Last March I interviewed Aled Phillips, vocalist with Kids In Glass Houses, when they played at Sin City in Swansea, with the intention of getting the interview published in the paper. However, for one reason or another (it was the end of term, meaning the next issue was five weeks away, plus there was some kind of 'email glitch', apparently) the finished article never graced the pages of The Waterfront.
So now, seeing as the band are due to release their new album 'Dirt' next month, and I now have this blog, I thought it would be a good time to finally get the interview published in one form of another. I know it's old, but some of the questions are still kind of relevant.
Like I said, I spoke to Aled last March, the day before they embarked on an arena tour supporting Fall Out Boy. It's interesting to see how some of the things he said back then have changed, like the release date of the album (only seven months late).
Steve: So you’re heading out on tour with Fall Out Boy tomorrow, are you excited?
Aled: Yeah, they’re fucking huge shows. I think they’re on par with being the biggest shows we’ve ever done. Obviously, they have got a massive audience that potentially we’d appeal to, so that’s a bit nerve racking.
S: Could you see yourself doing this type of thing 2 years ago?
A: Erm definitely not, I mean we’d always kind of dreamed of it, obviously. We got to do the tour with Paramore and New Found Glory, and it’s ridiculous we’ve got to play with bands like that.
S: The Fall Out Boy shows are obviously going to be quite big, and tonight’s a tiny venue really. What type of gigs do you prefer to play?
A: It’s kind of like a default answer that every band gives. They both have their perks. A show like today is going to be really awesome, because it’s going to be a laugh and chilled out. Club shows are good, but for us, being on a big stage we can flourish.
S: Why did you chose to play tonight’s warm-up show here in Swansea?
A: We knew we wanted to do a warm-up show and do it in Wales ideally. We knew it was going to be short notice, and we play in Cardiff a lot, and we’ve already done Newport so we thought “let’s try Swansea, we’ve not been there in a while”.
S: You tour a lot, and squeezed the recording of the first album into a short period between tours. When do you get time to write?
A: The process of writing the first album was really spread out. From the start of getting the songs together to the end was quite a while, like a year and a half. There was no concentrated period of writing for us. Now is like the opposite, we’ve just come off tour and we’re not touring any more, we’re just going to write continuously, which is a bit weird for us.
S: Some songs you’ve been playing for three or four years. Do you ever get bored of playing them live?
A: I think so, yeah. Last year, we’d been playing them consistently for like two years. But we played our last show in December, and then we hadn’t played any of the songs until earlier this week, and now they’re fresh again.
S: What are your plans for the next release?
A: The ideal plans are we record in May, and get it out in August, around festival time. But that literally depends if we think it’s good enough. At the moment we’re on our own writing, and we’ve got a short list of producers, but don’t want to piss anyone off by naming any names.
S: Recently you had a new song up on your myspace, Satan’s Cellar, is that the kind of thing we can expect from the new album?
A: Not really, that was something we wrote in about ten minutes, because we needed a B-side. It was a fun song, but I don’t think that’s where we’re going.
S: What sort of thing can we expect from it then?
A: Some of the songs are a bit heavier than before. I guess because we’ve been playing live for so long that we always want to have something heavier to have a laugh with. And then there’s songs that are quite a bit poppier than we’ve had before too.
S: You guys have been together for about 5 years now, when was it that you thought “Wow, we’ve made it, this is it!”?
A: There’s been a few moments along the way where things felt like they were happening. We played a show with The Blackout and Gallows in London, when none of us were really anything and it was the first show when we had agents and managers and things first sort of kicked off. And then I think the biggest “Oh fuck me” moment was at Reading, the first time we did it, and it was in a packed out tent and people knew all the songs.
S: Was this sort of level of success something you always had in mind? Or is it all just about having fun?
A: We always wanted to have fun, but we’re still not as big as we want to be. We just want to be as big as we can possibly get.
S: We’ve got our battle of the bands going on at Uni at the moment. Have you got any advice for up and coming bands?
A: I guess all we did was practice. And don’t get drunk before you play, that’s probably the harshest lesson we learned. You’ve just got to practice, if you’re going to be better than other bands you’ve got to put a few hours in. And don’t write shit songs.
S: Last year was big for you guys. What’s 2009 got in store?
A: It all depends how quickly we write. If we get the album out on time, I guess we’ll do a lot of festivals. And then there’ll be a lot more touring at the back end of the year. Then singles, videos and hopefully just picking up where we left off when we stopped, but bigger.
S: You’re a local South Wales band, and tonight you’ve got two South Wales support bands. How important, as both an artist and a fan, do you think it is to support local bands?
A: We’ve always had a really good scene right across the board in South Wales, and the only way it’s going to thrive and bands are going to get places if they’re given the same chances as we were given, and the likes of Lostprophets were given. If the bands can help each other that’s good because it is hard to get your foot up in the world. And if a band’s in a position where they can help another out, which we’ve been in and been on the receiving end of, you’ve got to do it. People will always go and pay loads of money to see touring bands, but when I was a kid I’d pay £3 at the [Caerphilly venue] Blackwood Miners Institute to watch one good local band and I was happy.
S: What do you think to the scene in South Wales at the moment?
A: I think it’s as good as it’s always been. Tiger, Please are the most recent band I’ve heard who I think are really good, and Save Your Breath are coming through - we’ve taken them on tour. I’d say it’s as good as it’s been for the last ten years.
S: Generally, you guys have got a wide range of influences from Glassjaw to The Police, what sort of thing are you listening to at the moment?
A: The same stuff really, we don’t really listen to that much modern music. But we have been listening to Ladyhawke and Empire of the Sun, and The Friendly Fires album is good. All those bands are electro, so there’s a clue as to where we’re not going. We can’t play keyboards, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
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