Blowback interview with Klaxons’ guitarist,
Simon Taylor-Davis
December 2006

BB: 2006 was a pretty amazing year for you, do you have any highlights?

Simon: ‘I think the Transmusicales festival was probably my favourite gig of 2006, it’s certainly one of the biggest. We must have played to about 7000 people. We’d just got back from Japan the night before and then hopped straight on a plane to France. When we arrived our luggage wasn’t there, the airline had lost it. We thought our guitars wouldn’t turn up in time, but it was all ok in the end.’

Simon: ‘There’s a clip of Transmusicales up on Youtube now. I watched it back recently and we’re actually really, really tight. We can actually play now! I guess we’ve been forced into it. It was incredible though – like playing the main stage at Reading or something. We were literally 100 metres away from each other. It was pretty lonely up there.’

Simon: ‘We did a thing for Canal+, the French TV station, in December which was broadcast to about two million people! It’s the biggest show in France apparently – kind of like Jonathan Ross, but it looked more like Kilroy!’

BB: Has you been surprised by this sudden success?

Simon: ‘Well, yes and no. The thing is we’ve never known anything different, so this is sort of the norm for us – working at a million miles and hour, doing a million things at once. It’s been completely mentally exhausting though.’

BB: Are you looking forward to the NME Indie-Rave tour with CSS and New Young Pony Club?

Simon: ‘Yeah, we’re really looking forward to the tour. We’ve actually become friends with CSS through the world-wide-web. It’s been nice to finally meet them – they’re all lovely, lovely people.’

BB: How long did it take to write the album?

Simon: ‘Instead of approaching it sensibly like most bands, we booked a gig before we’d even written a single song – and we’ve sort of been playing catch up ever since. We wrote 4 Horsement Of 2012, Atlantis To Interzone and Gravity’s Rainbow in the space of just one day – then we went out and played those three, plus a couple of cover versions.’

Simon: ‘From the first week we started gigging it was pretty evident that things were moving rapidly. We were getting interest from labels, but we only had four songs, so we had to keep writing as we went along.’

BB: Did you find you had a large body of work to choose from? Or does the album represent everything you’ve done to date?

Simon: ‘I’d say the album is pretty much everything we’ve written so far – it’s not like we had 30 songs to choose from. I think there are about four other tracks which we left off, but it’s really more of a timeline to where we are now than a body of work we had lying around for years.’

BB: How long did the album take to record?

Simon: ‘The album was recorded in two and a half weeks in Hastings, which is where Keane are from I believe. It was strange ‘cos it was kind of like rehab for us. Not in the sense that any of us needed rehabilitation, but it was the first time we’d stopped for months and months. For those few days we really appreciated being in one place; we had proper cooked dinners every night and we played a lot of pool. It was great.’

BB: Did you find the recording process easy, or was it quite a struggle laying down a whole album in less than three weeks?

Simon: ‘It was really easy. That sounds cocky, I know, but it was. The place was really calm. It was nice and quiet, so we just got on with it. The recording process was incredibly organic. We didn’t have to force anything. We had already recorded a few demos with the producer, James Ford, so I think we definitely all felt relaxed about working with him again.’

BB: A lot of your lyrics and song titles are full of literary references – Pynchon, Burroughs, Corwley. Was this a conscious decision to buck the current trend for ‘kitchen sink’ lyrics about everyday life?

Simon: ‘It’s funny looking back at it now, because at the time it didn’t seem like a forced thing to do. We all enjoy reading a lot and we just though it would be interesting stuff to write about some of the ideas from our favourite books, to put them in a pop context. We definitely didn’t want to write stuff about boys and girls, mainly because there are too many good songs about boys and girls already!’

BB: The album title is a reference to JG Ballard isn’t it?

Simon: ‘Yeah, the album title was directly lifted from a book we all read by J G Ballard. It was the starting point for a lot of our ideas before we’d even written any songs. Myths Of The Near Future describes a potential impossibility – it’s also a kind of contradiction ‘cos it’s about something which hasn’t happened yet, which we kind of liked.’

BB: You’ve created a very strong identity for yourselves through your videos – How important are they for a band like yours?

Simon: ‘Well, videos are one of those things that people really pick up on – to us they’re as important as the music. Visuals and artwork are just another element of what we do, we want to be involved and we definitely want to get it right.’

Simon: ‘We’ve been very fortunate in that respect because we’ve been friends with Simon Farrowland, the director, since before we even started the band. He did visuals for The Rapture and for Claw, when they were still around. His stuff is incredible and we wanted to work with him from day one.’

Simon: ‘We trust Simon. He had us shaving our chests and jumping up and down on trampolines, which was odd, but we’re kind of alright with it now! We definitely want him to do all the stuff for this record.’

Simon: ‘Simon has done all our videos so far except for Atlantis To Interzone. We really liked the idea of developing an ongoing relationship with one director. I’ve not seen anyone who’s done five or six videos with the same band for a while now. Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham did it, but there doesn’t seem to be much continuity anymore.’

BB: I heard a rumour that your management had threatened legal action against South Central. They did a bootleg remix of your cover of Kicks Like A Mule’s 1992 track The Bouncer. What’s the official story?

