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[ Actualités ] - Posté le 03/12/2007 à 10h14 - [Permalien]

BY JOSEFFEEN AND AMENINA


On October 17th, we met Little Barrie just before their gig at the Krakatoa (Bordeaux, France).
We'd like to thank them again and we hope they had as much fun as we did...
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Muzzart: How did you meet and how did you start working together?

Barrie Cadogan (singer): When the band first started, before Billy joined, I met Lewis. He was working in a shop selling records. I had just moved to London because I had made a demo and I was going to release a single. I was getting a band together. I told him we were looking for a bass player and he said he could play with us...

Lewis Wharton (bass player):  Yeah...but the truth is, well ... I used to play the guitar years ago, I just borrowed someone's bass and went to the audition. Then we toured together and made a record and then another record and we've been doing that for... 3 years? 4 years now?

Barrie: Yeah, we made a lot of singles before we released our first album. When it came to making our second album, our original drummer went away. He didn't want to do it any more. The more serious it got, the busier we got. I think he found it a bit difficult.
 (to Billy and Lewis) The two of you knew each other, didn't you?

Lewis: Yeah, we met at clubs in London.

Billy Skinner (drummer): Gay bars... (laughing). Lewis was a dancer, I was his manager...

Barrie: I believed you used to live on the same street! (laughing)
No, when Wayne, our drummer, left I ran into Billy in Camden, we asked each other what we were up to and I told him we were looking for a drummer. He came to play in the studio and it went very well.

Muzzart: What were the main changes in the way you worked on your second album, "Stand your Ground"?

Barrie: We didn't really have a record deal when we made the first one. We met Edwyn Collins through a friend, we wanted to record a single for ourselves and he really liked what we did. He said : 'Do you want to make an album?' but we didn't have any money so he basically let us record the album and pay for it later. We were all working at the time so it was much more relaxed, we would just go to the studio one day a week when we had a day off. We had a lot less time for the second album. Our drummer had just left and we had to record an album in a few months... supposedly... so it was a lot more pressure.

Muzzart: How did you record the album?

Barrie: It was the strangest situation. We went to America for 2 weeks to record the album but we didn't get everything we wanted from that, so we came and finished off in England. We had Russell Simins from Blues Explosion play for us for a while. Then we met Billy and he finished off the album when we came back to England. I think he played on four songs. We wanted to do it right so it took us a bit longer than what we had planned, we had to get back to the studio but it was worth it.


Muzzart: You worked with famous producers on your second album. What was it like to work with them?

Barrie: It was different. I guess Edwyn is very famous as well but because we met him through a friend, it was more relaxed.

Lewis: We just got hooked up with Dan the Automator who worked with Blues Explosion which we liked and it was an opportunity to see the results we could get from working with someone like that.

Billy: I'm gonna meet him tomorrow.

Lewis: Yes, we're gonna play with Heavy Trash and The Bishops (editor's note: at La Nef, Angoulème, France) -I'm very excited!
We ended up working with Mike Pelanconi as well, maybe not as famous as Dan but he did just as much on the record, if not more.

Muzzart : How do you write the songs?

Barrie: We just steal a lot from everybody else...

Lewis: We focus more on the music, I'd say. It all comes together in different parts. Barrie is more into the lyrics.

Barrie: I don't think there is any strict way in which people write. Some songs come to you very quickly and easily, others take a lot of work. Sometimes you get an idea you want to write about and sometimes you don't and you just get things going, it's more like a stream of consciousness. Sometimes I just press play and record but sometimes I spend a lot of time trying to get the words right.

Muzzart: In 'Love ya' for example, it's just like a lot of words put together...

Barrie: Yeah, there's a lot of words in this one and I sing it very fast.
but I've never studied songwriting, you know, I'm probably a quite naive songwriter...

Lewis : It's like when you listen to some Bob Dylan record, it may sound like gibberish in some ways but I'm sure there's a meaning behind it even if it's subconscious, and whatever it is you might take what you can from it.

Muzzart: Your music is influenced by the rock of the 50's and the 60's, what are your main influences?

Billy : 'Best of the 50's', 'Best of the 60's', ...

Barrie: We have only two albums...

Tony (Tour Manager): Surf songs from the early 60's...

Barrie: We bought them in petrol stations...

Lewis: Petrol station cds are aMAzing! (laughing)
No, seriously, when we made our first album, it was more funk and soul based things and rock sort of things, whereas now it's more garagey stuff. We listen to music ALL the time and we chose to render it in different styles, just what we felt like doing at that time. Our next album is going to be different again.

