20 Questions with… Jeremy Warmsley

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It had to happen at some point.. For the first time in TLOBF history we’ve got an artist to do the 20Q’s for the second time! “Why the hell would you possbily do such a thing?” I hear you scream. Well, to be honest it was a total oversight on my part, but I’ll lie and say it’s because we love Jeremy Warmsley so much. Hang on, that sounds like we don’t love Jeremy Warmsley, which isn’t the case.. We’re really quite fond of him. Oh, fuck it. The questions and answers are totally different anyway – see. So let’s move on…

Our girl out in “The Valleys” Amy Pay caught up with Warmsley at a recent show in Cardiff. She had the 20Q’s printed out in her pocket and thought “why the hell not!”. Warmsley graciously accepted. Incidentally, his new album How We Became is out on Monday (29th September) via Transgressive Records.

1. Describe your sound in 3 words.
Obscurely straightforward pop.

2. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?
The first piece of music I bought was a tape of Handel’s Messiah. When I was eight years old, I listened to it in music class and had this really weird synesthetic vision. I’ve never experienced anything like that with music ever since so I guess it was just a one-off. I saw this weird blue shimmering thing like something out of Stargate. I made my parents get me the tape for my birthday and I don’t think I ever listened to it.

3. What’s the best cure for a hangover?
Not drinking the night before, but that’s more of a prevention than a cure. Kittens, in my recollection, are a good cure because they keep the mind occupied and don’t make any unpleasant screeching noises. Other than that, it’s important to get some food in you and get out into the sunshine if possible.

4. What’s on your rider?
With times being tough in the music business, we’ve stopped getting a rider. Instead we get cash to buy dinner with, which sounds pretty bleak. On this particular tour we’ve been donated about fifty crates of Red Stripe. What we’ve cunningly done, because we’re sick to death of drinking it after two weeks of doing so, is we’ve managed to get the venues to exchange our crates of Red Stripe for some bottles of red wine. So, cash and red wine is my final answer.

5. How do you get ready for a live show?
We actually have this really torturous and convoluted warm-up routine which consists of making all kinds of weird noises with our mouths for about ten minutes. Then, we sing a few songs. Shingai, the singer of The Noisettes, taught me this song of hers once. It’s a really good warm-up because we can all harmonize on it. We also do Somewhere Over The Rainbow with three-part harmonies, so as a warm-up it’s quite nice too.

6. What’s your favourite song to play live?
I just did a session where I did a cover of a Billy Holiday song called That Old Devil and I really enjoyed playing it. Also, there’s a new song from my new album called Take Care, which is really exciting to play live because it’s difficult. When it works, it’s really exciting. Oh, and our cover of New Order’s Temptation that we did as a single recently where I get to do a really long guitar solo is fun.

7. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Crap films, like American Pie and The 40 Year Old Virgin. They’re really crappy but I enjoy them.

8. Who would win in a fight; a stoat or a goat and why?
It would depend on the situation, because either could win in different situations. It would be better if they could resolve their conflict through non-violent means, and I’d be willing to act as negotiator in such a scenario out of the goodness of my heart.

9. Who is your favourite new band at the moment? Tell us a bit about them.
Gossamer Albatross, a four piece from Hereford. There’s a singer who plays acoustic guitar, two violins and a cello. They have really awesome classically-informed string quartet arrangements over really awesome new folk guitar balladry nonsense.

10. Who would play you in a film based upon your life?
I think I’d go down the Bob Dylan route, like in I’m Not There. I hope that by the time I die my life will have been so complicated and fascinating that it’d take several different actors to represent me at different stages of my life. At the moment I’d probably have to be played by Daniel Day-Lewis from There Will Be Blood. I think he could just about capture the incredibly sophisticated facets of my personality.

11. Dead or alive, what five acts would you have play with you at a festival?
The line-up we’ve got on the Transgressive tour that I’m on at the moment is pretty good . My top five acts at the moment are Scott Walker , The Beach Boys , Of Montreal, Arcade Fire and Kate Bush playing The Dreaming from start to finish.

12. If push comes to shove, what is your all-time favourite album?
At present, it’s Scott 4 by Scott Walker.

13. What’s your most memorable on the road story?
We’re pretty boring on the road. We do a lot of reading but reading is really cool and fun. My bassist and I are simultaneously reading our way through the entire Sandman series which is about twelve books. It’s really geeky and sad.

14. If your life flashed before your eyes, what would be the highlights?
I spent most of my child-life buried in a book, so probably lots of pages turning. Pages turning and wet European countryside, as seen from a car window.

15. What’s the best piece of advice someone has ever given you and did you take notice?
My brother once told me never to get between a dog and its dinner, which I think is valid advice. To this day, I haven’t done so.

16. If you had to leave a body part to science, what would it be?
That’s for science to decide, surely? Probably my nose- people get very excited about it for some reason.

17. What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?
The best book I’ve read in the last six months is From Hell by Adam Moore, which is a total mind-f**k of a read. It’s a black and white comic book, about eight hundred pages long, and you can’t understand what’s going on without reading the accompanying notes which are a novel length bit of writing in their own right. I saw There Will Be Blood in the cinema last week. I was lucky enough to catch one of the last showings of it. It was totally awesome with wicked music too.

18. What three things could you not live without?
You get a lot of people who are like, “food, water and air”, and think that they’re really clever, but I think they’re really lame. I’m gonna say…nice black shoes, interesting socks and access to a good sandwich made by a good sandwich maker who is open to experimentation.

19. Tell us a fact about yourself we probably don’t already know.
I’m entirely made of bricks.

20. Finally, we’d like you to make us a mix-tape. Pick five tracks with a theme of your choice.
For a theme, I will pick the first five songs that come into my head, and they are:
‘Jason and the Argonauts’ by XTC
‘Lysergic Bliss’ by Of Montreal
‘Way Down In The Hole’ by Tom Waits
‘Three Lions’ by Baddiel and Skinner and the Lightning Seeds
‘Straight To You’ by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

Links
Jeremy Warmsley [myspace]