To ytinifni and beyond

Une interview avec Jack Barnett, ou comment tirer les vers du nez d'un chanteur taciturne.

How did you meet the other members of These New Puritans?

Me and George are brothers, we’ve known each other forever and we started making music when we were really young, at nine or ten. And then, gradually, we used to know Thomas and Sophie from school. We’ve known each other for ages so it seems a natural thing that we started making music.

And was These New Puritans one of your projects? The one which works the better way i guess.

Yeah, I don’t even know whose is the best one, it’s just the one that came out as a real band.

And do you or the other members have side projects?

Yes, I do a lot of music, Tom does his own stuff. We are actually doing our music in secret.

It’s a secret...

Yes, so I can’t tell you about it but we are making lots of differents drumming.

And for the other members?

Tom does his electronic things, and Sophie isn’t really a musician, she’s not really interested in music and Georgesis doing appearences.

It could be something else than music, you don’t have studies left?

Sophie does actually, this is why she’s not here.

Did you for the band because there was a craze about Southend-On-Sea or did you just met and it came naturally ?

We started the carze actually, we were the first band.

There was nothing before you

No

From what I’ve read, you’ve got such an image of cerebral-arty band, is it just an image or are you really smart and arty?

We’re not trying, people just see us like that.

It’s in all the interviews, I don’t know why. Is it just because you wear… black?

I don’t know, it’s an accident. Most of the bands are idiot but it is not making us smarter. We try to make pop music, which is not the most hype and arty thing.

It's principally pop music that you want to make?

Yes, we are alternative pop, we have an alternative vision of pop music. I guess the Elvis video has a secret meaning. I also like the fact that nothing happens, it’s like an empty video.

So you just made it as an experiment?

Yeah, nothing really happens in the video, all that happens is that we do that, it’s really nice. Too much happens in the video nowadays.

Sam is the director, how did you met him?

Erm, I don’t know, he is… well Joe is friend with his sister, and his sister booked us on tour with Crystal Castles, so we just knew him and he’s really really good. Recently, in one of his videos, we are going to get this big person, you know a fat person, and fire him with, what is the secret technique of colorskin change but we did tests on the fat person and it didn’t work...

So you made this one.

Yes.

Is it your first tour outside England?

Yeah, first proper tour, we’ve played in Spain, Italy, France, Danemark, but it was not a tour.

Did you have weird food experiences?

Oh not really, I don’t actually eat anything.

Do you have any flashbacks of your previous life?

I think These New Puritans were people from 19th century.

So you have flashbacks from you 19th century’s life?

Yes, but most likely, I think all members of the band are extra terrestrials. Well, that’s my theory, I’ve got you to realise it, slowly.

If you wanted to be reincarnated what would it be?

Erm, it would be a bird but that’s pretty obvious.

You discribe your album as magic not scientific, why do you think it’s magical?

Cause that's the way we went about it. Like, studio spell is a spell, then live spell is a spell. There’s a millions spell you can cast and at the end there’s only one studio spell. That’s what came out of this.

And is there any question you wanted to be asked but no one ever wanted to ask you ?

I don’t want to be asked what’s my favorite number!