iLiKETRAiNS
Leeds' finest library/post-rockers iLiKETRAiNS are heading off on tour again, taking in a large portion of Europe before returning to the UK for the final leg. It’s an exciting time for Trains enthusiasts; after the success of last year's debut album ‘Elegies to Lessons Learnt’, they’ve released new EP, ‘The Christmas Tree Ship’. I had the opportunity to catch up with bassist Alistair Bowis a few days before they set off to discuss their plans for the follow up album, the merits of playing to a European audience, and the various bands which they've been compared to - good and bad...
Alistair, what exactly have you been up to today?Well it's not very glamorous; I've been earning money so I can be in a pop band. You don't get your money from music these days, so yeah, just getting excited about not working after tomorrow and going on tour.
I was reading on your website earlier that you've been locked away in a leaky cottage somewhere in North Yorkshire to record some demos in preparation for the second album. Did you find that particularly productive - did you find that the isolation helped to inspire you at all?Yeah we had a long weekend out there. It was a lovely house and it was raining outside so we had no desire to actually go out and try and find the nearest pub, so we just sat in and got on with it and it was great. It's always good to try recording somewhere new and it's a place that I've known for a while but I've never even thought of it as a place we could actually record, so it was nice that it worked. But yeah, it was just sort of testing it out to see what it sounded like and yeah, it sounded really good!
Can we expect to see more songs based on historical events on the next album, or is that something that you feel you've dealt with sufficiently with ‘Elegies…’ and the new EP?Yeah, we kind of want to move on from that now because we don't want to be a one trick pony; well, we don't want people to see us as that and we want to keep it fresh for ourselves as well. All the new stuff we're writing is non-historical based but it's got a theme, but it's not history.
So is the actual instrumentation going to be something similar to past efforts or is that changing as well as the lyrical content?Well, we're not going all out dancefloor electronic or anything like that, but we are trying new sounds; we're seeing what guitars sound like without lots of delay on, which is quite interesting because we've never really done that before. We're trying out a few more keyboard sounds, just trying new things to sort of see what happens. It's exciting, it's different for us and we're writing in a different way, we're recording in a different way; it's all change which is keeping it alive for us.
Your new EP, ‘The Christmas Tree Ship’ is on limited release from the 24th of November. I understand that the copies which were available through your website have already sold out, which is fantastic news…Yeah, we were given 100 to sell at first and they sold out in about 20 hours so we've been given a few more but unfortunately we had to set some aside for shops and things which means that we haven't got as many as we'd hoped to take on tour with us, so they may sell quite quickly, but we'll try and get hold of some more.
Well as long as you've got some for the Norwich show...Norwich might be alright... But they tend to actually buy stuff in Europe. We'll try our best not to sell everything. That's not true… It would be good to have some for all the shows but I don't know if it's going to work. You can download it, but if you want it, ordering it from a shop is probably your best bet.
Do you plan to include any of the tracks off that on the next album or, as I've read that the five tracks are going to flow more as one continuous song, does that mean it's going to be more a stand-alone affair?Yeah definitely, that is what it is. We're not wanting to turn into an instrumental post-rock band, although that's virtually what that song is, but that again was just trying something different that we hadn't done before. We wrote and recorded it but we didn't really know what we were going to do with it so we just thought ‘it's going to be a while before our next album, so why don't we put this out and give something for people to hold onto and bridge the gap’. We've put a little film on it as well; there's a DVD with the CD so that's a little something extra for the fans.
You said earlier that you're off on tour to Europe and that starts in Athens on Sunday the 23rd. How do you find these gigs compare to gigs at home? Do the audiences react to the songs in the same way or do they pay a bit more attention?I think they're a lot more enthusiastic than most British crowds. I don't want to put British crowds down, but they just do seem more into it. Especially with what we're doing; a lot of British crowds are into kind of the latest big thing and if they do come to gigs there's a tendency for people to not be there for the music, but just to be there to see who else is there watching, whereas in Europe they're all really into it. I don't know what it is about them. Some of the places that you don't go to so much, like Athens - there's not that many bands go there, so they just get excited and it's a bit of an occasion when anyone does get over there. They're brilliant. Germany, I think, are into the sort of thing we're doing which is really cool, which people over here aren't so much as a big thing. We still have a good time in England, but the food's not as good...
Do you think you'll be trialling any of the new material out that you've been working on, or are you going to be focussing more on the new EP and songs from the last album?There'll be some new ones, yeah, but I don't think we're going to play anything from the EP because it's a 25 minute song and that would be most of our set. But definitely some new songs; we've got four or five which are in the set so that should be good. We're playing some old favourites as well, so it's a bit of a mix.
Bit of a change of direction now. How comfortable are you with the comparisons that other people have made to other bands such as Interpol, Godspeed, Scott Walker and Múm for instance. Does it bug you at all?No they're very flattering, the ones you've mentioned. We get less flattering ones, but those are all things that we're into so to be compared to great bands like that is great.
Are there any specific bands that you have been compared to that you'd rather not have been?We get, not saying they're bad, but we get people saying Editors, which is a bit offensive seeing as they're ripping off Interpol anyway. We get a lot of Joy Division, which some of us like and some of us don't, so that gets a mixed response. I like them and I can see where they're coming from but it is very different. There've been random things like someone said Franz Ferdinand, which was a bit off the mark, but that was a long time ago and I don't think they were actually listening to what we were playing. It's mostly flattering and is mostly meant well which is the main thing. People compare us to bands because they like those bands and they like us I think. You've got to take it in the spirit it was intended.
What have you got planned for the rest of the year and for 2009?Well, once we've got this tour over it's pretty much Christmas anyway so that'll be this year gone and after that it'll be back to writing the rest of the album and hopefully going back out to the cottage to record the actual album at some point. I'm not exactly sure how soon that'll be but hopefully towards the earlier part of the year and then if that's done early enough, we’ll try and play some festivals and things in the summer if it's nice weather. And then write the next one!
Bill Vine
iLiKETRAiNS will be rolling into Norwich on the 6th of December at the Norwich Arts Centre. For tickets, go to www.norwichartscentre.co.uk or call 01603 660352.
