INTERVIEW: Blood Red Shoes
- Posted on February 12, 2008 4:29 PM
- 0 comments
Interview by Zarina Raja.
Blood Red Shoes are an electric duo made up of Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell.
Coming up from sea-battered shoreline of Brighton, Blood Red Shoes are a Grunge/Punk band that pride themselves on being different to the ‘weak as p*** Indie bull***’ music that is currently dominating the music scene.
We got the chance to probe Steven Ansell, drummer and vocalist of Blood Red Shoes. He hit back at every question as hard as he whacks his drums when playing a live set.
There were certainly no weak answers among Ansell’s thoughts. He successfully portrayed Blood Red Shoes as a passionate band that were serious about their music and a band who literally despise so-called musicians who have followed one another into a bland sounding, souless rut.
Here's what the fervent Steven Ansell had to say:
Finish the following sentences: Blood Red Shoes are....
...loud, aggressive, argumentative and immature.
Blood Red Shoes want to...
...make a record as good as in utero.
Blood Red Shoes think that...
...people should stop listening to the f****** Twang.
Blood Red Shoes hate...
...the fucking Twang. And The View. And The Wombats, Air Traffic, Libertines, Oasis, Kooks and all the other weak as p*** indie bulls*** that's stinking up the music scene. Sexism. Bouncers that beat up Laura-Mary. People who are out to make money more than to make good music.
There is a brilliant energy between you both, what's the story? How and when did you first meet?
Well, we met briefly a few times but the occasion that really got things going was when Laura-Mary came to see my old band Cat on Form play at the Garage in London. I spoke to her afterwards and I stole her hat and took it back to Brighton and I told her if she wanted it back she had to come and get it. It took her a year but when she finally came to Brighton, we had a jam. I gave her the hat back and Blood Red Shoes played a gig the following week, with 3 lyric-less songs. We went from there.
What's the process you go through when writing songs together?
It's all very spontaneous; it's been like that since the first time we played together. Whenever we try to labour a song or work it too hard, it's shit and we ditch it. So mostly, we just write by improvising. We get in a room, crank the amp and just start jamming around. Whenever something clicks and gets us excited we just run with it; one of us will start humming some vocal melodies, then we just try to take that initial energy and excitement you get when it clicks, and follow it to a point where we're thinking "that sounds like a song." It's all fairly intuitive. When we have our own little analogue studio set up, we record it, and that's helpful to tinker a little bit, work out a few harmonies or vocal ideas, and sometimes we change the length of a section or realise we need to add in a little transition part. And that's that. The whole thing doesn't take very long.
What's your favourite BRS song to perform and why?
Ahh, well that changes, for me it often depends on the audience because when people really get into it, then it makes you get even more into it. Whenever I can see Laura-Mary and the crowd are both really rocking out, that's when I enjoy it the most, often that's on ADHD because people seem to know it well and sing along. Also, it's often our last song in the set, and if we're getting really fucking into it then we often end up smashing some bits or throwing things around. We have quite a lot of destructive energy in us.
Where do you get your inspiration for your songs from?
It's a hard thing to say, when you consider how we write our songs, it's not very conscious, and the music comes before the lyrics, so it's not like a certain experience or thought spawns a song. That being said, obviously you think and feel things as you're writing the music, things bubbling away in the back of your mind and are coming out in one way or another. Our songs are about things that happen to us in real life, about frustration, death, failed relationships, about shit jobs, about shit places. Generally, our songs are tied together by an idea that there must be more to life than what we're presented with.
What kind of music did you listen to when you were younger?
Mostly quite similar to what I listen to now. when i was really young, I really liked Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen. I still like Michael Jackson actually. My dad gave me a lot of punk 7" and I got into Sex Pistols, Clash, The Jam and stuff like that, then Nirvana and Green day and american punk stuff.
If you could only keep one album from your music collection, what would it be and why?
Sex pistols - Never Mind the B*******. it was my first musical love, the first record that made me want to start a band and go nuts and incite chaos.
If you could choose anyone in the history of music to join you on stage, who would it be and why?
