Our interview with Mike from WAS...

Neil – Hi Mike.  How are things?  Alright?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Well we flew from Dublin to here.  We just got in this afternoon.

Neil – What was Dublin like?

It was awesome.  We had some friends playing a Halloween show and we wanted to see it but our bus and stuff had to come back yesterday afternoon so we flew back this afternoon.

Mye – Are you enjoying the tour so far?

Yeah.  Definitely.

Mye – Good good.  OK to start off, your video for It’s a Hit sees you guys as boxers.  Have any of you come to blows in real life and if so who’s the hardest out of all three of you?

We haven’t come to blows…

Mye – Any little spats or anything like that?

I don’t think so.  Well, not with each other.  And I don’t think, maybe I got in a fight when I was in fifth grade once but I dunno, I think Chris is probably the strongest! (laughs)

Mye – He looks it!

And I think he works out when we’re not watching!

Mye – On the sly?!

Yeah!

Mye – Right, so you’re scientists…I was wondering if you could answer this question for me.  Why does combining hydrogen and oxygen typically produce water rather than hydrogen peroxide?

Uh…well I dunno I mean, I think, I have never seen someone just take hydrogen and oxygen and go like this (claps hands together) and see what it makes, so I don’t know.

Mye – But you’re a scientist so surely you should know!

But maybe it doesn’t make it, if you just have hydrogen and just have oxygen and you put them together maybe they don’t make water more than they make hydrogen peroxide.  Just because there’s more water than hydrogen peroxide doesn’t mean that if you just combine those elements that’s what they would actually do. But (long pause) maybe it’s because of God.

(laughs)

Mye – We’ve got the answer here.  It’s quite long but you could read it before you go to bed tonight or something!  And by the way, your answer’s wrong!

What?  Do you know what it is?

Mye – Yes I do, I actually wrote the answer!

OK so November 6th sees the UK release of Crap Attack, which is a compilation of b-sides, covers and videos.  Are we gonna see an album of completely new material in the near future?

Um, probably within a year.  We’ve been touring for a long time so we have to think of some more songs…

Mye – Yeah you’re always on tour aren’t you?!

Yeah!  So we’re gonna stop touring after this one.  This will be our last.  It has been I think, 21 months almost straight on the road so…we have a couple of new songs and we’re gonna play them tonight, but we need to sit down and write some stuff.

Mye – Yeah you just need some time.

Yeah to bash it out and fight over it!

Mye – So the compilation includes a lot of remixes of your previous hits, a few b-sides and some covers, which is completely different, I think, to With Love and Squalor – would you say that your next album will be heading down a different route?  Is that the type of directions you wanna go in?

Uh I dunno.  I mean not necessarily any directions that we go on those things but we definitely want to try new things I think.  Last time we wrote our album we just had all the songs and we were playing them live for, you know some of them for a couple of years, like before we recorded them and so we when went in to record we didn’t have much money, we just had a bunch of completed songs that we had been playing for a while and so we kinda just went in as a you know, this is what we want them to sound like!  The complete let’s just get them down!  This one I think we just wanna work with a producer like in the writing process, stuff like that, so I think it’s gonna be a completely different approach for us than what we did last time and anything we’ve done so whether or not that makes it really different, you know, I guess we’ll find out.

Mye – Cool.  What inspired you to title this compilation Crap Attack?!

Um, it’s a bunch of crap! (laughs)

Mye – I’m sure that’s not true!  But we thought perhaps with the baby and stuff…

Well that’s why we put that picture on the front. (laughs)  We had the name Crap Attack first.  I think coz it’s just kind of a hodge podge collection of stuff that we’ve made that we like but doesn’t necessarily come to a cohesive whole or anything like that, but isn’t necessarily a statement from the band or something like that so we just thought Crap Attack was a snappy way of getting the point across using a bunch of shit!

Mye – Like you said you do tour an awful lot, do you actually remember what your families look like?!

My family?  Um…actually I see my family more now that I’m touring than before because they live in Dallas and I live in New York, and I haven’t lived there for 10 years or so and so in the past 10 years I’ve seen my family almost more in the last 2 years touring than I’ve seen them in the previous 5 or so years so it’s actually better for me.  I don’t see my friends as much but I see my family more.

Mye – What bands or individual artists do you look up to, if any? 

What bands do I look up to?  Or artists?  Um…yeah I mean there are definitely bands that I like.  There’s a band called Les Savy Fav in Brooklyn that I really like.  We actually invited them on this tour with us but two of them are having babies right now so they couldn’t do it, but, I don’t get star struck much, you know if I see a famous person or whatever but for some reason that band I have liked them a lot for a long time so then when I see them I get like ohh!

Mye – You gotta act cool!

