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 Topping off a relatively successful debut
year with a slot at this year’s Haigh Hall Music Festival, local indie
outfit You Remind Me Of Rasputin have managed to make a name for
themselves in a relatively short space of time.
In the space of just one year, David, Adam, Sam and Luke have already
made their way into the upper echelons of the local scene, clocking up a
support slot with national favourites The Maccabees along the way. Here,
the band take a quick time out to tell The LINC about their hectic year.
How did the band form?
David: We started with just Adam, Luke, me and another drummer at first.
We all went to the same high school then separated in college, but I
knew Sam from another band and he happened to go to the same college as
these two. I asked Sam to come and drum for us instead of the other guy,
and things basically took off from there.
Are you all still at college during the day then?
David: Yeah, and working as well.
So is it hard to fit everything in, work, college and the band?
Sam: It can be. We don’t have a manager or anything so we’re doing all
this ourselves.
What sort of stuff are you all influenced by?
Sam: Cyndi Lauper!
Adam: Street Fighter as well, Street Fighter’s well good.
Luke: We like stuff that’s out at the moment but it tends not to reflect
our music.
Sam: We’re not just influenced by music either. We’re influenced by pop
culture generally…and Russia!
Luke: But if we were to name specific bands…
David: Bands like Arcade Fire, stuff like that.
If you guys were setting up a gig and could book any acts, past or
present, who would they be?
Adam: Aretha Franklin
David: Green Day
Sam: Could we not have like, Sinatra or something?
Adam: We’re gonna have to have Boney M as well.
Sam: Yeah, and one more…
David: Death From Above.
Sam: Imagine that, that’d be great.
You Remind Me of Rasputin, that’s quite a unique name. How did that one
come about?
Adam: It’s quite simple. We were listening to Boney M’s song ‘Rasputin’,
and I said to Luke that he reminded me of Rasputin. He said, ‘that’s a
brilliant name’, I said ‘yes it is’ and that’s what we decided to call
the band.
David: We kinda had the name before the band.
Luke: We didn’t even have instruments when we thought of that. We’ve
come up with so many bands before we even knew how to play, we just
thought it’d be a great idea to have a band.
So is it fair to say that you’re four lads who wanted to form a band
together rather than a group of musicians joining forces?
Luke: Yeah, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Sam: We did hate the idea of a group of musicians just jamming away.
How long have you been playing for?
David: Well I’ve been playing guitar since I was in primary school. My
mum’s a guitar teacher so she thought me stuff early on, and I’ve been
singing for ages too.
Sam: I’ve been playing drums for about five years.
Adam: When did I pick up the bass, like last year?
Luke: Yeah, me and Adam started at pretty much the same time, I started
guitar and he started bass.
David: They got me into thinking that I’d found people who could
actually play.
Luke: Yeah, and it was all lies. We tricked David into thinking that we
were talented musicians! I picked up synth after that because I’d played
keyboards and organs at school and..
Adam: You just couldn’t play guitar, could you?
Luke: [ignoring Adam] I had keyboard lessons and now I play synth in the
band.
So you’ve got half the band that are experienced musicians and the other
half who haven’t been playing so long. How does it all work, does it fit
together?
David: I think it’s a good mix, me and Sam work on the songs and... I
dunno, it’s a laugh as much as anything else, we don’t really take it
seriously. At the end of the day, they [Luke & Adam] know music so we’re
all equal in that way.
What do you make of the current music scene today?
Sam: I actually really like it. I don’t like all this shambolic indie
lark, like making it apparent that you can’t play an instrument.
David: It’s good that indie is becoming more acceptable though.
Sam: Yeah, when we were growing up in the nineties, what was there?
Luke: Will Smith.
Sam: Yeah, exactly. We grew up with…
Luke: Fresh Prince of Bell Air.
Sam: Exactly. We didn’t grow up with rock music, we grew up with…
Adam: Saved By The Bell.
Sam: Exactly.
[All the band crack up laughing]
Sam: Yeah, anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the nineties were not
a good time for music. We had all that Britpop stuff and not much else.
Saying that, Blur were a really good band.
So do you think things have improved recently?
Sam: Yeah, definitely.
What do you make of the local scene?
Sam: I think it’s really good, there’s some good promoters around who
mean well, actually care about the music scene and aren’t just in it for
the money.
David: Yeah, we really like it. There’s some decent bands around like
Money And The Masses.
Luke: I really like them. What other bands are around that we like?
David: Yerba.
Luke: Oh yeah, Yerba, our mates’ band. They went to our high school, we
all went to the same school except for Sam. There’s some good Wigan
bands around, but then there’s some bad Wigan bands around as well. I’m
not gonna name any!
What was it that first attracted you to rock ‘n’ roll and being in a
band?
Adam: We’re not skilled enough to play classical.
Luke: Me and Adam had the idea. The reason we wanted to form a band was
because…
Adam: We like music and were bored in college.
David: We just really enjoy it, the whole process of gigging and
everything, but I wouldn’t actually say we were rock ‘n’ roll in the
sense of going out and getting wasted and all that. We just like music,
we don’t like that kind of lifestyle.
