Go Faster>> Interview

• 2nd Nov 2006

GoFaster Interview by Louise Butler.

This interview cracked us up when we listened to it and cracked us up when we read it. One of the more laid back, entertaining bands we have met so far. Its a lengthy interview, but they just won't shut up. The music ain't half bad either. Check 'em out supporting The Others – review out this week.

Chris – guitar & keyboards

Rich – guitar & mouth

Ian – drums

Murphy – bass

Where did the name come from?

Murphy – We were called ‘Go Faster Stripes’, then took the stripes off and put arrows on the side of the name.

Chris- ‘Cos it was a bit of a mouthful when pissed.

M – And also ‘Go Faster’ suits our music ‘cos we play up-tempo kind of poppy kind of stuff.

Do you like Liverpool?

M – We love it.

Do you want to stay in Liverpool?

M – Yeah we wanna stay. For the time being, we wanna stay.

Rich – it’s a pretty cool place at the moment, its got a buzz about it.

C- Yeah, it was getting a bit stale a couple of years ago.

What do you think about the local music scene?

C – Was rubbish years ago, but its now getting really cool cos there’s loads of new bands coming out like – 28 Costumes, Hot Club De Paris.

R – There’s a really good DIY scene where everyone’s helping each other out, putting on their own gigs and stuff.

Who has been the best/worst band you’ve played with?

M – Best band would have been Hot Club De Paris.

I – 28 costumes are the best.

C – We’ve been quite lucky really basically we haven’t been on a bad gig yet since we’ve been playing so we’ve always been put on with bands we like or friends have put us on whatever so we er haven’t done any gigs with anyone we don’t like.

If you could play with any band who would it be?

R – I reckon Elvis would be a pretty cool gig, wouldn’t it?

M – The thing is though, I would play with Elvis if we had the same rider as him cos he’d have loads of burgers. So definitely Elvis if we got the same rider.

R – He lives by Picton clock and works in the chippie…

Do you want to mention previous bands you've been in?

C – These Imaginary Men and The Cemery both the same band just changed name for no reason.

R – My band was called Day With Mary who are still going, but they play quite heavy stuff and I’m not really into that kind of music anymore, so I left to do my own thing.

M – Myself and Ian where in a band called the Iodines. It was alright at the time but it kind of faded out.

If you could work with anyone who would it be?

R – I’d like to work with Paul Epworth. He seems to have created a really cool sound recently with the likes of Bloc Party, Futureheads, Franz Ferdinand and stuff and he’s got like.

C – Didn’t he work with Maximo Park as well?

M – I’m not sure.

C – Ah yeah, it was, yeah.

M – Yeah so there’s another one, Maximo Park.

R – He’s got a really good sound.

Who are you music icons and influences?

R – Go on Chris, reel them off.

C – Don Caballero, Owls, God Speed, Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky…

R – I like sort of like pop stuff like when I grew up I listened to Blondie a lot, but also 90’s dance such as Haddaway, I’ve got to say it ‘cos its f****n true, it's what I listened to, it's all I listened to up until I was about 16. Also, I was into stuff like Def Leppard, I really like mainstream pop stuff. I’d love to reel of a load of obscure bands but I just wasn’t in to that.

I – Yeah, just what was out at the time. The same.

C -Also I think recently, influences are defiantly The Futureheads because who would have thought that a band playing their kind of stuff could or would have been mainstream. When they came out they raised the bar for indie bands.

I – Yeah, definitely.

M – I think we get our sound as well from early Blur and things like that as well, if it weren’t for them a lot of bands wouldn’t be out.

What was the first CD/Tape (single) you bought?

I – Mine was, ‘Baby come back’

R – 2 Unlimited – No Limit, and I still have the tape in me car and I still play it regularly.

C – East 17 – Stay Another Day.

I – We went head-to-head that Christmas. I think you won.

C – I got Christmas number 1 there.

I – He got Christmas number one I got second place

M – Monty Python ‘Always look on the bright side of life,’ closely followed by WWF ‘Slam Jam’.

Whats the best thing about being in a band?

