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Album exclusive: Prince Vaseline – A Naturally Coloured Pleasure

• 11th Jun 2015

We’re very pleased to be bringing you an exclusive stream of the new album from Brighton quartet Prince Vaseline – ‘A Naturally Coloured Pleasure’ is released 22nd June and we caught up with front man Max Erle and the rest of the band to find out more. You can stream the full album below!

When we first started playing music…

Evan and I grew up together, and we’d played in various bands since we were 16. We met Eleanor and Marc through a series of friends in bands and again we all played in various different bands together over the years. I recorded a bunch of demos at home in 2013, and felt like it’d be a good thing to start playing them live, so I asked these guys if they’d like to work on these songs. The best thing about it was that we all knew each other well, so no one was afraid to bring their own thing to the songs, and subsequently we ended up with a sound that’s totally different from the original demos.

If we had to choose a new name for the band it would be *Mr. Natural* because…

I’d like to keep the format of a band being represented as one single entity. It might look on paper like Prince Vaseline is one person, but it’s not. If it was just me on my own it’d be totally different. It’s like Goldfrapp. There’s always been two people in Goldfrapp, but for some reason they decided to name it as the singer’s surname. Also, Mr. Natural would only exist when we all got together and wrote music.

We knew we were on to something when…

We looked forward to playing together. If you’re playing in a band but it’s just a drag then I don’t think you’re on to anything.

Our biggest non-musical influences are…

I read a lot at the moment. Books like The Count of Monte Cristo or Les Miserables. I can’t understand how people can write like that. Those guys were geniuses – Dumas, Hugo, Dostoyevsky. They could create characters and situations that were so deep and complex and true to life. They were fantastic. I’m not sure we have any writers like that at the moment. I write a lot about nature, I guess because I spend a lot of time in Sussex. I couldn’t stay living my whole life in a city. I think people go insane that way, and start having anxiety attacks and developing depression because they’re surrounded by concrete and plastic and big signs and no one looks at each other and it’s easy to feel like a dislodged fragment floating in a blizzard of business. That’s why I like Brighton. It’s technically a city, but it’s small and the people here are chilled out and you can hop on a bus and in 10 minutes you’re in the South Downs. 3 of us practice Buddhism as well, and I guess that has an influence on how we are and what we think about. It’s easy to lose the plot, and to start thinking that we’re all fundamentally different from each other and that the only thing that matters is how much money we make.

We’re most proud of…

Max: ‘Learning to drive, Learning to sing’
Evan: ‘I’m most ashamed at how many drumsticks I seem to drop. I’m most proud of how quickly I can pick up a new one.’
Eleanor: ‘My knitted creatures.’
Marc: ‘When I came third in the Sussex County under-11’s 100 meter freestyle swimming race. I could have won it, but was distracted at the off…still happy with third though.’

Our ideal support slot would be…

British Sea Power have this thing where they play in caves or on oil rigs out in the sea. It’d be great to be asked to play something like that. There’s a ton of bands that we like at the moment, but the reality is that you can play with the most amazing band in the world and it can still be a rubbish gig, whereas you can play an unusual place and have the best time ever. I’d like to tour the UK playing old sea-side bandstands, that would be fun. Also, to do a tour where you play on a moving train through America or Europe would be cool as well.

Something we haven’t achieved yet which we’d like to is…

Getting signed to a label that can support what we want to do would be great, as it’s hard to tour and make records the way you want to off your own back. Saying that, though, I don’t think that it would be a magical antidote to all the problems involved in being in band. I think we’re achieving really exciting things by regularly getting together and writing and exploring different ways of being in this band. What’s been happening as a result of this process has been awesome!

Our favorite place to hang out is…

The Hand in Hand is a classic pub in Brighton. I think it’s the smallest in Brighton as well, and it’s got its own brewery upstairs. There’s a great pub called The Brighton Beer Dispensary which does really great ales. The beach is the place we all like, everyone likes the beach. We spend a lot of time going to a village called Rottingdean. Eleanor in the band likes Garden Centers. I just got a little Mark 2 Polo, so we all hang out in that quite a lot.

We can’t stop listening to…

Fuzz, King Gizzard, Tame Impala, Ty Segall, Mac DeMarco, Wand, Pond, Cate Lebon, The Soft Walls, Purple, Octopuses, TOY, Novella, Hookworms, Radio 4, Static Palm, Seeds of Doubt, Keelher, Ultimate Painting, Jessica Pratt,

We’re not ashamed to admit that…

There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone does odd things from time to time

If we could wave a magic wand and make anything in the world happen it would be…

Max: ‘time travel’
Evan: ’28 hour days! You could sleep for 8 hours and still have a 20 hour day’
Eleanor: ‘a washing line, for everyone to realise happiness, to have my own moss garden’
Marc: ‘I would wave a magic wand and be able to talk to my cat…See what’s on her mind, and tell each other how we feel about living with each other, make some compromises.’

Someone you might not have heard of that you should check out is…

Muddy Suzuki. Look him up, he’s made a bunch of albums, all available on his bandcamp page and they’re unbelievable. He writes these complex, beautiful songs in his bedroom and he doesn’t play them live but they’re genius. He also plays in a band called Crayola Lectern. They have a great album out called ‘The Fall and Rise of Crayola Lectern.’ Its beautiful.

Catch us next…

We’re playing Brighton and London, look at our Facebook page here for updates.