http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0mxQG5ZF_4

Have band will travel. A long fucking way, if WHB’s blitzkrieg tour schedule is to be believed; it runs beside the trio’s debut album, out this month, which is coloured with carefree sexuality and nu-disco synth references that span from ESG, LCD Soundsystem to Charlotte Gainsbourg.  

The band produced their album WHB unsigned, preferring to define their own tours and production values. They have done a pretty decent job of it, touring Russia, SXSW and even Dubai. They won Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition, which propelled them, unsigned, to the main stage, and into the production house of Gareth Jones [Depeche Mode] who arranged their album. 

Repeated Radio 1 plays and all that gigging went a long way to grow the hype of tracks like You Came Out, Oh! and Honeytrap last year. From warm hedonism to songs as cold and jaded as a Wag Club coke high, We Have Band have got the breadth to span the bases. We catch up with Darren and Dede:     

What are you guys up?

Darren: We’re in a rehearsal studio in Shepherds Bush ‘cause their tour starts tomorrow. Album’s out next week. We’re working with new songs, rearranging some of the old songs, and getting ready to go back out on road. We’re playing absolutely everything from the album. We’ve been playing live for about a year and a half so we’re well prepared.

Your touring schedule looks very punishing – how are you preparing for it?  

Dede: We’re just taking it day by day. It’s funny, you think you think played a place and that goes off the list, and then another venue gets added onto the end. We did about 130 gigs last year, and that was before we went to Australia over the new year.

What are your influences and how did you form your style?

Darren: In terms of our influences, it’s hard to pin us down because we are three totally different people listening to totally different stuff. We all write lyrics and melodies for each other, so if you hear someone singing it’s not what they’ve written necessarily.

However in general ESG is a band that we all like, we’ve bonded over ESG. We used to listen to a lot of Michael Jackson, Off the Wall has been on heavy repeat, we like MIA, LCD Soundsytem, The Rapture’s first album, OMD.

However we don’t know how we’re gonna go from here. What is really crucial to us is the way we wrote in the beginning. We spent seven months writing before we did any shows, we didn’t even tell our friends we were in this band – it was a bit secretive really, ‘cause it was this very personal thing. We didn’t tend to go out and play gigs – we didn’t think we were doing an album, we were just writing songs – everything was quite experimental. It’s hard to remember where we came from.

A big favourite track is Centrefolds and Empty Screens [previously known as You’ve Had Band] how did that track work itself out?

Darren: We’ve just finished playing that in rehearsal! The story behind it? Well…[laughs]. It’s a bit of a dark one this one – it’s about people leaving a place, and being very dissatisfied with it. You can feel it’s a definite place that we are leaving.

What place do you go to inside yourself to sing Centrefolds… and other darker songs?  

Darren: Depends on how you feel. Songs have their own life. I don’t think about what it was about every time I sing a song. We’ve grown so close to the song that you feel part of it so, the minute the music comes on…Like when You Came Out comes on and Dede’s singing it she sort of is that song. You don’t have to get yourself into the mindset, it’s not like you’re an actor and you have to get into a character, you just become that song.

For playing live do you prefer a room with good acoustics or the festival fever?

Darren: We like them both really, I think the mood that the crowd are in is very important. If you play music that’s quite dance – stuff that’s not shoegaze – that’s interactive then it’s crucial. If you’re shoegaze then it doesn’t really matter about the mood, but for us people gotta come loose, you know? If you ain’t loose when you arrive, hopefully you’ll be loose when you leave.

We’re really looking forward to Exit! It should be incredible – it’s a joke line up – we love LCD Soundsystem. Missy Elliott should be wicked!

Have you ever had any ‘oh fuck this is all going horribly wrong’ live moments?

Darren: In Australia when they’re enjoying a gig they throw things at you

Dede: They crush the beer cans into Frisbee shapes and pelt them at you. In Victoria, it either means either they don’t like you or they really like you. As long as it doesn’t hit the face we’re alright

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