Last week, I got the chance to interview Axes, a math rock band out of London with more than 40 years of shared experience on the live scene. That night they were playing their album launch at the Islington, a bar-and-venue type place with craft beers, small rooms and great bands. In between support acts Wot Gorilla? and Delta Sleep, guitarist Paul greeted me enthusiastically, telling me that this was the first time they’d sold out a show as he led me downstairs to what was basically a band common room: worn sofas, assorted magazines, a kettle, and an ice bucket full of beer. Sitting down, he quipped that it was also the smallest venue they’d ever played.
[SBN] I reviewed the album a couple of weeks ago, [link] and just to start I’d like to say I thought it was brilliant.
[Axes] Thank you!
[SBN] Now, I’ve listened to quite a lot of math rock since going to the first ArcTanGent really put me on to it, and the thing that struck me most about Glory was how much more fun it sounds than a lot of math rock can – it seems sometimes that other bands are a bit stressed out, thinking about all the time signatures and that, where you guys just feel like you’re having a whale of a time.
[Paul] Yeah, yeah, we did have a lot of fun making it!
[Stacey] I think it’s basically that we come from a background of listening to and playing punk rock, y’know – not worrying about it, just playing four chords and having a great time. That’s the background of how we got into music and we ended up writing this kind of music but with that style in mind.
[Al] We started this band just to have fun.
[Jeion] Yeah, we didn’t have an agenda.
[Al] Cause we’d all been in bands before that had tried that thing and been all serious and stuff and so this was trying to do the opposite, just take it back to enjoying ourselves.
[Jeion] And because we were just writing what we wanted to write, the music started getting more and more preposterous and we just embraced that. I think to play the kind of music we do it has to be obvious to people that we’re not a joke band, but we’re not taking ourselves at all seriously – we’re taking the music seriously, but not ourselves.
[Paul] I guess the good thing about not taking yourself too seriously is that you have lots more options available to you, you can really do what you want. So I think, especially with this album, we went really strange places that we really didn’t expect to go in.
[SBN] That leads me nicely onto something else I noticed about the album – the mad mash of genres that’s going on there. Like on Real Talk, it sort of sounds like Nile Rodgers playing with the Mars Volta or something – it came on and I didn’t even know if I was listening to the same album for a moment! It was really distinctly R&B, and felt separate, but didn’t come across as jarring at all.
[Jeion] I’m glad! That was the track when we really decided to mash genres together, be really blatant about it with section after section after section and do them all justice, not sound like we’re taking the piss. So it stands out from the other songs where we tried to blend them together in sound and structure.
[SBN] I really liked that about the album, that these diverse genres you were playing didn’t sound like parodies at all, you were exploring all these genres and treating them all with equal respect.
[Stacey] We all just genuinely like a lot of music, we all have very different musical tastes and influences. So I think that was just us really indulging ourselves – like we really fucking love R&B, Hip Hop – we really love all those things, and it’s really hard to fit them all together in a fluid way, so we thought: just don’t. Let’s just write exactly the R&B section that we want to play, and then go straight into thrash punk. It was a completely indulgent song.
[SBN] I think that’s brilliant, the way you went about that, and I think it says a lot about how people cling to the boundaries between genres as if they’re sacred, when really they’re not. This album could be placed anywhere, really, but still feel very much like an Axes album. What were you listening to when you were writing it?
[Jeion] I’m not sure about everyone, but I definitely had a few that were influencing me when I was writing: Dirty Projectors, Trans Am, funk stuff like Prince – so there were times when I was trying to write funk lead lines – stuff like that. Deerhoof has always been something that has come into my playing as well.
[Stacey] I was loving a band called Chromehoof. The bassist from Cathedral started it as a side project that’s jazz, electro, house, funk, metal, a complete mash-up. I went to see them a couple of times and I’ve been blown away by how fun that experience is. And they do exactly that thing where they’re not taking themselves seriously at all, but they treat the music completely seriously. They spend so much time on the detail of the music, but it’s all in the effort of making that relaxed, fun experience. So there’s a few basslines on the album that are a nod to Cathedral dude.
[SBN] Yeah, that sounds awesome, will definitely check that out! Okay, so when I was doing my semi-preparation for this interview I read that you guys are from four different countries, right? At risk of asking a tired question, how did you guys meet?
[Paul] Oh, this question! It’s quite difficult. It is a long story.
[Jeion] I think I can do a quick run-through. Basically, we were all in different bands for 10 years or so, putting each other on, touring with each other, then Al and Paul decided to start a band called Axes. So in answer to the countries thing, we all came from different places but we’ve all been in bands for a long time and all in and around London for a long time. It was quite natural really. Paul did have me and Stacey in mind for Axes though.
[Paul] I was a bit of a dictator, yeah. So Al and I started the band and straight away I said, “Stacey’s on bass.” But her band Instruments were still doing stuff at the time, so I said “let’s wait.” As soon as they split up, I pounced, and as soon as Jeion’s band split up, I pounced on him too.
[SBN] A musical predator, huh?
[Jeion] Some say that he deliberately sabotaged those bands…
[Stacey] That’s the kinda character you’re dealing with here!
[SBN] I’ll keep that in mind… Right, time for one last question?
[Jeion] Give us a random one!
[SBN] Alright… Favourite Italian dish?
[Stacey] Ooh that’s a good one. Davey Carbonara should go first.
[Paul, aka Davey Carbonara] Alright, so I’m not sure of the title of this dish, but it’s a linguini with king prawns, cherry tomatoes, white wine, garlic butter.
[Al] I fucking love pretty much all Italian food. But I think I’d have to go with the classic lasagne.
[Others] *disappointed noises*
[Al] It’s all about the basics!
[SBN] Bruce Springsteen just auctioned off a lasagne dinner at his house for $300,000, so…
[Stacey] Hey Al, if you were a millionaire, how much would you pay for a lasagne dinner with Bruce Springsteen?
[Al] I think I’d draw the line at a cool million, and then he’d just give it back to me like “We’re cut from the same cloth, mate.”
[the interview then descended into general chatter about Bruce Forsyth, missing out on lasagne as a child and whether buying premade sauce is cheating]
[SBN] Alright, I think that’s a wrap. Thanks guys!
[Axes] Cheers!
Axes’ new album, Glory is out now on Big Scary Monsters.”
Connect with Axes
https://weareaxes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/weareaxes
Big Scary Monster Records – http://www.bsmrocks.com/
Watch their Music Video for ‘Junior’ Below:
