INTERVIEW: The Foxes
- Posted on August 22, 2008 10:59 AM
- 2 comments
Interview by Zarina Raja
We talked to Jonno from The Foxes and got to hear about his love/hate relationship with public transport amongst other exciting things about losing dogs in the US and low quality lager.
The Foxes have a lot of UK tour dates coming up. Where do you get the best reaction from in the UK?
It’s interesting really; some of them are the places that we have played at for a long time. Because of where we are as a band, people have seen us grow from a band that has been around for two and a half weeks. We have always loved London as it has always been very important to our development. There are certain other places too…one being Glyde near Newcastle and also Weymouth.
Is there a certain chunk of your fans that have been there since the beginning?
From the first six months to a year, I would say yes, they have definitely been on board for a long time. You can see that on our MySpace. There are certainly a core group of people. Our fan base grew so much in the first year and invested in us, and still keeps an eye on us and what we are doing.
In October you toured the US. How did The Foxes go down in the US?
It was really good. It gave us a taster of what that country has to offer. On the whole, it was really good. A lot of the places that we have been playing were in small towns. Most British bands that go to America are at a certain level, so no-one really knew what we were doing there. It was quite a novelty for people when we were playing. We were very lucky to have had the opportunity to play there. It grew from us being asked to do one gig in North Carolina to thinking, if we are going all that way, should we not do a load of shows? It turned it to a whole month. It grew from nothing to a month on tour.
Were there any antics while you were over there?
Yeah, well we got plied with booze a lot. No-one wanted to pay us because no-one knew who we were. We might have got thirty or forty dollars but we tended to get paid in booze. American beer is notoriously weak though. It is like a 2% lager which means you end up drinking a lot of it. We did end up making some silly mistakes. We stayed with this woman once in North Carolina and she had these two dogs. She left us in her house one day; she had this pool in the garden. She told us to not open the gate. We went out and left the gate open. All the streets looked the same where she lived; they were all new buildings. We had to try and find this dog, which we did eventually. But it took a long time. We recently found out that one of them had been put down.
That is a sad note to end the story on.Have you played any festivals this year?
The biggest festival we played was called Wickerman. That was the first time we felt that we were at a major festival. We played to lots of people in a huge tent. From a professional point of view, it was great to be able to have good sound on stage and a good crew to come and do things for you. It does have an effect on your performance. Although you have to go through that when you start out, it does make a big difference as a performer. Just to be able to go on stage and not to worry about anything but the music. I think I would like to go to a festival outside of the UK. Having looked at some of the ones that go on in Europe and in Japan; it would be like going on holiday for music. Nothing against British festivals, but I am not a big fan of masses of people when I am in it. It is not a situation that I would put myself in voluntarily. I think it is the lack of control that I don’t like.
When did you realise that music was the path that you wanted to pursue?
I think I was about twelve or thirteen when I first started playing the guitar. Our story is quite different from other bands though; they seem to pick up a new instrument and just do music and nothing else. What happened with us is that we all picked up instruments and loved them, and then we are all started doing normal jobs. We got together about two or three years ago, we started doing rehearsals and a few gigs. We were having so much fun; we knew that we had hit on something as a group of musicians. We decided to give up the job and do it full time. It seemed like a ridiculous thing to be doing; giving up work for poverty. When you’re young, you think, oh, I would like to be a Rock star, but we were a bit more realistic about things. Music as an industry is not full of money. There is an attitude among a lot of people who think that giving up the conventional lifestyle as a musician somehow gives them the right to be stinking rich and famous. That will die out I think because of the way the industry is going now. People seem to be a lot more grounded. I think there is nothing wrong in being successful and being able to support yourself. We all took that attitude. We never set out to be millionaires. It is about doing something you love and I just wish that everyone was able to do that in every walk of life; to do something you love and at the same time supports you. You can be so happy in your life that it is effectively worth less money.
Your new single Trauma Town is out in October. I love the first line. Have you had a particularly bad experience on public transport to?
Who hasn’t? I didn’t personally write those lyrics, but I know from is experience that the song is hugely motivated by one massive experience. It is to do with the general lack of common decency. It is the fact that people don’t help pregnant women or give people old seats. Its just horrible; the society we live in. Public transport is an amazing thing. It has this horrible stigma of being a place of hatred. No-one wants to look at one another and it’s a shame because it is such a great thing to have. Being around the world, other public transport is not like that. It’s not because it is better, it’s because the people are nicer. I read a horrible story recently about a woman who asked a group of kids to stop smoking ad they pushed her off the platform on to the tracks. How much lack of respect do you have to have for a person’s life? Trauma Town is about the general feeling that some people don’t seem to have any respect. It is probably blown up by the media but…Another one of our song touches on how the media always talks about how bad things are, but when you look out of the window, there is nothing happening.
How do you channel your adrenaline after a gig? Do you go out and party or do you relax?
It depends on the atmosphere; sometimes you come off stage and there is nothing that is going to bring you down until you pass out. Sometimes it does become a party, even if it is just the four of us. There are gigs, especially on a long run of gigs, you do start to feel the strain and want to go to bed.
What is the most memorable gig that you have been to as an audience member?
When I was fourteen, my dad took me to see Deep Purple. I was, at the time, very into Deep Purple. I was learning to play guitar then too. My dad didn’t tell me that he had got the tickets either. That gig stuck in my mind as something that made me think about playing live.
Related Links
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Comments (2)
Chris Ogilvie
Cool interview, I love The Foxes.
Posted on August 29, 2008 6:15 PM
Sal, Derby
the foxes are the best band ive heard in ages.
Posted on September 1, 2008 6:33 PM
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