Yeah I can’t!  I don’t!  Well last time I ran into them they came backstage, we played with Art Brut in New York like a few months ago and Tim Harrington’s the singer and he came backstage and you know we were all hanging out there and I looked up and I was like hi and then he was like hey and then I couldn’t say anything else!  If I had said one other thing it was gonna be like I REALLY LIKE YOUR BAND!!  AHHH!!  (laughs)

Mye – Ah that’s alright then – it’s not just us mere mortals then that get star struck!  During the festival season we have seen you duet with the likes of Arctic Monkeys and The Editors – are there any specifics that have been your favourite and if so, why?

Um (thinks) bands that we’ve toured with or the experience of touring with a band?

Mye – I saw you at T in the Park in the summer and you had Alex from Arctic Monkeys on stage with you and then I think you dueted with The Editors at Reading – I was just wondering if there was any particular one you enjoyed dueting with the most?

Probably our favourite collaboration from a tour has been, um, we’ve just finished three weeks in the US with Art Brut and some time at the very beginning of the tour we decided that, somebody suggested that we all play Hotel California.  Both bands, every one of us, both bands together and we worked on it kind of, like individually, everyone sort of learnt their parts but we never like got our act together till the last night of our tour and then in Montreal we all, everyone played it and it was the craziest, most insane thing.  I think probably because it was the last day of the tour and the sminto band were opening and they had pied us while we were on so we had pie on our faces and everywhere…Chris had taken off all of his clothes except for his underwear, for another reason which is a long story that I won’t go into and there’s duelling guitar solos (impersonates guitar solo from Hotel California) and Eddie picked up Keith on his shoulders…so there were duelling guitar solos whilst on Eddie’s shoulders and everyone was just like going nuts and it was one of the most insane things but it still sounded really good I think.  I dunno, I couldn’t hear it very well but those were the best.

Mye – With Love and Squalor, you’ve got some cats on the album sleeve – what are their names?

I don’t know what their owners call them now…

Mye – You mean they’re not you cats?!

They were but I gave them away.

Mye – Were they all yours?

Yeah they were and I have more, three more too.  There’s Tiger and then the middle one is The Bear but there were two others that looked like him and I couldn’t tell them apart so they were just The Three Bears and so they didn’t have any more specific names other than that, and then Baby Spats is the one that Chris is holding coz the mother’s name is Spats coz she has spats.

Neil – What’s spats?

Well white paws and black.

Mye – Baby Spats is cute, I’ll have to remember that!  What is the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?

Mmm…(thinks) maybe a doll?

Mye – A doll?!

Of myself that they made!

Mye – What that the fan made or are there actually any dolls?

Yeah the fan.  We all got them actually!  It’s like a voodoo doll basically but they gave them to us so we keep them safe.

Jay – Have you ever felt any pain from them?!

No because I’ve kept it safe!

Mye – You can’t stab yourself I suppose!

No!  But if I got a hold of Keith or Chris’ then I would stab them! (laughs)  But one weird…well I don’t know if it’s weird or not, but they’re clothed but you can take the clothes off and if you do on various parts of the body it says I love this girl’s name! (laughs)  But they’re really cute!

Mye – Very inventive!  You're stranded on a desert island, you're only allowed one CD (not your own!) - which CD would you take?  You're only allowed ONE!

CD?  Uh…maybe the Warlords of Pez.  That’s the last band I saw.  I saw them last night.  Have you heard of them?  They’re from Dublin.  They’re awesome.  They wear costumes…

Neil – What kind of sound have they got?

Like, well they vary; anything from metal to what I assume to be some kind of Irish folk music!  But I don’t really know much about Irish folk music!  But they’re great.  They’ve got some dance music in there.

Mye – So it would be them?

Yeah.  It was an amazing show.  So now I would like to listen to that album over and over.  I actually have it already, I didn’t remember that I got it so later or after this I’m gonna go listen to it.

Mye – I don’t know how much more time we’ve got but I’ve got a couple more questions…your videos are quite random – is this down to the directors or are they the band’s concept?

All the concepts are ours.  I’m not sure how random they are! 

Jay – There are a few repetitions of you doing nothing!  And one of you decides to take your clothes off!

Those are carefully constructive concepts – I wouldn’t say they were random! 

Mye – My particular favourite would have to be Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt where you are being chased by a giant teddy bear!  Quite random, very funny – were you all knackered by the end of that, because you did run across town quite a bit.

Yeah we ran all day long, and none of us run ever!  So I was sore for like three days and I couldn’t walk!

Mye – So like running the marathon I would imagine!

Yeah I dunno, I wouldn’t do it!

Mye – Oh and did you crash a real wedding for Cash Cow?!

Yeah that’s Keith’s sister’s wedding!  I didn’t actually go!  He came back with that footage – he said look I shot a music video and so that’s all his family, all the old people there.

Mye – They look a bit scared and pissed off. 

