Ibiza Rocks Delphic Interview

We caught up with James and Rick from the band ahead of this week's performance

Q.  What's the essential Ibiza must-have?

A.  This is our first time to Ibiza, which is quite a sad state of affairs, and we're not really clubbers so I'd have to say that it'd be a snorkel… or some ear muffs.

Q.  The weather in Ibiza's hot - what's the hottest thing you've ever touched?

A.  Rick has got very quick fingers, and if you're lucky enough to touch the keyboard after he's been playing it, that would be the hottest thing you've ever touched. Steam kind of blows off it. They used to call me fingers Boardman.

Q.  Who are you excited about seeing at Ibiza Rocks?

A.  We're lucky enough to be playing tonight with Kele from Bloc Party.  Ewan Pearson as well he's playing now (in the background) - he produced our album - so it's always nice to catch up with him. 

And we've played with Bloc Party as well, not so much Kele on his own, so it's good to play with him. Unfortunately we didn't get to come down the other week, because our friends Everything Everything were playing - I think they headlined here…  We'll have a good night - Kelly a nice guy, as are his band so. And Ewan has the lucky title of 'The Most Charming DJ in the World', be good to hang out with him.

Q.  Ibiza used to be known as a haven for hippies.  What's the most hippy-ish thing you've ever done?

A.  I consider us to be the anti-hippies really… in terms of hipness it's something I've always tried to stray away from. I'm too rigid to be that free and loving. But sometimes we find ourselves in little pockets of hipness - like the other week we went and stayed in our manager Tony's cottage, and you go there, you put on your wellies and go for a walk outside - that in essence is being a hippy - wandering around being at one with nature.

Q.  As well as referring to a happier period of time, Halcyon also refers to a mythical bird. Who's your favourite mythical woman (i.e. bird)?

A.  (James) That's a great question!  It's got to be Medusa hasn't it?  Because she's just hard as nails - she only has to look at you, and you're dead. (Rick) I was always curious about the Sirens - the ones who lived on that island and sung a lot, and when Odysseus sailed past in his boat he had to try really hard not to be sucked in by them. 

I've not read the Odyssey for a long time. I always thought I'd get sucked in by them.  (James) Who else have we got?  Helen of Troy - she's beautiful, an obvious classic.  (Rick)  I like the underrated ones, like Medusa and the Sirens, they're evil so they probably don't get the attention from the guys.  (James)  Well, she's not gonna get the attention from the guys because her hair is made of snakes.

Q.  You're playing alongside Kele, who's arguably got a lot more "Dance" - are you likely to get less "Dance"?  During soundcheck you sang a Villagers song - what next, a folk album perhaps?

A.  No, we hate folk music, we think it's utter tripe, but we appreciate good songs and we'll always listen to songs.  We could stray more into classic songwriting, or maybe we'll go more into dance.  We don't know yet.  All I can say is that we tours with Bloc Party a couple of years ago and Kele completely stole our sound. 

Q.  If you were DJ-ing in Ibiza, what track would you spin to get everyone going crazy?

A.  (James)  One of our favourite tunes is Don't Let The Stars Get Tangled Up by Courtney Tidwell.  Ewan Pearson did a remix of it, and it was hearing that remix that first made us want to get him to produce the album, cos it was just phenomenal.  So we always make sure we throw that into our DJ sets.  (Rick)  I think I'd just play quite a lot of minimal techno.

Q.  Acolyte peaked at number 153 in France.  What do you think of the French?

A.  We bloody resent them a lot.  No, we love France.  We've spent a lot of time in Paris at our label Kitsuné and… well, we were really hoping to get 150, but we just missed out and got 153.  It was inside the 200, so that's all good. The French have weird taste in music anyway.

Q.  You're heading off to the US on tour soon - what's it going to take to crack the States?

A.  We were going to go over for Coachella, but then the unpronounceable volcano erupted and that stopped us going over, but we went over in June and did a few shows, and now we're going back in October. 

I don't know how it'll go - the American audience is very much like the French audience - there's a large mass of people who have their tastes and they want to stick to it.  There's a huge expanse of land in the middle of the country where people only listen to Shania Twain! 

We went over earlier this year and fell in love with New York, and the plan is to go back as much as we can, but we're sensible lads, and we know we've got to build it slowly over time. It'll take time. We're touring with Temper Trap and we're dead happy to be going over there with them. We're looking forward to getting to know them as a band and to get to know their sound - seeing what they're like like and how they perform.

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