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After touting SixNationState’s self titled debut as “arguably the most impressive debut album of 2007” Gigwise decided it was high time to catch up with the group in their rehearsal room… otherwise known as the beer cellar of North London boozer Nambucca. After being treated to a selection of new tracks earmarked for album number two, we retire, beers in hand, to the more palatial surroundings of the Holloway Road and get talking; namely about bar-fights, Hunter S Thompson, Iggy Pop’s cock, playing on a barge with Luke Pritchard and of course the release of their DVD album.
“The release is irrelevant” states Gerry “It wasn’t about having something to release, it’s not about that.”
Bassist John Maskell who directed many of the videos explains further: “It’s about multimedia content. If you want to hear about a band or listen to a band’s music these days you go to MySpace or YouTube, that’s just the way the music industry has changed. But for artists it means that you can do whatever you like and that’s basically what we’ve done. There’s nothing worse than looking for a band or a song you really like and the only copy of it is some shady live version, so we just made videos for all of our songs.”
True to the bands style, the DVD album, made almost entirely by the band, is home-grown, bags of fun and explores a range of styles; from the home movie live performance of ‘Cant Let Go’ to the B-Movie inspired zombie fest that is ‘Taking Me Over’ and the incomplete animation of ‘Don’t Need You Anymore’. It’s a nostalgic smile inducing chat and as talk of the stop-motion animation used for ‘Up And Down’ begins, John tries in vain to suppress a grin before taking up the story.
“Me and my girlfriend went round Putney and basically robbed everything you see in that video. We went into the park and filled a bag with sand to make the walls, made this alleyway out of cardboard boxes and then we got this little puppet and made some clothes for him and animated it.” John continues “The song is about a kid going over to the wrong side of the tracks and becoming a gangster. So the video was supposed to be about this guy battling his demons, which is a bin monster that takes him over and turns him into this evil little character. He ends up disobeying the messages and gets shot. It was like video sex that was.”
Not wanting to discuss John’s animation fetish further, we steer the conversation towards the as yet untitled second album, which the band hope to record before Christmas and release next year.
“We’ve got about six songs, about half an album” says Gerry confidently.
Neil continues: “This next album is all about getting to the next stage, developing the band, the songs and taking a step back from the last one. We’re trying a lot more different styles and the songs themselves are a lot more thought out in terms of arrangement and it’s just got a lot tighter.”
John agrees: “18 months of non-stop touring has made us better at doing what we do. What we can do now is look at it a bit more subjectively, work out what we’re doing right and what we were doing wrong last time. We’ve really tightened up and worked out what makes a great band and that’s what we’re heading towards.”
Once again Gerry confidently steps in: “We’re the best band in the world, it’s just that no one else knows it. We’ll make an amazing album and everyone will go my god they’re the greatest band in the world and that will be it.” At this, the rest of the band start laughing at Gerry’s unflinching blind optimism, but the front-man is adamant “The whole world will work it out… at some point.”
Neil briefly manages to get a word in: “You put your whole life into something and there’s no walking away from that.”
But Gerry has got the bit between his teeth and we’re now on the subject of marketing: “If we had the fan-base that Coldplay has and could sell out tours and earn a couple of million each, do fuck all for the rest of the year, record an album and just give our music away, then that would be amazing. But as it stands our fan-base isn’t big enough for us to give our music away.”
John picks up where Gerry left off: “The bands that have already got their profile big enough should be releasing their albums for free, because by doing that you can push people elsewhere, to see them live and that’s really what being in a band is all about and that’s why we’ve been on tour for the last 18 months because that’s we most enjoy and what our fans most enjoy.”
Once again Neil manages to briefly get a word in: “We’re quite happy for the money to come eventually but it’s all about just having fun and trying to be as good as you can be and going out there and playing music.”
John carries on undeterred: “We’re still going to make music even if we weren’t gonna make a sausage out of it. It wouldn’t really change our habits that much because we don’t make a lot at the moment anyway.” John continues “At the end of the day we live like rich men and we haven’t got a penny to our name, but we’re never short of a drink, we’re never short of friends, we’re never short of a fat night out and we’re never short of a bed to sleep in. We’ve always got everything we need.”
“More food would be good though” Adds Rich.
The rest agree and the conversation rapidly deteriorates into food porn before concluding as randomly as it began; apparently Rich once got his head stuck in the glove compartment of a Morris Minor… but that’s a different story.