Jay – I thought it was like a random wedding.

That was his sister’s wedding – he was in it!

Mye – This next question involves a sample I have in my carrier bag…

Really?!

Mye – Yep!  We’re quite fanatical about cheese over here.  So I have four samples from Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland and if you don’t mind…

I’m gonna guess where they’re from?

Mye – No you’re gonna try them and tell me which is your favourite!  Remember you are in Wales!  There’s this one here, Exhibit A, and then there’s Exhibit B in the middle, the orange one is Exhibit C and D is on the end.

So I just tell you which one I like?

Mye – Yep.

OK I’m going to eat just half of this one so I can revisit them later (munches on cheese for a while)

Mye – I hope you like cheese now and I’m not forcing you to eat it!

I like cheese!  I’m going to revisit each of them because you know, the pallet might change the taste.

(carries in for a while longer!)

Mye – Are you hungry?!  (laughs)

What am I eating this with?  Bread?  Or by itself?

Mye – Cheese and crackers maybe?

Cheese and crackers!  This one! (Mike points to the Irish cheddar)

Mye – Aw that’s the Irish cheese!  It’s the second best though!  That was actually the Welsh cheese there!

Ah I was going to say that!  I mean if I was guessing where they were from I would say (points)  that one’s from Wales, that one’s from Ireland, this one’s from England and this is from Scotland! 

Mye – Ah see now that’s the Scottish one there!

Damn!

Mye – But you were close, very close!  Right, one last question actually… I am currently trying to be sold on ebay by my good friend Jay here…

You’re selling her on ebay?!

Jay –Yeah!

Mye – Thing is I don’t think we’re gonna get much so I was gonna ask you if you would be willing to buy me and we’re not asking much…maybe about I dunno 2 cows/3 cows, a couple of chickens, 5 goats?  Do you think this a fair deal would you say?

Jay – How many cows would you pay for Mye?

Uhh…

Choose your answer carefully!

Well I am trying to wrap my head around this concept!  Buying you…or even through some sort of a barter type of situation!

Come on you know you wanna buy me!

(very long pause!)

Well, what do you think is fair?!

Mye – I’d like at least say, you’re a big fan of the goats aren’t you Jay so at least 5 goats; 2 cows – one for milk, one for meat and a couple of chickens.  So I’d say 8 in all!

That’s what you’d think would be fair?

Mye – I don’t know! 

A cow!

Mye – A Cash Cow!

I’m only joking!

Jay – Gentleman’s agreement?

(reluctant!)  I don’t know if I believe in possession!

Mye – Don’t worry about postage, it’s fine!  Fair deal…?

I don’t know if these are fair prices but I don’t have any livestock! 

Mye – You can just go to a farm somewhere!  We’ve got lots of farms in Wales!  I’m sure they wouldn’t mind!

Jay – You must have a city farm in New York, you could just rob them!  There’s a city farm in New York!

Is there?

Jay –Think so.

There might be.

Jay – You could just rob a goat from the petting zoo…

Alright there’s some animals in Central Park!

Jay – Ok you can just contact us via the website and we’ll sort something out if the band are interested…

Yeah I’ll run it by everyone and see what we can pool together!

Neil – What sort of stuff can we expect from the DJ set later on?  CDs or records firstly?

Ipod playlist, and I can show you the playlist.  Well, no my ipod is out at front of house…a lot of 90s dance music like C&C Music Factory, Nicky French, Haddaway, some 90s hip hop dance stuff like En Vogue and Salt n Pepa.  I mean we want it to be a dance oriented time, we want people to dance so we’ll play dance music! 

Mye – So do you know how long your actual set is at Barfly?

No.  We can play like 2½ hours or 3 hours, but most people don’t wanna hear this music for that long.  I think our set is really as is our live set, 45 minutes I think is just a perfect amount of time for what we do but sometimes you gotta stretch it out, like tonight we’re gonna play sort of longer than that because people get this idea of getting their monies worth when you’re headliner, which I think doesn’t necessarily always go along with the best set that a band can give you.  But I just heard about this band, The Horrors, and they have 3 songs and they play for 15 minutes and play one song twice, and you know it seems like it might not be worth setting up all your stuff if that’s all you’re gonna do!

Jay – Do you find that just here in the UK that people expect more than 45 minutes?

I dunno.  I mean I think, no I mean I think that is just some people if they are paying for a headline set.  Same with at festivals too, you know like in other countries and stuff if you get later in the day then they want a longer set and we’re like it won’t be good if we play all the songs that we’re gonna have.

Neil – Do you like the festivals?

Yeah love the festivals.

Mye – What was your favourite festival of the summer?

Um…

Mye – T in the Park…!

Probably T in the Park.

Mye­ –Yeah that was a good set!

Yeah it was amazing!

check out our review of the gig here

or check out the after show here