To celebrate the 155th birthday of Jack Daniel, the founder of the world’s most rock ‘n’ roll drink, Maximo Park, Editors and The Features played a one-off gig in Nashville, Tennessee to a select audience of 200 invited people especially flown in from the UK. Fused sat down with a large Jack ‘n’ Coke to chat with the bands starting with Editors.
Have you guys played in the US before?
Chris: No, it’s the furthest we’ve ever been for a show, it's quite some distance. We haven’t had a record out over here. Looks like our record is going to be out in the States in the New Year… ish. Probably a bit later on but we’ll see. I don’t know. I can’t really imagine us having a big fan base in Nashville of all places, maybe in the bigger cities.
But what about peer-to-peer file sharing over the internet, there’s a chance people may know your stuff over here.
Tom: We’ve seen on various websites people are talking about us in the States and the record label are raring to go but we don’t really want to take our eye off the UK and Europe until Christmas really: we want to make sure we do that properly. Then when we set our sights on the States in the New Year we’re gonna do that properly as well. So everything’s on hold but they’re warming up.
You seem to have had fan sites as soon as your first single came out, were you surprised by how quickly that happened?
Chris: That’s when you know you’ve made it: when you get fan sites!
It’s better than our site actually, that’s the problem. It’s got our date of births and what football teams we support. ‘What? How did you know that?’
Do you feel the need to check up on them occasionally just to see what you have been up to?
Chris: Sometimes if we hear that there’s something interesting going on then we check it but it’s not high on our list of priorities. It’s quite funny just to know what they’re up to. Crazy fans.
Tom: It’s weird having an army of fans building. You see the numbers increasing of people that are logged on there; it’s mind-blowing. Obviously we’re enjoying the success but it’s amazing if you stop to think about it. People spend so much time sat there writing about us and what we do and what where we go. You know, it’s weird. It’s great, I mean, they’re not weird people.
Chris: They are a bit weird. In a good way: they like being called weird.
What are some of the strangest gigs you’ve played?
Tom: This pretty much sums up the strange gig. Flying out to Nashville for one show. Playing to a room full of people from England because they’re competition winners being flown out. So I think that encapsulates probably the weirdest gig we’ve ever done actually. We’ll see how it goes.
Chris: Also playing in Holland without any of our gear was a bit weird. That all got left in Stanstead so that was a bit of a weird day trying to borrow equipment off people.
Did it change your sound at all?
Chris: Yeah completely.
Tom: The sound was shit.
Chris: It seemed to work though for whatever reason.
Tom: The Dutch audience were pretty mad. Europe as a whole seems to have taken to the record. We haven’t really gone out there properly, just odds and sods here and there. And then, like I said, our stuff was left in the airport and we were sort of borrowing off all the other bands and begging and stealing. We got through it in the end but it did sound terrible so I think they were being nice.
What’s your usual post gig routine?
Chris: High fives.
Tom: Rub downs.
Chris: Sweat box. Saunas. Showers. Hairdryers.
Tom: I dunno. I think we just get off, have a drink, see where the night takes us because sometimes you can be in a city that you just don’t want to go to bed in, do you know what I mean? Sometimes you can be absolutely knackered and all you want to do is go to bed.
Chris: Sometimes there’s a riot outside, like In Belfast.
Where you over there when all the recent problems were going on?
Chris: Yeah yeah, exactly right in the middle of it. Quite literally I walked into this big riot that was just about to kick off. I was basically in the middle of where all the kids in the Burberry caps with their scarves over their faces and their hoods up were and on the other side there was the police cordoning off the road which I’d just walked down. It was a bit like a stand-off and I was stuck in the middle of it. I thought, ‘Oh shit!’ and just walked towards the police and they let me through.
Tom: That evening the rest of the band, we all went out to someone’s house and the taxi drivers would all be wary of where they’d go. It was just weird seeing people that are used to that kind of life. It’s got worse recently the violence over there but they’re kind of used to that way of life.
Chris: People in Ireland are just normal about it you know: “Don’t go there, don’t go there” and live your life around it. It’s weird being that close to such violence I guess.