Barrie: I think that at the time of the first album, what we liked were things like Sly and the Family Stone, Lee Dorsey, The Meters, some blues and people like Neil Young as well. For the second album, it was more Jim Vincent, Link Wray and digging out records we listened to when we were 15. Lewis buys a lot of records as well and always brings new things, he made me discover The Cramps .




Muzzart: Is it the first time you play in Bordeaux?

Barrie: Yeah, it's the first time. We're Bordeaux virgins...

Lewis: Someone said to us Bordeaux is one of the best cities for guitar music, Rennes and Bordeaux... Rennes was a good gig last week.

Muzzart: You've toured a lot, what's your best memory so far?

Billy: I can't remember any of it!

Barrie: Some of the festivals in Japan were very good. People are so different there. People are so polite. Before you go on stage they'll be silent, like in an art gallery or something, then you go out they start cheering, you play a song and they all clap and cheer and go really quiet again and wait for the next song. It's quite strange at first but people are really nice and the countries are so different anyway... We found that some European audiences can be quite quiet and we'd think 'Oh, they hate us!' but no, they don't.

Lewis: Yeah, Japan was good. We played on a beach in Tokyo, it sounded good. We sort of ended the day on the stage, we were the last band on, there was a massive crowd there.

Barrie: We also went to Australia, we did a few good gigs in Europe, and a few cool festivals in France this summer but in one of them I remember the kids got balls of hay in the audience, in the end there was a big hay fight while we were playing.

Lewis: I was watching one kid crowd surfing and then he got launched above the crowd and everyone just got out of his way and we were looking at each other and thinking 'aren't we supposed to say something?' like 'calm down' or something. And maybe that kid or someone else who hit the deck found the straw on the floor brought it out and threw it and everyone figured out what was going on. It was just like half way through the song, I looked up and it was everywhere.

Barrie: Our mouths were full of it when we were singing.

Muzzart: Do you like improvising on stage?

Barrie: We do sometimes, yeah. I think it depends on, you know...

Lewis: ... how many mistakes we make...

Barrie: Yeah, we never make mistakes, it's just improvisation. We do solos, it depends on the audience, if we think that they might be into it otherwise we just keep the songs short. I haven't done any 20-minute guitar solos yet.

Lewis: 18,5...

Barrie: yeah, 19.

Muzzart Quizz:

Muzzart: What's the definition of a good song to you?

Lewis: I guess it's one I really really like.

Barrie: I guess it's got to move you in some way. I don't know how to define it. It's personal, isn't it?

Billy: I don't know... I don't listen to music.

Muzzart: Well... I was just going to ask you what you are listening to at the moment...

Lewis: At the moment...? Maybe the sound of the van's engine...

Muzzart: And...? Is it inspiring?

Barrie: It gradually gets less inspiring...
(to the others) Seriously, what are we listening to...?

Lewis: There's a band called the Flat Duo Jets that I got into, probably Jesus and Mary Chain, they're really good on stage.

Billy: I was listening to Radiohead last night...Amnesiac...

Barrie: The last person I've seen was Prince. He's amazing on stage.

Lewis: (to the others)What's the last cd you've bought?

Barrie: I've bought a Prince cd and the Sly and T-rex.

Lewis: I've bought Heavy Trash's new album.

Billy: The last thing I bought...? Make-up... and Ham Sandwich... it's new, they're really good! (laughing) No, in fact it was Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Muzzart: Which other band would you like to play with?

Lewis: Heavy Trash...and we are tomorrow!

Barrie: Lots of bands... I'd like to play with Ian Brown, singer of the Stone Roses. And lots of people who are not alive anymore...

Lewis: I'd like to play with the Sonics but, that's obviously impossible, I'd just like  to see what their shows were like .

Billy: I'd like to play with Slash from the Guns 'n' Roses. I think we'd be fucking brilliant!!

Muzzart: Last question, can you sing something in French?

Billy: "Je ne t'aime plus, mon amour..."

Tony: "Oùùùùù est la clé, s'il vous plait?"

Muzzart: Which band is that???

Barrie: It's just our Hotel Song... errr... a French song....?

Tony: "Frère Jacques"! "Frère Jacques, frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez..."

Barrie: "...Just a Cornetto!" (editor's note: probably a very famous commercial...)

Billy: All the other French songs I know are sung in English...

Tony: What's the name of that famous French rock song? (humming it)

Lewis: That I can't remember, man.

Muzzart: Ah! 'Ça plane pour moi'...?

All: Yeah! Yeah!

Muzzart: Is that your final answer?

Barrie: No! No! Let's play that "Je t'aime" song! (walking to the keyboards)

Barrie starts playing "Je t'aime, moi non plus" (originally sung by Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin). Click here to hear what it sounded like...


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We'd like to thank Rémy and the Krakatoa crew for organizing this interview