#welshclub

[clodblogs]

Otherkin interview

I was able to have a chat with Luke and Rob from Otherkin before their Cardiff show, talking about writing songs, Idols, and Brittney Spears.

What inspired you to become a band and write music?

“I think we were all just really just musical when we were younger and all really into bands” Luke reminisced, “going to gig and going to concerts and it’s something that you gravitate towards and want to do because it looks like the funnest thing in the world and it is.”

“Yeah, I mean I played in bands since I was 11 years old and pretty much never stopped so. I guess it’s all I know really.” Rob was able to show off his music ability, “It’s either that or sports so and the football team didn’t want me so.”

“Star goal keeper” Luke added, not sure whether to tell more about his sporting past.

“I was actually quite a good goal keeper, but let’s not get into that” Rob was quick to boast.

What’s your favourite song you’ve ever written?

“I think, my personal favourite is a song that’s called “Yeah, I Know” I like that song a lot” Luke was quick to point out, with Rob agreeing with the answer.”Yeah, just because, I guess it’s a bit of a different sound from a lot of the other things we do, and I’m not gonna say it’s an unusual song, but it definitely works really weirdly. There’s no real chorus and there’s no verse” Luke explained the make-up of the song.

“Yeah, well we were drunk when we wrote it, but I can’t remember how we wrote it, ‘cause it’s a really weird song” agreed Rob. “And it seems to be a fan favourite too.”

“We always tend to leave it pretty late into the set so it, it tends to get pretty, pretty rowdy. Which is the way we like it.” So you know how to react when you hear this song.

What’s the meaning behind your band name, and where did it come from?

“This is actually a question for Connor, our guitarist, because we had been looking for a band name for I’d say about six months, and it was awful” Luke was quick to pass the blame. “Yeah, we tend to be really bad at naming things anyway. We have a song of ours, called Enabler, which we played for about a year and a half before it got released which we used to call ‘Slow and Heavy’ because it was, slow and heavy. That was the name for a year and a half.”

“It was actually when we went into record the album, we were forced to give it a real name.” Rob confessed.

“People actually wanted to keep the name ‘Slow and Heavy’” Luke didn’t sound too pleased at some members contribution.

Rob continued, telling the story of how Connor “found an article in a magazine basically, that said the word ‘Otherkin’ and we didn’t do any research into what it meant, and we were like yeah, that sounds great. Then found out it was this crazy online subculture, who constantly message us asking if we’re representing them. We’re not.”

“It’s a bunch of goth kids in America, basically, who are on twitter a lot. They are!” Luke added, to help us understand the youth culture they unknowingly represent.

“They all think they’re half animal and stuff. They’re not, they’re quite obviously humans.” Rob added.

“They’re actually quite nice. They’ll say stuff like, we like the music but what does this have to do with Otherkin. And we never really have a good answer.” So if you wanted to do some research yourself by contacting the band, Luke has warned you about their not-so-good answers.

“Yeah, we’ll take the piss and say that sometimes we are representing them.” Rob joked. “ People seem to hate that subculture, like they fucking hate it. If you look at twitter, they hate it. It’s always like fuck Otherkin, those guys are dickheads, so it’s never about us, I think.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to know. But we’ll always re-tweet it” Luke laughed, so if you ever give a bad review they won’t be 100% sure it’s for them.

What is a song that you wish you wrote?

“I love, ‘Tomorrow Knows’ by the Beatles, that’s a fucking dandy song, and that would have been a pretty cool feeling to have written that song.” Luke was quick to comment. “Toxic, Britney Spears.”

“Yeah” Rob was quick to agree.

“Yeah, actually I would have liked to have written that song.” At this point Luke looks regretful of his first answer.

“Yeah, made a lot of fucking money from that song” Rob agreed. “Final answer, Toxic,” Rob confirmed.

What style of clothing do you try to go for?

“I think like, well we quite obviously dress in a certain way, but I think it’s just, I don’t know, I think quite a lot of the bands that we look up to, like the Ramones and the Libertines (well I do anyway), it’s just sticking to classic leather jackets and we just kinda stick to that.” Rob answered, looking down at his own black jeans and leather jacket.

“It’s very easy to wear as well, you know” Luke added, also looking at his outfit choice today.

