Interview: British Sea Power

British Sea Power have a name that they admit makes them sound ‘like imperialist cunts’, which was also ‘the worst financial decision they’ve ever made’. The sometimes spectacular post-punk ensemble are currently coasting (yeah) through the UK on a national tour. They are known for their somewhat ‘unique’ gigs; stages are frequently decorated with foliage, flags and other forms of plant life; whilst stories circulate of times when various members of the band have knocked themselves out whilst stage diving or have been pushed off stage by people in giant bear costumes… I caught up with Martin Noble and Phil Sumner to separate myth from fact.

Stephen Yang:  British Sea Power have got quite a reputation for eccentrically decorated live sets. What influences that?

Martin Noble: It started up from when we were doing Club Sea Power (the Brighton based club night which birthed the band), from wanting to put on an event to make it feel special for us and for the audience. Visually it looks pretty nice, so I guess you can say we want to make an audio and visual feast.

SY: Why do you often release EPs in between your albums?

Phil Sumner: It depends on how many songs we’ve got. I mean, it’s not in between every album, but it’s about trying to build up as much stuff as you can, and I guess the EP is a taster of the album. I quite like Radiohead’s model of bringing out LPs as downloads and then selling huge packages of stuff. We could have done something like that and put it together to make something quite fantastic.

SY: Do you think ‘Who’s in Control’ (lead single of new album Valhalla Dance Hall) could be the first anti-coalition protest song?

MN: It’s actually quite uncanny; it was written 18 months ago. I guess it’s a soothsaying song. I mean, if you listen to the lyrics, you can lend it to everything but I can see how people ask that question. It totally fits in with what’s going on, and some interviewers are like, ‘yeah they’ve written a song about the student protests’, as if we wrote and recorded the song in one week and released it the next… Maybe we caused the protests themselves.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH29rar3oYc

British Sea Power play ‘Who’s In Control’ live…with requisite mysterious foliage.

SY: Have you guys ever protested about anything?

MN: I never did anything when I was at that age. I’ve done stuff like sign petitions but that’s not really protesting, is it? People who are 10 or 15 years older than us used to protest a lot, so I think maybe it’s skipped a generation.

SY: Did you think about joining the student protests recently?

PS: We’re going to be playing a show outside the Houses of Parliament on the Thames [they played on 1 March], and we’re doing a couple of library shows in Rugby and Westminster.

MN: But for most of the actual protests we were watching it on TV!

PS: But going back to the politics question, I think it’s important to protest, libraries are good things, good places. Look after them, keep them.

SY: Where’s the best place you’ve played a gig? Is it true you played a gig on an oil well?

MN: [Laughs] we got asked to play a place which stored loads of classified information about oil wells. And someone from the Monster Raving Looney party owns it, and they asked us to play it and be an MP for them. We didn’t want to do it, because we were already being called ‘eccentric’ and ‘weird’, so to be lumped in with the Monster Raving Looney party wouldn’t have helped our cause!

SY: Is it true you played the Great Wall of China?

MN: Yes, it was the nearest part of the wall to Beijing. It was quite a touristy area but there was a picture of John Norman on the wall. You needed to take a cable car to get up but there was a toboggan ride down the mountain to get down, which was hilarious.

PS: It was an amazing trip; we were supposed to go over to play a festival in Beijing which got cancelled, but we turned up anyway. We had a couple of cameras following us and and played a gig on some farmland to some goats. In Beijing we also played on a lake on some boats. We played for ages, and loads of our Chinese fans got on a couple of other boats to listen. We went out there at 3 in the afternoon and were still playing at 8. Just singing stuff like ‘Hey Jude’, doing covers and really scraping the barrel!

So, British Sea Power: soothsayers, foliage lovers, and soon to be playing an obscure library/museum/oil well near you.