Welcome to the weird, wacky, leotard-wearing world of Trash Fashion. If you haven’t experienced this new place, then it is high time you did. The London based, vividly clothed, hyperactive foursome that is Trash Fashion are back with a vengeance with not just a new single, but a new album and a tour flying them around the world as well. We managed to grab an interview with lead singer Jet Storm and got him talking on his opinions on fashion, of course, the nu-rave scene and their time touring with the blacker than black, Horrors.

With the bands name, Trash Fashion, meaning ‘bin fashion’ or as Jet Storm puts it ‘fuck fashion’, this is a band that does not care about looking silly. And they do wear some pretty flamboyant attire. “Certainly, especially in the beginning, we were trying to be as outrageous as possible, dressed in leotards and all that kind of thing. I think we’ve kind of, not grown up, you get kind of bored with doing things after a while. I mean we’ve been going for four years or something now and you can’t keep doing the same thing forever because you get bored of it and people get bored of it.”

Shopping mainly in charity shops and vintage clothing stores down in Camden, Jet maintains that the image of the band is massively important, “Clothes and fashion have certainly always been as big a part of this band as the music has in a lot of ways.” He says.

The increasing popularity of the band has meant freebies and clothes are passed on to them frequently. “I’m forever finding stupid things and thought two years ago “fuck I’m not going to wear that again” and then low and behold two years later you think “fuck that’s cool, I’ll wear that for a bit.” I never chuck stuff away!”

Wearing their bright technicolour clothing, and playing grinding, hectic guitars with the occasional siren, Trash Fashion slid straight into the list of bands associated with the nu-rave scene. “I wouldn’t say we ever went out to be particularly nu-rave, because we were doing what we were doing long before new rave ever existed. It happened and we got dragged along with it in a way. I don’t really know what nu-rave is. New Young Pony Club are nu-rave, Shitdisco are nu-rave, and Klaxons are nu-rave, and they don’t even sound anything like each other.”

And yet Trash Fashion’s new album is a departure from their signature sound with some quite hefty guitar based riffs and a booming baseline, “I think it’s just the way we’ve progressed to be honest. We’ve kind of, gone back to how we were in the very beginning because we all started out wanting to make dance music with guitars.”

Fascinated with Daft Punk (describing them as “one of our favourite artists”) and dance music as a child, dance has certainly inspired the sounds of ‘Nights of Error’. “Definitely dance is a huge part of where we are and always has been.”

Infamous to the Trash Fashion fan base, ‘Rave Dave’ is seen on the new album, as is ‘Why can’t we be friends?’ which was influenced by a chaotic gig when supporting the Horrors. “It was just really weird because at the time, the Horrors were just blowing up and they had all these kids there, and basically half the room were in black, and half the room were in neon with glow sticks. It was literally a split down the middle. But then when the bands started playing no one gave a fuck, it didn’t matter any more. They were just there to have a good time.”

Not shy of the live scene tours have taken the band across Europe and the states as well as playing the Fused Magazine showcase at South-by-South West in Austin, Texas. “Certainly Italy, Germany, Scandinavia and Russia the gigs there are always brilliant and SXSW was wicked man! None of us had ever been before and it is really mad because literally there’s this mile long road and every place is a bar and has live music in it, 24 hours a day pretty much. You can just walk in, stand next to the stage with like 40 people and see a huge band that you’d never be able to get to see in the UK. Our gigs we did were really good, great fun man. We just had a really good time.”

If you’ve got your over-the-top fluorescent clothes, copious amount of glow sticks, face paints, and not forgetting, your party head on, well then, you may just be about ready for the tour of Trash Fashion. The scenesters will be touring in late October including a trip around Europe and even a visit to Japan. “We are itching to get out there and we are itching to get back on the road as well. We just wanna get back out gigging really.”

Nikki Johnson