“If everything you own is black, then you don’t have to put much effort into it. Exactly” Rob laughs, pointing to my outfit of a black tshirt and black jeans. “The perks of it all.”

“I’d hate to be in the Vampire Weekend or something, where they have to have a new polo shirt every day, and a new cardigan. Whereas we can wear the same clothes every day.” Luke thought of the horror of owning more than two shirts.

“What, are you trying to start beef with the Vampire Weekend?” Rob warned.

How do you feel about the role that the internet plays in the music industry?

“It’s destroyed it, but it’s also kind of, opened up a lot of opportunities I guess.” Rob said after a few moments of thought.

“Yeah, it’s a double edged sword, in the way. As in, I guess the way it used to be in the 80s and 90s, where that you would have a very small minority of bands that would get elevated in a way that you could ever get to hear about them. Whereas, at least now you know, people in Argentina could have hared of us, whereas, if we hadn’t been elevated back in the 90s they would never of hared of us. It’s democratised.” Luke said, giving an insightful thought into the internet music industry.

“People in Japan and Jamaica. God bless the internet I guess.” Rob added.

“It’s really democratised the music industry in a way. And it is beneficial for bands, who don’t have a lot of main stream appeal, because they can get out and tour and make enough money by selling stuff through the internet, like merchandise, and what not, or promoting for themselves. Whereas those bands would not have stood a chance 20/30 years ago. So it’s cool from that perspective.” Luke added.

“But nobody pays for music anymore, so.” Rob was able to draw a negative from the internet. “ So that’s kinda shit. Just the reality of it I guess.”

Name a band or artist that you think are underrated

“Yak” Luke was very quick to suggest.

“Yeah, Yak is a good one.” Rob was quick to confirm. “They’re fucking amazing, we’ve seen them a few times. I get why they don’t get the main stream appeal, because it’s pretty heavy stuff. It’s amazing, but it wasn’t a very busy show, which is sad to see.”

“I feel like, they’re not really a band that are not necessarily underrated, because I’d say the reviews of their album are really strong so, they’re just underrated by the public I guess. And they deserve to be, deserve to be known.” Luke added.

“The band Idols. We actually met, the bassist last night.” Rob added to the list of underrated bands.

“Yeah, he’s pulling pints. Really nice guy, they’re off to play with the Progedy this week.” Luke pointed out, so they’re not that underrated then?

“They’re about to not be underrated, they’re playing huge gigs now.” Rob amended his previous statement.

What’s your favourite and least favourite venue to play at?

“It’s called Jimmy’s in Manchester” Rob pointed out with little hesitation.

“Yeah, it was pretty shit. It was only open and they were really unequipped. It would probably be a really nice venue to play in,” Luke added, just in case anyone who works there sees their bad review.

“It was a bar with a stage essentially,” Rob said, painting a more vivid picture of the venue.

“Yeah, I think they’ve improved it now” Luke added.

“That place was shite, the one in Sheffield. I mean, we’ve had a few exceptionally shit gigs,” Rob reminisced about their Sheffield gig.

“At The Rocking Chair, well that is not a good venue. And we’ve played two soul destroying gigs there. And we’re pretty used to like, playing to nobody, but these were extremely difficult gigs. It’s like literally no one at one of them.” Luke added,” So yeah, there are two answers for worst venue. Best venue.”

“Best venue. Paradise in Amsterdam, it’s pretty good. It’s an old church, that they’ve changed. That’s like what, 2,000 +” Rob suggested, pretty quickly.

“Yeah, we played a festival there,” Luke added, clearly remembering the amazing impression that the venue had for him.

“I’d say Europe as well, they just do everything.” So I can guess where Rob wants to spend more time touring.

“Any places in England that are pretty good?” Luke asked the question I was ready to know the answer for.

“We played the Deaf Institute the other night. I’d never been there before. Especially since we played a shit gig the night before in Manchester, so that was actually an amazing show. They had a fully vegan menu as well. That doesn’t happen very often.” So there you have it, any vegan Otherkin fans know the gig to go to.

Could you describe your process of writing songs?

“There isn’t really a process,” Rob shamefully admitted.

“Yeah, we just stand in a room with our instruments on us and play things and if it works it works, if not we just, bicker for a bit then hope something good comes along” Luke joins in, giving us an insight into the inner workings of Otherkin.