Simon: ‘Yeah, I kind of read more of people talking about this than I’ve actually said myself! I think the deal was that they covered one of our tracks and released it on eBay or something like that. I don’t really know anything about it to be honest. I remember Jamie talking about it, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Anyway, I hope there’s no beef there!’

BB: I’m sure there isn’t. They seem to be turning the whole thing to their advantage though. They quote Klaxons’ on their press release – apparently you called them ‘cunts’!

Simon: [laughs] That’s hilarious! I don’t know where they got that from. Our merchandise says Klaxons are cunts – so I guess it’s karma.

BB: While we’re on the subject of obscure quotes, I read that you’ve been dubbed ‘better than Judas Priest’.

Simon: Jesus Christ. I’ve not heard that. I don’t know who said it. [laughs] Interesting though…

BB: I’m afraid I have to bring up the whole ‘new rave’ thing at this point. Everyone’s making a big deal about it right now and a lot of them seem to hold you responsible for all the glowsticks and fluorescent face-paint we’re seeing these days.

Simon: I was talking to someone about this yesterday. I don’t think in my entire life I’ve ever heard an expression as much as I’ve heard that one this year. The whole dressing up thing is funny because we don’t do that. We’re credited as having invented this phenomenon which people imitate by dressing up and waving glowsticks – but they’re all acting independently. It’s nothing to do with us. We’re not dressing up in neon anymore, we all wear black now!

Simon: It’s really weird for us talking about fashion and trends because we’re not actually into fashion ourselves. We were in Sweden a few weeks ago, I was doing an interview for a fashion magazine and they asked me who my favourite fashion designers were. I couldn’t name a single one.

Simon: They must have expected us to be covered in neon clothes, because when we turned up dressed like four regular guys in jackets in jeans and they were like, “Where is this nu-rave?!”

Simon: ‘Just because we’re not doing it doesn’t mean nobody else shouldn’t – but I does strike me as incredible the way people dress up to go to gigs. We played an under 18s matinee show recently at SE1 and I was genuinely incredibly moved by the experience. Just seeing the amount of effort these kids had made to dress up – all the people with elaborate patterns drawn on their faces – they looked a million times cooler than we did!’

Simon: ‘I know people think it’s “not cool” to do underage gigs like that, but it was the coolest thing we’ve ever done. Those kids aren’t jaded or anything. There are no alterior motives, it’s all about excitement and enjoying yourself. Watching that happen was incredible. I was talking to them after the show, asking where they buy all their crazy clothes from.’

BB: There’s a long line of bands that fuse elements of dance music with alternative rock. You only have to look back at ‘new wave’, ‘post punk’, ‘electro’ etc. But there seem to be a lot more around right now than there ever have been before: CSS, Shitdisco, New Young Pony Club, The Presets and (of course) yourselves. It’s as if the kids that grew up on guitar music and club music have finally got the synthesis of the two right.

Simon: I couldn’t put it any better myself. Yeah, that’s completely right. It’s still baffles me that people can’t get their head around it. I’m 24. When I was at school I used to listen to cassettes with Ministry Of Sound one one side and Ash on the other. We used to play a lot of hip hop, dark stuff like Tool as well as pop music. I grew up listening to loads of different things. It seems really alien to me when people say, “Well you weren’t into rave so who are you to make this kind of music?” I listened to music. That was it.

Simon: For me, indie and dance both have elements that are really exciting. I think the thing which drove me more towards guitar bands was – and it’s just my opinion – but a lot of dance acts didn’t seem to have any relationship with their audience.

Simon: It was all about the music and you couldn’t go and watch them play, so it felt a bit distant. Whereas if you get into a band you read about the people you can see them and there’s a relationship there. We wanted to create that same level of euphoria you get with dance music – but to have a band doing it.

BB: The album’s out at the end of January – what are your plans after that?

BB: You seem to be doing pretty well in France, but how have you been received in other countries around the world?

Simon: We always said we’d approach other countries the same way we did the UK. We didn’t want to go on a big support slot for another band – we wanted to go back to small clubs. Playing for 150 people. The best thing about it is it’s like you’re starting again.

We went from playing London Coco 1500 people to a gig for 100 people in New York. It’s incredible. We went from 7000 at Trans Musicales the other day to a 200 people club show. The variation’s great – and we really love those smaller shows. There’s so much excitement ‘cos it gets kind of chaotic. Then you feel like a stadium band when you play for 7000 people – really tight & controlled.

BB: Some of those NME dates sold out well over two months in advance. That must feel pretty good, right?

Simon: Yes. [laughs] It feels… bizarre. I don’t even want to start thinking about touring next year. It’s just ridiculous. We were in Japan the week before last, and they knew all the words to our songs. It felt really warm, but a bit odd. I think the tour’s going to be great. I think it’s wonderful that we’re gigging with a band from Brazil that grew up listening to the same records as us. That’s amazing. I was talking to them about Liars records – it’s incredible to think you can become that global now. It’s great.

BB: And what about writing new material?

Simon: We’re already thinking about the next album, I don’t think any of us are really into looking back. The minute that something is replicated it becomes a bit boring for us, so we’re always looking ahead.