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 Amid the spring time heatwave I dive into the cool Élysee Montmartre. The Good Shoes are finishing soundcheck. I stumble upon The Rakes' tour manager and bass player Jamie Hornsmith, however it's guitarist Matthew Swinnerton who comes to get me. "It's about an interview? Please come with me."
And here I am in a corridor like room backstage, with the nicest possible interviewee.
During this time singer Alan Donohoe went to explore Tati, basement priced store par excellence.
Matt and I discuss the pleasures of being on stage, the French public, Gainsbourg, the new album, and the stresses of getting that second album right...
Leo: Matt, The Rakes have been touring extensively since 2005, is it still enjoyable, is it still fun for you?
Matt: Yes, it is, especially to come away from England. But the end of 2006 was really recording time for us for our new record, so there was a lot of time in the studio. In the winter, it's dark, you go in the studio, it's all day dark, you come out into the darkness. So to get to the springtime, to be finishing the album, and to be touring around France, it's really good, you know! It's good for us to get out and play, because in England there's a lot of hype around bands, a lot of new bands, a lot of pressure to come out with a second album and keep the position you’re at but to be the band, it can be quite stressful. Any band would say that about the second album. So now it's about enjoyment, playing again really. To be honest, I've enjoyed the three gigs we've played in France and in Holland recently, more than the first of the UK tour, because I just feel that we're now playing again, back into the swing of things.
Leo: You've been in France very often, gracing many stages in Paris.
Do you have a good relationship with your French audience?
 Matt: Yeah! I think so! Although some might say different!
Today I went out there and some people said to me: "Could you put us on the guest list ?” but there was no room left so I had to say no. They looked very upset. But that’s just unfortunate!
Overall, the audience here is great, all French audience is good. Actually, Parisians always get into the music, they always jump around. We always have this in large towns... cool guys are there singing, taping their foot. Every one gets into it here.
Leo: I remember the gig you did here at 1 o'clock in the morning, it was great!
Matt: Yeah! it was a lively gig. Although playing wise it wasn't fantastic. Those gigs are like the very early ones. It was late at night, in a drunken atmosphere, you want to be going wild and people don't notice if you make mistakes, the important thing is the energy really.
Leo: Is the public here different from your English public?
Matt: Yeah, I think so, there are subtle differences. For instance, playing the festival in Bourges, two days ago, the crowd was very funny, they were jumping on stage (it was also about two in the morning), grabbing the microphones, singing, rolling around, stealing the beers , it was really funny!
Leo: What relationship do you have with France?
Is there something that you particularly appreciate?
 Matt: We've played here many times… this is our fourth tour… I've always had the feeling, for some reason, that we would be able to do well in France. Very early on, I think it would have been 2004, we came to do a festival in Rennes, ‘Transmusicales’... we didn't have a record deal or anything, we just came over and did this gig because someone had asked us and it was fantastic, so from then on our relationship with France has always been really really good, and it's somewhere we always look forward to come and playing. And the way you’re catered for here, the way you’re looked after by the venues, it's a bit different to the UK. But the UK is great because to have success at home is very important to any band I think but to reach and go to different places to play is a different sort of feeling.
Leo: Is there any French artist that means a lot to you?
Matt: I like Gainsbourg a lot, not always just the music but the attitude.
I think he was a real punk rocker. He's just got this appeal and the fact that he was a man who continued to be antiestablishment despite his success and his whole fame… I think this is what a lot of people appreciate.
Leo: Your cover/ interpretation of Gainsbourg meant a lot to us.
It's different yet beautiful and totally respecting the original version.
For us Gainsbourg is still very important, an iconic character.
 Matt: We were aware of his iconic status, obviously as you would be.
To be asked to do the cover was first of all flattering, "Oh great, they've asked us to do this! " and then it was "Fucking hell we've got to approach this in the right way…" and I think we did it in the right way because we didn't have too much reverence and we put a little bit of our own self in there, a balance between what we wanted to do and respect. Because I think that a good cover version is an interpretation as well rather than just a case of "The great Gainsbourg " and maybe that's what makes it quite interesting.
Hopefully people can hear that, this sort of push and pull between The Rakes and Gainsbourg.
Leo: Who do you listen to right now?
Any band you would recommend?
Matt: I'm listening to a band called The Year Of. They’re from Austria, a place not known for its guitar music… not to my ears anyway.
They're really cool actually, a groove based guitar band.
I'm also listening to LCD Soundsystem’s new album. And the other day I was listening to, this is a bit unusual, Willy Nelson!
Do you know him?
Leo: Not very well…
Matt: He's a Country singer from The States. My brother asked me to buy his CD and I thought: “ that’s strange! why does he want me to listen to that Country music? “ , but then I listened to it and the lyrics are very poignant, very simple, with a very interesting poetical element to them.
In one song he is sitting at home, singing to the wall, the chair, the table, because his lover has gone so he says: "Hello wall, it's a bit sad here alone...". It's a pretty cool song you know! (laughs)
Leo: Your songs and especially your sound reminds me of a lot of important bands from the early 80s - and I am particularly sensitive to that - tracks such as 'Dangerous' among others...