“Oh, you should see the fights” Rob jokes, and by the smirk on his face I guess he wins most of them.

“No, it’s very democratic.” Luke was quick to amend his band mate’s comment. “If someone has an idea they play it, if other people enjoy it then they join in.”

“If no one likes it, they don’t join in. They just won’t play along” Rob jokes, they both laugh, evidently enjoying the extremely democratic process.

“Maybe someday we’ll get fancy, and go to a studio and write songs there.” Luke dreams.

“But for now we’ll just thrash it out in a room together. Hopefully not forever, because there are definitely better ways of writing songs than how we currently do it. All of us just blasting music as each other, trying to decide what to do.” Rob joins in.

“We don’t really have the patience to sit down with acoustic guitars and write songs. We do that the odd time, but the majority of the songs that we do are done by just being in a room.” Luke remembers the evidently painful times he has actually attempted to write a song.

“I wish there was a formula; it would be a lot easier if there was.” Rob joins in on Luke’s dream. “We’re drunk sometimes, that helps. But sometimes we’ll just write the shittest songs. We’re just faking it basically. Sometimes songs just come out and you’re just like yeah cool.” Rob tells me.

“We’ll let you know when we have a proper answer.” Luke assures me (I still haven’t received one though)

What have been some of your biggest challenges as a band so far?

“I’d say cracking in was the start, because we’re Irish, it’s quite tough,” Rob admits. “We don’t get to tour here as often as English bands; because they can tour then just go home. Whereas we have to do a three week shift, which means we’re playing on a Monday night gig, when sane people play on the weekends. It’s a lot easier to sell out a Friday night show than a Monday night show. But, I think, luckily its started to change. We had an amazing Reading-Leeds, we played it last year.” Rob said, a little more positively than he started.

“Yeah, it seems to be getting better.” Luke agrees. “I know we’ve done some tours that have been really grim. It’s one of those things where the English bands we’ve played with, we toured with the Amazons a while back and they said they’d done the tent that we’d been in four times. That was our first time being there. So it’s quite difficult for us, because we’ve probably spent the same amount of time being in a band, but spent a fraction of the time in England which is where we try to be.”

“But, we’d sell pretty big shows in Ireland, but that’s because we play there often. Whereas, over here, this is our first time in Cardiff, especially since we’ve got an album out.” Rob continued.

“Which is mad, it’s mad considering we have an album out but it’s just the way it is.” Luke states.

“And especially when you’re in Ireland there’s essentially three cities you can play in. Whereas where, there are fucking like, 29 or something. Everyone is like, bigger than Dublin, which is the main city in Ireland.” Rob admits, not bothering to name all 29.

“So I think that’s been our biggest challenge, us trying to crack the UK.” Luke returns to the question after some consideration. “And even still trying to crack the UK, like we could do a show in a certain city in the country and get nobody and we want to be at the stage now where we want to be able to know where we’re going to draw a crowd. It’s just difficult to be, in Ireland. We just have to be expecting that things are happening over here when we’re not here. At least in Ireland we know how well we’re doing there because we live there, we can’t do that in the UK. That’s the biggest challenge.”

“There’s probably a way better answer, but I can’t think of one right now.” So I take it that Rob isn’t too keen on the answer that he gave.

“Song writing?” Luke suggests, laughing.

“Song writing! Yeah, Jesus. Playing instruments, that’s a good one.” Rob adds, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

What’s a popular music opinion you have?

“I don’t particularly like the Beatles.” Rob happily admits.

“ Yeah, that’s really unpopular” Luke is obviously still sore about this subject.

“No, I appreciate the fact, like I know that they’re a very influential band, but I was never a Beatles person. And I’ve met people who are the same, so I know it’s not just me.” Rob defends his opinion.

“He doesn’t really like Radiohead, which is bad.” Luke adds, still clearly appalled by his band mate’s music choices.

[rpeterthomas]

Found this on my phone from my first night out since living here. Anyone know who these are? Haaa #cardiff #clwbiforbach #welshclub

[-vvaste]

love these guys @werenoheroes #clwbiforbach #wnh #werenoheroes #allages #welshclub #gig

[serenakathryne]

#ladispute on saturday. Were awesome. #gig #cardiff #welshclub #clwdiforbach #blurryfaroffpicture #bnw

[ieu-an]

Chilling in the #WelshClub