Right. Civil Civic is basically a blind-date gone right. Aaron had been brooding over his concept of the band for some time, but when he finally had time to start putting his nasty scheme into action he had trouble finding an appropriate side-kick. Mutual friends recommended he contact me, because they’ve seen me drink and know I’m a band-whore who can’t say no. Aaron sent me an awkward email with Less Unless in demo form, and I said yes.
With the handful of tracks you’ve made available so far it’s clear to see you’re carving a sound of your own, whilst making nods to the lo-fi guitar wizardry of the likes of Sonic Youth. How did you go about honing your sound? It manages to be an aural assault whilst still being heavily rooted in melody.
Well, you’ve actually answered some of the question yourself. Civil Civic is a band formed around a simple set of unbreakable rules:
A) must have tough fuzz;
B) must have sweet melody;
C) must be a piece of piss to tour; and
D) must sound a bit like early Midnight Oil, but not too much.
The no-singing isn’t actually in the rules, we just have awful, screeching voices. Like cockatoos. People don’t even like talking to us for more than five minutes. It hurts them.
The double B side was arrived at pretty easily. We thought both of the tracks were strong in their own goofy ways, and wanted the listening public to decide which was the leading tune. But a double A side seemed like a wank. So we thought “Why not make it an even BIGGER wank! That’ll fuck ‘em.” Hey presto: double B side.
You’ve also “done a Radiohead” and released it as a donate-to-download via your Bandcamp site. How important do you think it is for emerging acts to forget about making money and concentrate on just getting the music out to as many people as possible?
Well, even an established indie act is not exactly a high-return profit machine. We need money to fund pressings and tours and the like, but the idea that we can screw that out of a tiny fan-base is just ridiculous. It’s much, much more important to get the music to more people than try and pump 12 obsessive music nerds for every cent. And to tell you the truth, most people pay something for the BandCamp downloads. One guy paid £20 for four tracks. I want to kiss him.
You’re a vocal-less band, which means you’re skirting dangerously close to the post-rock tag. How do you feel about being pigeonholed into any one scene or genre?
Every non-mainstream band ever interviewed in the universe ever has responded to this question by whining in a high-pitched voice: “We hate being called (insert genre), because we have our own unique sound! Wah wah wah!” So I’m not going to say anything about that. You can even call us Electro-Rock if you want.
From what we’ve heard so far your emphasis on electronics seems to be as important as fuzz drenched bass and schizophrenic guitar lines. What should we expect from your full length debut?
We will probably go down a couple of sidestreets on the album, since we’ll have some space to do so. But at the moment we still want to make the bulk of it centred around the interplay of the guitar and bass, with brutally simple, punishing drum machine providing the framework. There is a huge amount of scope in that, and we have only scratched the surface.
The electronics are there if we need a little extra drama or atmosphere, but we still want to be able to play it all live without using fucking backing tracks and sequenced melodies. That may change in time, but for now, nuffsaid.
With just the two of you how do your live shows work?
Well, we have a big square road-case with big flashing lights on it in the middle of the stage. It is “The Box”. I won’t say what’s in it, but Aaron uses a footswitch to change drum-machine patterns. All the samples and synth shit we play on keyboards that sit on top of the box. Then there’s just guitar, bass, lots of effects pedals on both, and our stunningly charismatic stage presence. Oh, and we play kazoos in one song.
There is so much bewildering shit on the Civil Civic stereo that it makes me a bit queasy. We download zillions of tracks from blogs every week and it drives me nuts trying to keep up with who they all are. Seriously, even the tracks I really love. Ask Aaron, he’s got a much better head for names. I’m just waiting for Modeselektors next full-length.
What’s next for Civil Civic?
Easy!
July/August – UK gigs
October – New Single
November – Euro-tour
January – Go to Australia and get a tan.
March – ALBUM!
You can get your digital or physical hands on Run Overdrive / Fuck Youth over at Civil Civic’s Bandcamp page ( http://shop.civilcivic.com/ ). Anyone that forks up more than £20 for the digital download wins a prize.
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