Super Men: Young Knives

Prepare for the madness to commence. Gigwise got the chance to catch up with Ashby-de-la-Zouch’s finest, Young Knives, ahead of the release of upcoming second LP, Superabundance. Henry, House of Lords and Oliver are of the so-anti-cool-that-they’re-too-cool-for-school School, with their charity shop threads and combined ear for a quintessential British mise-en-scène. Here’s what happened:

Gigwise: So what’s new in the land of Young Knives?
House of Lords: Last night Henry was gonna cook some food and then we got a take-out. What else?
Henry: We’ve written an amazing album, I’ve learnt how to do a new dance and I had a Swedish massage.

Gigwise: So why does Young Knives exist and what do you aim to do?
Henry: Fate. And my main reason is to make sure I’m the best out of all three of us. At the end of it we’re gonna judge who the winner is. And that’s gonna be me.

Gigwise: So it’s a running competition?
Henry: It tends to be pretty competitive, yeah.
Oliver: I might die, in a pretty rock ‘n’ roll way, on stage.
Henry: Really? Well that might make you the best in the end.
Oliver: Yes!!!
HoL: If you die on stage you’ll be the best.
Henry: But seriously, I hate it when you read interviews and people go ‘being in a band is great fun’. Really, is it? It’s really boring to me. It’s as bad as being a librarian…
HoL: Or working in a factory – that is quite good fun.
Henry: I want to continue doing it and maybe push the boundaries of what people enjoy in pop music.

Gigwise: Sounds like a good plan to me. So how is the new album different to the first one?
Henry: We’ve got a different producer – it’s a lot fuller.
Oliver: More… gooderer, beautiful, epic, a bit more lush.
Henry: It’s a bit more stripped back and bare, there’s no sheen.
HoL: It’s got lots of layers of guitars and orchestras and trumpet and different overlaid percussive noises, and whoops and hollers.

Gigwise: Is that going to transfer to the live experience?
Henry: Yes, bits of it. Our live experience is pretty awesome anyway. God, I need to stop bigging myself up, seriously.

Gigwise: So why’s the new album called ‘Superabundance’?
Henry: Good question. It looked like a nice word, it’s long, it has the word super in it, and it has a resonance with the modern world and mass consumerism which made it look even better.

Gigwise: Are you sick of interviews yet? Does it get tiring?
HoL: It’s not being asked the same questions over and over again that’s irritating, it’s when you get people who ask questions completely unrelated to what you do. So they go ‘If you were a cheese, what cheese would you be?’

Gigwise: Well let’s find a question to satisfy you! How about: If you could be anyone else for the day, who would you be?
HoL: I’d be Paul Potts (the mobile phone salesman come tenor winner of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, some Simon Cowell-infested genericness - cue superabundant laughter).
I’d go around saying sorry. I’d go on TV and I’d say ‘I’m an idiot, I don’t know what I was doing’. I’d burn myself with cigarette ends and then kill myself. Hopefully I could come back to being me the next day.
Henry: Hey, it’s like Quantum Leap! I’d be the bloke that plays the guy in Quantum Leap (Scott Bakula?). So I’d leap into his body and then be in him, playing a guy in Quantum Leap.
Henry: Hey, I’d be Shakin’ Stevens. Just to see what he’s doing now. I bet he’s somewhere in South Wales in a massive house and with a hot wife.

Gigwise: How about you, Oliver?
Oliver: Er, my mum.
Henry: What?
HoL: So you could write out cheques for you from her?
Oliver: There is that.
HoL: I’d be Oliver’s mum too.

Gigwise: What is it about her?
Oliver: She’s lovely, she’s great.
HoL: I wouldn’t be able to stop playing with her boobies though… I’d be her on her wedding night (the most ridiculous laughter yet ensues – and to clarify, yes HoL’d want to have sex with Oliver’s dad)

Gigwise: I’ve lost my track now! Is there a question you wish you’d been asked which you haven’t been yet?
Henry: That one! That’s the funniest one we’ve had all day!