INTERVIEW: The Outline
- Posted on July 14, 2008 7:46 PM
- 0 comments
Interview: Graham Fink
The Outline - Guitar, Lead vocals
Interview by Katie Spain
A chat with The Outline’s lead vocalist and guitarist Graham Fink is like a rollercoaster ride of pizza, shots, sex and genitalia. It was when I clashed phone lines with him anyway. When we chatted, the Californian band were smack bang in the middle of a European tour with Say Anything and The Rocket Summer. Although we touched on music talk, their album ‘You Smash It, We’ll Build Around It’ and the release of their single, ‘Death To Our Enemies’ (out on July 21st), talk soon reached more animated heights.
As the first whisky for the day burned the back of his throat, Graham enlightened me on backstage antics, band love, The Queen’s nether regions and the size of his dangly bits. Admittedly, he was encouraged to tiptoe down the verbal gutter, but who needs to chat about favourite foods when you can cut straight to the chase? If you haven’t seen The Outline live, make sure it’s on your ‘to do’ list. After this animated interview, number one on mine is to down some shots of my own with this delightful musician and his fellow sound scientists.
Set the scene for me... where are you now?
We are in the Wilmington Arms in Clerkenwell, London. Drinking and eating nachos. I’m about to do a shot to get in the mood for the interview.
What are you shotting?
A ‘Paddy’. It’s a whisky… a whisky that burns.
Tell me the truth, how many shots have you had?
That’s the first one today. We had quite a few last night with the other band so this is the first. It’s pretty early for a first shot!
What’s your first musical memory?
Well, I remember jumping up and down on a bed at five-years old, listening to Guns’n’Roses and Metallica because I had a big brother and he was into metal in the late 80s. So my first musical memory is playing air guitar to ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I think it changed but for most of my youth I think I wanted to be a soccer/football player.
How’s that going for you then?
Oh, it’s working out. I’m, going to be in Manchester United next year, easy. I need to build up my endurance a little bit… all those beers and veggie burgers aren’t really contributing to my athletic stature.
I reckon shots and nachos is probably a step in the right direction.
That sounds great to me! As long as I drink enough Lucozade it’ll cancel out.
Your music is experimental – what else in life do you like to experiment with?
My sexuality, pizza toppings, yeah… mainly those two things.
I’ve read a few of your past interviews and pizza, sex and the male genitalia come up a lot in conversation a lot…No! I think your right about the pizza, I’m not sure about the sex and genitalia…
Of all the bands you’ve toured with, who’s been the best to hang out with backstage?
We generally get along with everyone really, really well. There’s a band from Kansas City called Vadera who are our best friends in the world and we love touring with them. There’s a Japanese band called Polysics that we toured with and that was really, really fun. They taught us Japanese curse words and they were just hilarious.
What’s your favorite Japanese curse word?
You know what, I don’t think I can remember any of them. All I can seem to think of is the word for “Cheers” because we drank with them so often. I just remember these Japanese girls saying stuff like “F*** off you c*** sucker” in the funniest, cutest most innocent voice of all time.
Does fame scare you?
I think we’re pretty far from fame, in the sense of having to deal with it on a daily basis like going out in public and being mobbed or anything. I’m not really thinking about it too seriously at this point in time. I don’t know, I think it’d be cool and maybe a little overwhelming to get to a kind of crazy point of fame but luckily I think we’re too far away to have to think about it.
‘You Smash It, We'll Build Around It’ is out now. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever broken?
My virginity? I guess that’s bad... it was the first thing that came to mind!
It wasn’t even stolen… it was broken hey? It sounds like you’ve got some issues with your first time m’dear…
(laughs) No way, I’m totally a stable, well adjusted dude.
The album was a long time in the making right? Are the songs still fresh to play?
We wrote a lot of the songs when we were seventeen and we’re going back to playing them on this tour and I was saying in the last interview that it’s almost like going ‘back to the future’. Taking a trip back in time to a younger part of our lives which was kind of fun and a little bit more carefree. It doesn’t feel that fresh playing them but it is kind of nice and nostalgic.
