Big City Redneck enjoys a cup of coffee with the Creepy Morons (former members of Hot Tradition and The Beatings and if their Myspace page is to be believed a log cabin builder and an out of work footwear model) at the Strongroom in Old Street to talk about Colonel Sanders, Chinchillas and New Years resolutions. Suffice to say the Creepy Morons are neither creepy nor moronic but they do finish each other’s sentences sometimes. Which is a little creepy…
BCR: Good coffee? Did any of it …get in your mouth?
Ben Carpenter: See, what I do is throw it and hope that some of it goes in, you see…
BCR: Interesting technique.
Nick Pankhurst: I drank a really big coffee this morning and it’s had me feeling really mental ever since.
BC: I tried to give up coffee in January – we’re still in January aren’t we? Well, I gave up caffeine and alcohol for ten days.
BCR: Do you not feel a bit funny after ten days?
BC: The first one I had was just like doing a line of coke.
BCR: have you managed to make any Creepy Morons resolutions?
BC: Our resolution was not make any music and not to release anything and we’re doing really well.
NP: We’re not doing that well though are we? I make hundreds of resolutions, that way I can break at least a few, a few will work, a few don’t work.
BCR: Well, it’s early days so you can probably knock the recording on the head and drink lots of coffee...
BC: Actually things are going really well in recording the next single. They weren’t at the start. It’s a learning curve, it’s always learning.
BCR: Well, it’s not like you’ve not been recording and been in bands for quite some time…
NP: That’s true. It’s not like that… January’s always the panic month. It’s all “oh shit, I really ballsed up everything last year” January you’ve got make up for a whole year by working really mentally. And then you don’t. By February you’ve accepted it. Christmas is like the party month and January is just a huge hangover. I really didn’t learn much did I? It’s the holiday you haven’t earned.
BC: In December, as you know, the whole industry shuts down. Someone told me that’s when Zane Lowe always goes on holiday.
BCR: That’s when they all bugger off and leave the interns to do everything.
BC: Like throwing all the demos in the bin, just make sure there’s nothing on my desk when I get back.
BCR: You’re signed now to Pigeon Coup so…
NK / BC: [both laugh]
NK: No, he’s brilliant is Phil [Hebblethwaite, owner of Pigeon Coup records and Stool Pigeon].
BC: No, he is brilliant it’s just the phrase “you’ve got Pigeon Coup behind you”
NK: It really makes it sound like you’ve got this little semi-detached somewhere. Now you’ve got the Pigeon Coup behind you Granddad, you’re going to be alright! Go feed the pigeons….
BC: My next plan is build a model railway in the back garden! It’s going to be steam powered.
NK: I quite enjoy model railways…
BC: As long as you can sit on it.
NK: That’s the thing, you have to build the one where you can sit in it and have the little train driver’s hat.
BCR: What? You want to build a Noddy railway?
NK: Yeah. Like Noddy’s.
BC: I like the one in ATP, that takes you to your cabin.
NK: You know we grew up around Gloucester? Well, they had this Noddy train there in the city centre and they closed it for being dangerous.
BCR: Model Train Goes On Rampage sort of thing?
NK: Apparently that’s what happened. It dragged an old lady along for ages until the driver, who I imagine was out of his mind on drink and drugs, eventually realised that he was dragging this old lady behind. Apparently her umbrella was stuck.
BC: That’s why we had to move to London.
NK: The Noddy Train Incident 2002. We had to get away from things like that.
BCR: Is that how long you’ve been down here?
NK: I’ve been in London for quite some time now…
BCR: How long were The Beatings [Pankhurst’s ex-band] going for?
NK: Well, The Beatings… I don’t know. It was very sporadic, especially in the beginning. Everyone was at college, bits and pieces like that. Um, two or three years of glory and four or five of not so glorious…
BCR: On the one hand it seemed, with the whole Kevin Shields [My Bloody Valentine member and producer] thing…
NK: We spent almost two years in the studio with Kevin Shields.
BCR: I read an interview with Luke from Duke Spirit and he said “They went in to record with Kevin Shields. His music is great, but he’s a control freak. He ruined them, because he took two years to make their record”
BC: Luke said that? I didn’t know Luke was casting his opinion!
NK: Oh, when I see ‘im!
BC: That’s probably what I told Luke.
NK: I wouldn’t say he did that.
BC: It was a combination of things.
NK: Also, there’s a line – you get to a certain point. Kevin really helped us a lot.
BC: We’re benefiting from Kevin now ‘cos of the stuff that Nick learned from him, sonically.
BCR: You mean in terms of production?
BC/NK: Yeah.
BC: Everything from the amps up. The whole recording process and the outboard…
NK: Me and Kevin are quite similarly minded, not being control freaks… well, maybe a bit, but we’re quite similar sorts of people so we spent a lot of time getting really into things and it was quite fun. I don’t mean I’m like him but... we’re both model train enthusiasts… We spent a lot of time messing about with amplifiers..
BC: You spent a lot of time, haha.
BCR: It’s all for the good, I mean it’ll always be useful to you
