, there’s an obvious juxtaposition behind the often simple, bass and drum driven tracks like ‘Jerk Me’ and ‘Grey’ and the culturally significant lyrics which the songs contain. “To a certain extent I must have human relationships and sexuality and gender on the brain I think,” admits Bulmer. “From things like that to the experiences that you have and the people you meet, films, places you go to and other music - I find it seems quite esoteric the inspiration behind songs.”
There’s nothing esoteric about the origins of New Young Pony Club, however. They formed in 2003 through the friendship of Bulmer and the band’s guitarist, Andy Spence. As Bulmer recounts the first meeting, and Spence – who she explains is currently making “stabbing motions” as she talks – listens in, it’s clear even over the phone that the pair share a yin and yang type relationship. “We just spent the whole day really talking and didn’t actually make any music but there was like a meeting of minds I think,” says Bulmer, thoughtfully. “We have a similar sort of outlook on a lot of things, I mean, we’re very different in a lot of ways but I think we have the same core values.” While she continues to giggle at Spence’s motions, she adds: “Andy always describes it as a sort of Venn diagram - where I’m maybe in one circle and he’s in the other circle and we meet in the middle, you know, which is kind of our love of punk and other sorts of dance music and certain musical progressions and ideas and musical history. There was definitely a lot of connection - we sort of balance each other out, where his strengths are my weaknesses and my strengths are his weaknesses.”
She might sing lyrics like the indicative “Let your girlfriend do what your boyfriend can't,” on the song ‘Get Lucky,’ and pounce round the stage like a liberated tiger, but Bulmer’s background is quite different, quite, well, restrained in comparison. It certainly justifies the cerebral way in which she describes her band, and particularly her relationship with Spence.
Of part-Egyptian decent and from a family of “performers,” if Bulmer’s Mother had been able to suppress her daughters natural urge to perform - like Bulmer admits she tried - she would have actually turned out to be “a doctor or an accountant or something very sensible.” Discovering she could sing at thirteen, however, soon put paid to her Mother’s more stringent hopes. “It seemed a sensible sort of way of going because since I was very small I’ve always believed that people should do what they enjoy and what they’re good at. You know, nothing annoys me more than when you meet somebody who is working in a bank who is actually a brilliant painter or something and they’re too scared to go for it for whatever reason,” she continues. “So, I think the moment I realised I could sing, even though I was quite good at science, I just thought well, it’s obviously pointless me being a doctor if I’ve got this voice.” All she had to overcome then was a “natural reticence” to dip her toes in the water which was caused initially by worrying about being a girl in a typically ‘boy’ driven indie culture. “It’s just been a process of getting happier with speaking my mind,” she reveals, honestly, as if she’s just completed the process.
Perhaps her worries explain why Bulmer and Spence completed the rest of the New Young Pony Club’s line-up with a laissez-faire mix of sexes in the shape of keyboardist Lou Hayter, Bassist Igor Volk and drummer Sarah Jones. That, and having a mixed gender band adds that something extra. She ponders: “I think it’s hard to say exactly what. I’ve been in bands with just boys before; it’s definitely a lot more fun being in a band with girls as well. But obviously that has its disadvantages to, I mean, you know, when our monthly cycles start to combine there’s like a hideous week of the girls sitting around sulking and the boys sort of scurrying around saying ‘Can we come and have a conversation in here...probably not.’” Monthly cycles to one side, she continues. “I think it’s important in this day and age to have both sexes in a band, I mean, how can you make something that’s as universal as music without those influences? Even if you are male or female, I think you need to have the different things that men and women bring to the equation to make a fully rounded art form.”
Indeed, see New Young Pony Club in the flesh and it’s hard to disagree with Bulmer’s theory. It’s on stage that Bulmer and Spence’s punk influences really seep out and collide with the electro and pop-synths that dominate their studio material. “I think we’re a very different live proposition than as we are as a band on record,” agrees Bulmer. “There’s a lot of control on record whereas as a live act we’re a lot more frenetic and exciting. I think it’s always a surprise for people that have only heard the record who come to see us live and see that we are really quite wild and we give it everything. They probably expect to see it much more rigidly controlled than what is going on stage, but no,” and here comes that punk ethos again, “we consider ourselves as rock and roll so we get on with that.”
As New Young Pony Club continue to “get on with that,” it’s more than clear that people will not, not just be able to avoid it, but - as ‘Fantastic Playground’ hits the shops - they’ll find it equally as hard to resist as well.
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