What a difference a year makes. This time in 2007, Dublin nutso-pop quartet Fight Like Apes were banging their heads on top of a mountain of hype and Next Big Thing hysteria. They could well have changed the band name to Everybody’s New Favourite Irish Band and seemed humble. Fast forward to 2008, and suddenly Everybody’s New Favourite Backlash might seem more fitting. However, while Irish appreciation of the band has become more polarized, success outside of the country from whence they came has begun to blossom. From televised Glastonbury sets to working with Sleater-Kinney, Wu-Tang Clan and Bikini Kill producer extraordinaire John Goodmanson on their forthcoming album …And The Mystery Of The Golden Medallion, Fight Like Apes are no longer something local.
We talk to singer MayKay and synths-samples-and-beards man Pockets about obnoxious pop, professional wrestling, and everything in between.
Initially, you were compared to American indie and lo-fi bands, but lately the majority of comparisons have been with post-hardcore and punk acts. You’ve certainly changed sonically over the last year. Was this the product of a change in your music-listening habits, or did it arise from working with John Goodmanson? Or some other factor?
MayKay: I think it’s been a mix of working with John and also considering all the traveling we’ve been doing and different bands we’ve played with I think and hope it’s all taught us some new things. We’re still a dirty pop band but yeah, I’d like to think our tastes and interests have grown slightly.
What did you learn from working with Goodmanson? Was it a daunting experience going in to the studio with somebody so well respected?
MK: It was certainly daunting because of who he is and also because it was our first time in a studio for a long period of time. But we were all pretty sure of what we wanted to do and what we wanted to come home with so together with that and the first meeting with John any anxiety or worry turned to excitement very, very quickly. He’s a really laid back, comfortable and confident guy. He knows what he wants out of a band and that’s for them to sound good so we knew we were in good hands. We chose him because of his amazing back catalogue so to be scared by that and let it hinder our efforts wouldn’t really have made any sense.
The great thing about John was that I don’t think the album sounds like a ‘John Goodmanson Album’. There are so many producers that have to put their stamp on an album and let people know it was them but with John it’s definitely a case of him wanting the band to sound the very best they can for that particular time in their career and make it sound like their own. I think that has come across. We all feel like it has the same Fight Like Apes live feel to it but with a lot more thought put into arrangements and sounds which was fun. We’ve never had the time/money to do that before.
So, if the new single is Something Global, how have you been going down outside of Ireland so far?
MK: We’ve been doing a lot in the UK so far. We’ve just got home from a three week tour which included Reading, Leeds, Kasabian-gigs, a few headline shows and some really cool smaller festivals around the country and it’s all been amazing. We’ve talked about this before between us and have found it very funny how sometimes you notice a sudden jump in things like crowds or website hits or press and you can never pin-point what it is that has caused it so we’ve concluded that there is a board room of taste maker types who get together once a month and decide who’s going to get a boost for that month. Sometimes it’s us, sometimes it’s not but when people refer to “they” in a “they say Fight Like Apes are going to be good this month” kind of way then that’s the board room. Very exciting stuff.
It’s a particularly ambitious sounding title. Is it to be taken as a statement of intent?
MK: Hah. I guess you could if you wanted to. I wouldn’t mind being considered a global success someday. It’s really more of a joke about how some bands try so hard for a sound that is “global” and to achieve that package appeal that can make you a success. This song isn’t about us, it’s a friendly jibe at the whole idea of manufacturing a band that fits the bill in every way and the things people take into account these days including how they look, who they go out with, what weight they are, what genre/scene they want to be in and then – usually bottom of the list – how they sound. A lot of people think this is a bitter song, which is fine, I’ve certainly never tried to act the ray of sunshine role, but it really isn’t bitter, it’s a fun song.
The Irish music-listening public tend to react cautiously towards any band with grand pretensions or any sense of internationality to them. Is there a fear of a knee-jerk reaction, or do you feel the backlash has already begun?
MK: The backlash has most definitely begun but that doesn’t bother us in the slightest, I bet you didn’t guess I’d adopt that line! We’re well aware that we’re not to everyone’s tastes. We hate a lot more bands than we love so we have never expected to be loved by everyone. We’re also more than aware of the way people react when a “cult” band turns into something that’s potentially slightly more and that’s fine too. The people that have decided they don’t like us (at all) write about us online & generate discussions about us which end up with people who haven’t listened to us before going onto our Myspace and making up their own minds, it also makes the people that do like us become more vocal about it. We like those ones the most. I’m not going to try to “win over” anyone. People loving us or hating us doesn’t affect how we write, play, dress, live or talk. That’s all really.