At the time the classic question to musicians was: “ are you rather The Beatles or The Stones ? “
I feel like asking you: "are you rather Joy Division/ New Order or The Cure ?”
Matt: Huh, I think we're probably more The Cure. When we started the band we probably had one Joy Division album between the four of us. These bands of the post punk era were not a direct reference for The Rakes but I think that the sound was arrived at by… sometimes when you form a band you know what you don't want to be. You don't want to be acoustic, emotive, slow, Coldplay style. We didn't want to be that sort of music. So the sound we arrived at seems more like the Joy Division/ Gang of Four stuff, although I think that the important thing for any sort of band is to find a sound that has a degree of uniqueness anyway. We want something that sounds like The Rakes, so when you put the CD on, even if we’re doing a slower song, you could hear The Rakes in there.
The reason I say The Cure is because it’s a band the four of us like, whereas not all of us like Joy Division.
The Cure is a band that’s had some impact in British pop music.
I mean they are fantastic really, aren't they?
And what about you are you Joy Division or The Cure?
Leo: I began with The Cure and then I made a deep immersion in Joy Division.
Matt: I think that Joy Division commands immersion!
Leo: Live, apart from Gainsbourg, whose songs do you cover or would like to?
 Matt: We don't do covers, no. The Gainsbourg's song is a good example of us covering a song that we weren't particularly familiar with. ‘Le Poinçonneur Des Lilas’ is not a song that is well known in England at all, obviously here it's a very different story, but like I said, we approached the song in a way that was very fresh to us. Covers are quite difficult things to get right. I think we got it right with ‘Le Poinçonneur Des Lilas’ however we didn't get it right for Taratata...we did a David Bowie cover, ‘Let’s Dance’ and my advice is: “don’t watch it! “
We didn't get it right then but that means that next time, if we do one, we will think about it more.
Leo: I think that you have incredible remixes!
Matt: Yes! I think remixes are very important.
From very early on, with our first record with Retreat Phones Remix!
That was remixed by Paul Epworth, who produced our first album, anyway. He's a good ‘remixer’, actually.
Leo: Your texts are rather orientated towards social questions, often the subject being the working class.
Would you like to get a message across to your listeners?
Matt: I don't think that we have a message and I don't think that it's exclusively a working class thing as we're not coming from a particular stamp point. I think that Alan Donohoe writes the more socially observant lyrics. He's concerned with diluting a few things through, write about what is around him, what he sees perhaps to tell stories, really. Which do include politics because of the fact that it's a daily occurrence in anyone's life. But I think the idea of the way that things are represented in the media, ideas of suspicion, fear, all crept into this record because it's part of the times we're living in really.
Leo: Tomorrow we have the first round of our presidential elections.
Is it something you take an interest in?
Matt: I do take an interest, although I'm ignorant of it unfortunately. I'm interested in what will happen. A friend of mine, who is French, has told me a little bit about what is going on. I don't really have a great deal of awareness to much contemporary politics … I'm interested in political issues… I think, like a lot of people, I feel a little bit divorced from it, I feel away from this and particularly in England where the idea of spin seems to have taken over politics… there's no real engagement but I think that it may be a little different here.
Leo: The problem here is what happened five years ago, when the extreme right wing reached the second round…
 Matt: I read a book by a political theorist called Chantal Mouffe, and she made a point that, in large countries in Europe, supposedly enlightened countries, the reason for the surge of people of right wing movements is that the way these people talk about issues re-ignite a certain political element or something in the way that people feel that these causes are something they can latch on to because she seems to think that they function on an emotional level which a lot of other politics don’t, and right wing leaders understand that. That's why all the other politicians have to work more to reengage with their audience because there is a reason for all these things. It's not the big devil suddenly jumping down and changing all the enlightened people. There's something more internal. This is what she said anyway...politics…
Leo: You give the impression to be such a sensible, clean cut bunch of people...do you have a boisterous/ naughty side we should know about?
Matt: I think that live we've got a provocative element. I've always thought that that was important with our band. Outside of the group, outside of the live arena? no I don't think our behaviour is particularly provocative, sometimes it seems like these things have been done before so much, that you don't want to slip into clichés. You want to prolong the amount of time you can make records for. The confrontation comes across live really. It's very important...provocation, confrontation on the stage, with an audience to create for, with the audience feeling some connection. We don't really trash hotel rooms, I mean most bands are quite sensible underneath, really. These days a lot of bands are more media savvy, aware about what goes on, more than in the past.
In the days when Iggy Pop and David Bowie would do that, they had it a little bit easier because they just lived in their own world, "Fuck it, let's just do this…". Now every one is aware of everything else…
Leo: Your last album is different with a 'floating' kind of atmosphere.
There isn't the usual rough edge.
On stage do you play older numbers differently?
Matt: We play them a lot with a rough edge. We give them a little bit more of The Rakes’ energy. So even with the slower songs, we still give them a little punk energy underneath, which is the four of us playing together in that almost aggressive way. Maybe you'll see tonight and say what you think!
Words & photo: Leo PoliB&W Photos: Pierre-Alain Huart
www.therakes.co.uk
www.myspace.com/therakes |
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