A
little background:
There are often a number of ways I find interesting bands and acts for
‘Setting Sun’ often nowadays through random yonderings through
myspace.com or alternative websites, I do frequently reading reviews of
demos of acts and if they interest me, I will then look into them further
and sadly frequently do not look beyond them as it hurts me more
and more to admit there are sadly fewer and fewer acts nowadays that
I find are truly worth hearing.
One such act that has interested me recently has being three piece act
Bristol and Leeds based band ‘The New Vague’ – the band themselves
in their own words comprise around ‘ The dulcet tones of singer
Liz Grashoff, the dulcet tones of saxophonist and singer Chris Mining
and the dulcet tones of unspecified instrumentalist Ramzy Alwakeel
('he's just a glorified session musician, really,' say sources),
The New Vague are often described as dulcet and tonal. Their first
mini-album, I have to get to the hospital, was unleashed to critical
acclaim* in July 2006, to a climate of twelve A levels, a
bankrupted CD pressing plant, two all-nighters spent mixing the
fucking thing and Chris's "continued relationship hell"*.
Contemporaneous of 'Please, Please' by McFly and the approximate
anniversary of England winning the Ashes, the record covers a large
number of bases including the dulcet tones of live favourite
'Serial Obsessionalist', the overprogrammed hell of 'Be In That Bedroom'
('why did we ever put THAT on there?' say sources) and the
two-day* marathon 'Forty-eight hours', which features a bassoon
orchestra*.’
I first discovered them through a demo review of their songs and from
when I heard their stuff for the first time and which I read comparisons
with ‘Pet Shop Boy’s, ‘The Smiths’, ‘Garbage’,’Lloyd Cole’,
‘French Techno’, ‘Belle and Sebsatian’ to even ‘The Manic Street Preachers’,
‘Meredith Brooks’ and ‘Bjork’, which by any stretch of thought is a wide
selection of influences, so interested I checked them out and was really
impressed, so the interview that followed came from contact with the
band.
Thanks to the band for the enclosed interview.
For more information on the band – please visit them on their website
http://www.myspace.com/thenewvaguetheband
Cheers
Andy N
Setting Sun:
How are things and what’s happening at the moment?
The New Vague:
We’re currently in our second creative
spate for the
next record; we’ve
got eight songs demoed, and a
plethora of B-sides
in the pipeline.
We’ve also got some
string arrangements floating
around that need to
be re-recorded because
the engineer ran
off with them.
Setting Sun:
Next, can you tell us a little bit about the history
of your music – or,
as I like to say sometimes, who fired the starting pistol?
The New Vague:
Two and a half years ago, Ramzy and Liz
decided to create a
hypothetical band called
‘The Disease’ for
the sole purpose of taking the
piss out of Chris
Martin (see the lyrics of ‘Clocks’
for something resembling an explanation).
Naturally, Ramzy
took things too far and
decided we should actually
make music, and
emotionally
blackmailed Liz into doing so
a few months later
at a charity rock concert.
Somehow Chris got
roped in as well,
and after a brief
stint as ‘The Christ Martins’
we changed our name
to ‘The New Vague’,
played a few gigs,
produced an EP at a ridiculous
loss, and now here
we are doing our first
interview with you,
Andy.
Setting Sun:
What are your influences, music-wise, and who are you listening
to at
the moment?
The New Vague:
Various of our number grew up listening to the
Pet Shop Boys, so their
influence is plain in our
approaches to harmony,
melody and drum
programming, as well as
the attempted detachment
with which we project ourselves.
Other influences
include The Smiths and
Garbage.
In the immediate present, we are listening to Pulp.
Despite the fact that our
MySpace lists them as our
second most significant
influence, they were
actually generated by
Media Player’s ‘random’
function. Liz spends a lot
of money listening to
Graeme Allwright, Belle
and Sebastian, and
Lloyd Cole and the
Commotions; Ramzy’s turntable
is currently dominated by
Björk’s ‘Debut’,
‘Everything Must Go’ by
the Manic Street Preachers,
and a lot of French electro.
Chris would be
nowhere without Meredith Brooks.
Setting Sun:
Do you play concerts, out of interest? If so, how do they compare
with your music, or, if you don’t, do you have any idea
how you
would approach it?
The New Vague:
We play gigs as and when we get offered them,
often at Bristol’s
Louisiana, which is a small but
perfectly formed
venue in the centre of town.
We try to vary our
setlists to be sensitive to
location and crowd,
but we also play around
with the songs
themselves, adding or subtracting
verses as we see
fit. We like to see gigs as a chance
to experiment on
our audience and our material,
often playing
acoustic arrangements, medleys
and covers.
Setting Sun:
I have been enjoying both of your songs on myspace.com.
Can you
tell us a little bit more about the one that I think is
‘Medical Student’?
The New Vague:
Ramzy wrote ‘Medical Student’ as an
affected stream-of-
consciousness, on a
bus, as is rather bluntly
suggested by the
lyrics.
He hastily wrote
the verses down in an
exercise book, and
then found himself
singing ‘medical
student, oh, oh’ to the
saxophone tune, and
it stuck. It is probably
the band’s most quickly written song, but
the programming
took forever.
Setting Sun:
What’s the inspiration behind your name ‘The New Vague’
out
of interest?
The New Vague:
Well, Andy, as previously mentioned, the band has
a history of allowing
itself to be governed by
in-jokes, and its
name is no exception. The
conversation behind
it probably went thusly:
Liz: Wouldn’t it be amazing if ‘nouvelle vague’
translated to ‘new
vague’? Then there would
be band called ‘The
New Vague’. How great
would the world be?
Ramzy: We both know what is about to
happen.
Liz: For fuck’s sake, Ramzy: NO.
Ramzy: The die have been cast. I’m
sorry.
Liz: No, you aren’t.
A similar conversation that took place
earlier has
resulted in our forthcoming
album containing
two songs with extremely
similar titles. It
is, naturally, Ramzy’s fault.
Setting Sun:
What plans do you have next, music wise? Do you have any
recordings or gigs planned at the moment?
The New Vague:
We hope to start recording the album early
next year. In the meantime,
we are playing at
Bristol Louisiana on
the 3rd of August and
the 9th of September,
and hope to generate some
interest from Leeds
venues from September
onwards.
Setting Sun:
Where are you from, out of interest? What’s the music
scene
like there? Have you been to any good concerts recently?
The New Vague:
We all grew up in Bristol, but Liz and Ramzy are
at university in Leeds,
so most of their time is spent
there. Bristol is
mostly famous for trip-hop and
the slave trade, so
we like to think we are the
new millennium. We
went to see Bright Eyes in
Birmingham last
week. The support band was,
unfortunately, also there.
Setting Sun:
What do you do when you are not being a rock and roll star?
The New Vague:
Liz practises escapism. Ramzy practises the viola IF
Chris practises medicine.
Setting Sun:
Anyway, a few light hearted questions to finish off with, firstly
what would you like to be doing when you are 60?
The New Vague:
Practising escapism.
Setting Sun:
Lastly, what do you think you will be doing
when you are 60?
The New Vague:
Practising medicine.