The song I’m Beginning To Think You Prefer Beverley Hills 90210 To Me sounds like it has an interesting back-story. What’s it based on?
MK: Hmm. This is always a dodgy one to answer. The song is a pretty clear one. It’s about firing people. One of the easiest ways of writing a song is obviously writing about things that have happened to you. We happened to have “parted ways” with a few people at that point and there you have it. Simple as that.
What binds The Mystery of the Golden Medallion together as a whole? Is there a narrative throughout it? Is the mystery solved at the end?
MK: Well, it’s not really a concept album in the traditional sense. The song choice was a very simple one. What are the collection of songs that best represent Fight Like Apes after 1 year and a half of playing together and this is it. Every song on the album says something different about the band (we think).
What made you decide to ditch certain songs off your EPs when it came to the album chop? Did you feel restricted by the need to include “the hits”?
POCKETS: It was a really natural selection process for us trackwise for the
album. We knew what we wanted. We knew that if we didn’t include songs like Jake Summers and Lend Me Your Face people would get pissed off, we also knew that including them would probably create backlash. We didn’t care. I’ve always believed that a debut album should be a true representation of where the band is to date. To leave off the songs that had gotten us to the stage of making the album seemed ludicrous. Add that to the fact that when we had initially recorded the EPs they were recorded as demos. Both How Am I Supposed to Kill You… and David Carradine… were also Irish-only releases. We feel the rest of the world should probably get to hear those songs too.
Your music and live performance is pretty aggressive and often sweaty. Do you get all your excess energy out on stage, or are you just a particularly frenetic bunch of characters?
P: When we started the band we were sick of shoegazing bands that brought nothing to their live show except play lacklustre versions of their recorded songs. It was never a conscious decision to be “frenetic”, it was more a case of “I really fucking love what I’m doing and it’s
probably going to show”. We’re all big professional wrestling fans too and generally find it hard to resist the urge to hit each other. Bands like Devo have always inspired us with their oddly choreographed stage
show. While we’d never have the patience to choreograph a stage show I think we all like to bring the same sense of fun they did by completely losing ourselves to the songs.
You vowed to make “obnoxious pop” when you started up. What’s the most obnoxious thing you do as a band?
POCKETS: I think recently we’ve probably become a little worse. Our poor tour manager has to deal with us “champing” him on most occasions. Champing is the artform of making somebody steal something by accident. It has to be something completely random of course i.e denture cleaners or a single ladies shoe. The look on his face when the shop alarm goes off is my favorite part of every day. In relation to music I suppose destroying the stage when you’re a support band is a pretty rude thing to do. It’s pretty hard to resist though.
There are lots of urban legends surrounding FLApes – regarding things like Maykay breaking boy’s willies. Are there any particularly ludicrous ones you’ve heard?
POCKETS: I’ve heard a few weird ones in my time. I’ve heard that I have a fascination for glass bottom boats and reverse piledrivers. I also constantly hear that we’re signed to record labels that we’re not. I’ve heard we’re American a few times and more often than not we’re a
Cork band. I recently heard that Phil Jupitus is a big Fight Like Apes fan. Apparently that’s true! In relation to willie breaking – you’d have to ask MayKay.
Covering Mclusky is a tall order, given how zealous their fanbase is. How did you want to interpret Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues?
POCKETS: I think we had planned it as a once off cover for one of our first gigs when we were just finding our feet. It got such a good reaction that we decided to keep doing it. We’re huge Mclusky fans so it was a
very natural decision. We never really thought about how we were going to do it or change it. The song was perfect as it is. We just wanted to be involved in spreading the gospel of Mclusky – one of the greatest bands to have ever existed and yet you’ll rarely find a person who
knows them. Andy Falkous apparently likes the cover too. I think one of the nicest things about the last few months has been constantly bumping into him and realizing he’s just a regular guy. People say don’t meet your idol, that you’ll just be disappointed. They’ve probably just got the wrong idol.
Have you anything particularly off-kilter planned for the live shows? The last EP launch show was a distinctly mental night.
POCKETS: I think the live show has really come on in the last few months. We’ve been working our bollocks off in the UK and its really starting to show in our set’s togetherness. There’s nothing planned as of yet but lets just say it’s probably going to kick the shit out of any other FLApes gig you’ve seen before. Bring toilet paper, wrap it around your head. Lets make an evening of it.
Fight Like Apes release their new album on September 26.