Iggy Pop as he was in 1969, that's a f****** frontman, who better to create a totall anarchic vibe? That's what gigs should aspire too, that collective feeling of freedom and that you can do anything, that exciting, chaotic, visceral feeling, losing yourself in a group, getting out of it, transcending your situation.
I think there is an Elastica-Sleeper vibe to your music, how do you feel about comparison?
Well, I don't like Sleeper at all but I used to dig that first Elastica record. I think it was one of the first records Laura-Mary ever bought actually, so that might explain a few things. I like wire and The Fall a lot and I think Elastica sound a lot like those two bands.
You have broken away from the poppy indie sound that is everywhere at the moment and produced something a little more rocky, was this your intention?
Hahah! Well, we're not really into Indie music which is why you say that! We've not really broken away from that sound because we're coming from a different angle - for us this is the poppiest, most Indie sounding music we've ever made, but we come from a background of being in heavier punk rock bands, so it would sound like that to us. It was never really our intention to sound like anything - we just write what comes out, and obviously the music we love affects that. One thing we did notice is that we bring out a more melodic, poppy side in each other, and for us that was quite exciting because our previous bands have been much noiser and complex, so we decided to run with it. But we're never gonna sound like those big english indie bands at the moment, not least because of the way we play our instruments, I hit drums really hard and Laura's guitar style and sound is way different to the current clean, twangy, choppy guitar sounds.
What are your thoughts on the current music scene in Brighton?
In Brighton there are some great bands - Charlottefield, The Ghost of a Thousand, The Maccabees, Architects. The scene is pretty healthy here, lots of people are doing interesting stuff. There are shit bands wherever you go and Brighton is no different, but there do seem to be an above average amount of bands here that I like, and there's a nice eclectic spread of different kinds of stuff going on.
What do you do to get your self psyched up before a show?
Well, firstly it helps to get a bit pissed but mostly just try to think to yourself "this is the last gig on earth." If you can play every gig with that kind of energy - as if you'll never play again- you'll have a good f****** time. I don't think an audience can ask for more from a muisician than to play with that much intensity....that's not to say we always manage to do that of course...
What is it like just having two of you on stage? Do you ever wish there were more of you?
It is quite bare because if you make a mistake playing there's nothing to hide behind but it suits me fine just having the two of us, it means you can really concentrate your energy together and feed off each other in a really direct way.
Do you ever argue? What about?
Yes, quite a lot! We live together and we tour together. If you spend that much time with anyone in the universe, you're gonna piss each other off. Thankfully we never argue about anything important thoough, nothing really about our music or things to do with the band. For example, we argued once for ages about whether one of the CSS was taller than me or not. We argued about whether I accidentally turned Laura's record down when we were doing a DJ set together (I swear I didn't but she says she remembers me fiddling with the knobs and making her quieter). We got wasted after a gig in Norwich and even broke the band up once, and neither of us can remember how the argument started or anything, although we lost our hotel and spent an hour lying on the ground at the side of a road and I remember thinking, this is it, I'm doomed, I'm gonna die here in Norwich. I woke up missing one shoe. It's that kind of crap anyways, generally, we're pretty good friends.
What's the significance behind the name 'Blood Red Shoes?
We took the name from a story about Ginger Rogers being made to dance so hard that she bled all over her white tap shoes. When you see the film and it's all sweetness and entertainment and smiles but behind the scene, it was f****** brutal. It's a nice combo.
If Blood Red Shoes symbolized an object, which object would it be and why?
A knife because a well-made, sharp, knife is something which is both brutal and beautiful, something you can use to create an amazing meal, something which has been made with skill and crafsmanship but also something you can use to kill someone.
What is the main thought behind Blood Red Shoe's music?
There is no main thought. I don't think there's a main thought behind most bands.
Can it ever really get boring by the sea?
Oh yes, it can get boring anywhere if you're people like us. We're prone to getting fed up and bored with anything in record time. I'm pretty sure you can stick us in a rocket to the moon halfway there we'd complain about it and want to put a record on nice and loud.
Anything you would like to add?
Yes, can someone please kill Jim f****** Davidson?
Related Links
Win tickets to see Blood Red Shoes at Reading Festival
Buy Blood Red Shoes tickets.
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