Luke: When we play gigs, other bands that we’re playing with will go off
to the pub and we’ll just go and get a McFlurry.
You seem to be doing quite well for yourselves at the minute. How much
work is involved in keeping the band at this level?
David: It’s hard having no backing, like a manager or anything. We do
everything ourselves, book the gigs ourselves, everything.
Sam: You have to get rid of all your free time. After college we’ve all
got jobs, then after that it’s just plugging the band all the time.
David: I think it’s gigging that takes up a lot of time. We’ve only been
going for just over a year but we’ve already done something like fifty
gigs.
Sam: I actually find it hard to want a manager now. Having a manager
would be cool but we’ve got this far on our own, why not see how much
further we can go?
Is there anything you don’t particularly like about being in a band?
Adam: Yeah, I had to get up this morning! I was playing Street Fighter
and it just annoyed me that I had to get up and go to practice! I’m not
even gonna lie about it, it just annoyed me.
David: It’s annoying how people judge you so easily.
Sam: Yeah, like before you even walk on stage.
David: It’s really tough having to keep going when people are like that.
You do kinda get pushed about a bit too.
Sam: We’ve taken so much **** since we started.
David: Especially from promoters, they just mess you around a lot. We
work our backsides off and never get paid for anything. It’s not that
we’re looking to make loads of money, but we do put a lot of money into
this, doing posters and flyers and just getting to gigs and things.
We’re lucky because we’ve managed to get this far and get some response
from it all, but there’s some bands who will work just as hard as us and
not get anywhere.
Sam: I think we’ve become a bit tougher now though.
David: It’s annoying that until you get to a certain point you don’t
even get looked at by anyone. I mean, even now, because we’re unsigned a
lot of people won’t take us seriously.
Sam: On the whole though I think we’ve been pretty lucky so far, we’ve
been doing alright.
In what way do people judge you?
David: I dunno, it’s a lot to do with the way you dress. People see us
and they immediately think we’re gonna be an emo band or something. It’s
quite surprising, we’ve done a few gigs where you can hear people going
‘these guys are gonna be ****’ then we’ll get on and we’re not what
people expected.
Luke: We played an Under-18s gig and it was a nu-metal night. We’re the
furthest away from nu-metal as you’ll get. Everyone there was shouting
‘emo’ at us, and by the end of it we had all these punk kids giving us
the devil horns and that, it was a bit weird.
How have you changed since you first started out?
David: We’ve definitely learned a lot just by going out on the road and
doing gigs and that.
Sam: I think because we’ve done so many gigs in such a short time we’ve
managed to learn a lot and get a lot better.
What else have you been up to over the past year besides gigging?
David: We’ve got a solid EP recorded now with Panic Productions and it’s
pretty good. We’ve done a few other recordings and just kept on
developing our sound as we go along.
Sam: Getting back to the gig thing though, we’ve started to get out of
Wigan. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Wigan, but you’ve
gotta spread your wings and get out further a field.
How would you sum up your music?
Luke: Happy hardcore!
Adam: I dunno, I hate classifying us, because I don’t think you can.
David: I’d say it’s generally just indie rock, with synth…Syndie.
Luke: Syndie?
Sam: Syndie, that’s well good!
David: I wouldn’t say that we’re the most original band in the world but
we just do or own thing.
What’s the live show like?
Luke: Have you ever seen Moulin Rouge?
Yeah…
Luke: Well it’s like that.
David: It’s just energetic and fun.
Luke: Sometimes, you’ll go and watch big, established bands, pay so much
and get so little in return.
Sam: This is what we were talking about yesterday, how we kind of hate
live music.
Why’s that?
David: It lets you down sometimes.
Sam: I’m not gonna name any names, but I get so bored of watching
clichéd bands who go on stage, drink a pint, play a riff then swear a
bit. I know this might be a bit clichéd in itself, but we are as we are
on stage, we just mess about and enjoy it.
David: There’s no act with us, we just do what comes naturally.
Compared to some bands, you’ve only been around for a short amount of
time, have you attracted a following in that time?
David: I wouldn’t say we have a loyal fan base who’ll come to every gig,
but we do know now that we have people who like us and will come to
gigs.
Sam: Yeah, it’s not like when we started and were ringing everyone up
saying ‘please come to this gig because if we don’t bring twenty people
we can’t play!
David: What I like best though is when people who you don’t know are
singing along at your gigs.
Luke: It is weird when you see people singing your songs and you’ve no
idea who they are.
Are there any particular highlights of the past year or so that stand
out?
David: Playing with The Maccabees.
Sam: Yeah, it wasn’t even an amazing set, it was more the atmosphere and
getting the chance to play with them.
Luke: They were really nice guys as well. Our first ever Dry Bar gig in
Manchester was pretty good too.
David: Yeah, we had a label watching us then too, so that was the first
time we thought maybe we could do something with this.
What’s the ultimate ambition for the band?
Adam: Play on Jules Holland’s show.
Luke: I wanna play a major festival like Reading or Leeds.
David: I just want us to have fun.
Sam: Awww.
Recommended Links:
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