Glasgow-based We Are The Physics, a band rooted firmly in the values of Mutant Science Punk Rock, their own fictional genre, have recently had a stormer of a year. After releasing their debut album, and touring round Japan, they have gained a relatively small, but dedicated underground fanbase. We recently had a chat with Michael M to see how they felt as their album was released, and what lies ahead. Last year saw the release of your debut album. How was 2008 for you as a band?
It was a beezer - like you said, the album came out, we got to pretend we were a real band; we got to travel around in a tiny van wishing we were dead. It was everything we ever dreamed of.
Please explain the thinking behind the perplexing track "Drawing Anarchy Signs On Your Pencil Case Is Redundant" on your first album.
It was just meant to sound like a knee-jerk. The whole point of the wee lyric is that sometimes we have instant reactions to things and then realise the error of it immediately, which seems to be giving the song more meat than it deserves actually! Basically: anger + immediate regret + logic = drawing anarchy signs on your pencil case is redundant.
Your video for "You Can Do Athletics btw" has been nominated for a Scottish Bafta. Are you excited about attending the ceremony, and how much does this mean to you? Would you ever consider scrapping the music career and focussing on acting instead?!
Oh, we don't get to go, which is a shame, I would give anything to speak to Lorraine Kelly like an automated phone answering service. Like when you try to top up your mobile and it says all the numbers like a question. No, unfortunately, the director and the producer get to go and they get most of the glory because, basically, they did all the hard work. All we did was turn up and act like pricks all day. Me and Michaeldrum got asked to be in an Irn Bru advert once but we turned it down because we were scared that the adverts would run for ages, resulting in a catastrophic rise in our fame and that would mean we'd have to fight each other about who was the best one in the band.
You seem to have a good relationship with your fans, via websites like MySpace. Who is the craziest fan you have ever met/spoken to, and what made them the best?
Pretty much anybody who seems to be really into WATP has some sort of important portion of their brain missing. This isn't a bad thing, right enough! I'd much rather befriend a passionate lunatic than some dullard with no personality. Some of the Japanese fans are mental cases, too. Although - we don't play encores, we hate them, and one time we played somewhere like Inverness and a girl, annoyed at our lack of encore, physically threatened Chris for 'teasing her bean'. We had to use guitar cases to build him a makeshift fortress at one point.
You recently toured Japan. What was that like, and do you have any amusing tour anecdotes you'd like to share? Is it strange being 'big' in Japan?
Japan's mental. It's like being inside a SNES. We're not big in Japan; unfortunately, we're still playing 300 capacity venues. The difference being that they're full of people who seem to be enjoying themselves, rather than growling from the back walls. And, it's a bit like Glasgow crowds, when they like something, THEY FUCKING LIKE IT. A guy at one of the gigs got so excited his legs managed to carry him over the barrier and up the PA in about a tenth of a second. We all looked round mid-song to see him dangling over Chris' head. He seemed genuinely confused as to how he'd managed to find himself there.
The old adage says that the second album is indefinitely more difficult than the first. How much material have you got written, and when are you going to be hitting the studio to get recording?
We've got loads written. The first album was such a ball and chain; we'd had those songs for years. We're recording demos all the time for this one and we'd love to get into the studio to do the album as soon as possible, but unfortunately, the politics of the record industry doesn't work that way and we'll have to wait until we can afford it. It doesn't seem any more difficult for us to do the songs, though. While on the first album, I felt we were often quite obtrusive to choruses and hooks, we're embracing them a wee bit more on this one. The first time round whenever we wrote something that seemed a bit too catchy, we'd cut it out. There's a few hooks on the new record which I'm sure we'll start to hate in about a week. I'm proud of how the first one turned out though; I think it's simultaneously brilliant and shite.
Are there any plans for a UK tour in the upcoming months? Will you be taking in any cities and towns that you haven't graced with your presence before?
We're trying not to tour the UK much, if at all, for most of this year. We'll probably just play some odd shows here and there to try out the new stuff because we've spent pretty much the last two years gigging solidly with the same batch of shitty/brilliant songs. We'd rather have some time to get this record right.
Will you be performing at any festivals this year? Are there any ones in particular that you enjoy playing at, or attending as punters?
We enjoy doing festivals; mostly because they pay stupid amounts of money and that way we can fund our DVD habits. I don't think we'll be doing many, if any this year, it's dependant on how things go with the new album and whether it's underway or not. But, hopefully, next year we'll be back in the mud.
What three pieces of advice would you give to someone wanting to get into the music industry? Did you do this yourself, or have you learned the hard way?
Three pieces of advice? 1) Don't sound like us, it won't work, nobody will like you. 2) Don't reek of desperation, everybody resents a band who really want to make it 3) Don't overstay your welcome. Say thank you, and close the door on the way out.
We live by these three rules. Apart from the first one, because we sound like us. And the third one, because we've been around a lot longer than we ever wanted to be. And number two, because we just generally reek.
Catch up with the latest goings on with Michael, Michael, Michael and Chris at www.myspace.com/wearethephysics.
ES
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