THE LIKE, like

• 19th Dec 2005

On an insanely cold afternoon in Camden, The Like are about to do a lunchtime gig at the Barfly. As I literally bounce through the crowds at Camden Market, who are trying on awful hats and/or walking into me, I dive in the Barfly and manage to grab Charlotte Froom (Bass) and Tennesse Thomas (Drums) for a quick, slightly bumbling interview.

Is this your first time in the UK?

Charlotte: We’ve been here in the UK before, we mixed our record here about 6 months ago so we were living at Columbia for 3 weeks!

Tennessee: Yeah, we played a show at the Metro then and we also played the Barfly about a year ago too

Cool, so how is the tour going?

C: We’ve never really been on tour on our own before, we are usually opening up for someone who has fans! It’s the first time in 3 years where there are actually people there at our show for us so yeah, its fun…we deserve it!

Are you feeling the pressure yet of being a new girl band in a music scene where bands rarely last one album now?

T: It’s quite a hard job anyway, even though people say “oh its not really a job”! We haven’t stopped for about 3 months; we’ve been touring and stuff. It gets tiring. You forget when you’re meant to eat and sleep…who you are…!
C: It’s not really that much harder being a girl band. This is our first record so we don’t know how difficult it’s going to be yet
T: Who knows if we’ll ever make another record!

Do you get a lot of attention from male guys….er, I mean…
C: “Mail” guys? Oh yeah, we get loads of postman at our shows!

Sorry, I mean do you have many men bothering you at gigs?
C: More so here than in America
T: American boys are complete idiots
C: In the states we have little girls following us around
T: The boys get drunker here and they feel they can come up to you and be like, “Oh, that was so great, you’re sooo beautiful”, whereas American boys are quieter and more boring.

So who would be your dream support act?
T: Well, we would love The Beatles to support us!!
C: I don’t think anybody’s ever going to support us, but we’d like to tour with Oasis, Primal Scream and Kasabian
T: …and the Strokes

Finally, what’s the plan for 2006?

T: Geez, that sounds miles away!
C: Our records coming out here in March, then we’ll be touring
T: Then probably a month in America, a month in the UK so…
C: You’ll be seeing us a lot!

And, with that, the girls are off to face the crowd at The Barfly, and I leave to face the crowd at Mornington Crescent tube station.