Have you got some new stuff in your back pocket?
We do, we’re almost done with our new record and we just need to mix and master it and maybe write a few new tracks. We recorded it over the past few months before we came over to Europe so it’s all there and it’ll be available sometime, I’m not sure when but sometime.
Have you been including them into your sets for the European dates?
Yeah, we’ve been playing a few new songs. We actually played a few in December when we came over with Powderfinger. We played two new songs last night and we’re trying to throw in a couple here and there but at the moment we’re supporting ‘You Smash It’.
How is it touring after so long?
I love it, it’s my favorite thing. I love seeing new cities every day. I mean, on this tour we’ve all had too much free time; we’ve had two weeks off in London to just hang out and drink and explore. It was amazing. It’s a fun life, I really don’t think you can complain about it. Maybe you don’t get much sleep or it’s a little bit chaotic but it’s definitely an adventure and there’s never a dull moment.
Is there an Outline bus this time round or are you rocking some van action?
No way, we’re still in the same van with good old ‘Norman’ our driver. It’s a maroon sprinter and it seats six in the back. It’s pretty clean; it’s almost too small to get messy. It’s two rows of three looking right at each other. We just sit there and look at each other and go to sleep.
Gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes?
You took the words right out of my mouth!
What’s your ideal way to spend a day off?
The other day we had the day off and went and had drinks on Primrose Hill. It’s just beautiful up there; amazing views of the city, it was sunny, we had some good food and some drinks and just kind of relaxed. I think that was one of my favorite days that we’ve had. Then of course, we’ve got ourselves into some crazy nights as well.
What music makes your heart skip a beat?
I’m going to say Bryan Adams – So Far So Good, 'Summer of 69'.
I hear that your dressing room in Portland turned into a stripper rehearsal room. You, twenty naked women and donuts sounds interesting. Can you please elaborate and make it the highlight of my afternoon.
You’re building up a high standard there… I’ll do my best.
We were on tour with Polysics and we played this show and thought it was just a normal venue and all of a sudden, someone came down and informed us it was turning into a strip cabaret. So it was us and Polysics who are four kind of timid Japanese people and all of a sudden these women in high black leather boots with flame throwers and bikinis came down and just sort of stripped completely naked and were doing stretches and were bending over, touching their toes and getting ready to get on the pole. Then somebody from our band came back with twenty donuts from this amazing donut place across the street and we were just sitting at a table with these four confused Japanese people, looking around laughing at all these naked women getting ready to put on a show upstairs to a bunch of drunken Oregon citizens. It was definitely an interesting evening.
Have you had any weird experiences on the road this time round? Max once got his wallet stolen by a psychotic prostitute – that must be hard to beat.
That was also America.. I guess America is an little bit crazier. I’ve had really fun nights but nothing really tabloid worthy. Nothing shocking or terrifying. This trip has been pretty stable to be honest but hopefully before it’s over we’ll have something to report.
I interviewed you when you were touring with Powderfinger. When asked about what question you wish an interviewer would ask you, you said “How big is your weiner?”
So, I’m asking you now…
Somewhere between six and eight inches…
Wow, maybe I will have to come down to the Apollo for your gig!
If you could ask David Bowie one question, what would it be?
How big is your weiner?
If you could ask The Queen one question, what would it be?
Shit, is it weird to say the opposite? No, no…I’d feel really weird asking her that. Actually, leave it at that. That’d be a great one. I think she’d be really caught up by that – it’d make for a really picturesque moment.
The Outline release the ‘Death To Our Enemies’ single on July 21st. Taken from the ‘You Smash It, We’ll Build Around It’ album, it is accompanied by a Star Trek circa 1970 inspired video.
Related links:
The Outline album review.
The Outline gig review.
The Outline concert tickets.
The Outline Official site.
The Outline's MySpace.
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