M – Its fun. Yeah its something we all enjoy and we enjoy each others company as well. Its something that we’ve always wanted to do.

I – At the moment the best thing is just having a laugh really we like I dunno, we do have a laugh don’t we?

I – We’re not at the stage yet where we take anything dead seriously or anything we can afford to have a laugh so we’re just enjoying it at the moment.

Whats the worst thing about being in a band?

R -Carrying stuff.

C – Rich.

R – Cos I won’t carry anything.

C – Rich won’t carry his amp because he has to watch his voice. Only messin’. The worst part of being in a band is carrying stuff. Yeah, the loading and off loading. The sooner we have roadies the better

Why the ‘Guess Who’ stuff on the Myspace page?

R – We thought it’d be quite funny … quite quirky.

C – A lot of bands on myspace take themselves really seriously like too seriously. They’ve got all black and white photos of bands stood in front of a wall of graffiti and pouting at the camera, I dunno, we wanted something quite quirky, something people would remember. I think a lot of people who listen to our kind of music would have grown up playing Guess Who and board games 'n' stuff.

M – Yeah so as soon as they see it, it sticks in their heads.

I – It’s a little bit of a gimmick. We do take the band seriously but we can have a laugh. We don’t really take ourselves seriously.

M – Yeah take the band seriously. Don’t take ourselves seriously.

You call yourselves ‘trailer-trash-trisha-pop’ – why?

C – Rich went on Trisha once because erm haha.

R – I think some of the things we sing about are like the kind of stuff you get on Trisha.

M – It’s basically the lyrics really it just because they’re quite funny.

R – Its got like everyday life stuff you get on Trisha.

C – Trisha’s meant to be dead serious but you can’t watch it without laughing. This is peoples live but some of the situations they get into are ridiculous and the songs we write are quite similar to that, so that sort of ties in. I think we’d be great on Trisha to be honest.

R – I reckon its defo a future gig for us.

C – Trisha’s house band! She can do question answer sessions with the audience before we go on…..we can have a DNA test then we can just find out, like which one of the band is the father and that.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen on tour, thus far?

M – Well we haven’t really been on tour, we’ve played Liverpool and Manchester once. Rich fell out the car once.

R – I always fall out the car though.

I – Yeah, well yeah, we were playing in Korova and obviously I’m the drums behind and you look above and there’s glass and I looked up and these girls were basically pulling their kecks down and bending over and that.

M – We actually got flashed.

I – Chris and Murphy had a race in Manchester.

C – Waiting to go onstage in Manchester we had to wait outside for 2 hours to get the gear in so me and Murphy, both fairly hefty guys, so we said we’d have a race to see who was fastest.

M – Speak for yourself.

C – We had mentioned a Sports day hadn’t we.

R – Yeah.

C – So we’re gonna have a sack race while we’re waiting to sound check.

C – Then there’s the egg and spoon then pole vault.

R – You had pole vault at your school sports day? Imagine the parent’s pole vaulting! I love the way you pole vault in Wakefield. How posh was your school?

Do you believe in conspiracies?

R – Well Elvis is alive, we know that.

C – Yeah we’ve already established he’s living up Picton road.

R – He works in the chippie and he’s just waiting till we’re big enough then he can ask us to support him like,

I – Yeah and he’ll pay us in cod.

R – We’re among the conspiracy, that’s why we believe it.

I – Yeah!

Whats your favourite mode of transport?

I – Well mine’s got to be a car, to be honest.

C- I like going on foot.

I – No, I like cars.

C – I like being on foot.

R – I’d go for space-hopper.

C – But have you actually transported yourself anywhere?

R – Yeah, from the living room to the kitchen.

M – Flying, I like flying. Dead uninteresting, so space-hopper or flying?

R – You could space-hop on a plane!

M – Yeah, yeah, space-hopper on a plane…. You could bounce up and down

C – It’ll be the sequel to snakes on a plane.

M – Yeah so space-hopper on a plane. Starring Samuel L Jackson. It doesn’t count if Samuel L Jackson’s not there.

What is music?

M – Definition of music is something, something like something you can dance to yeah that’s basically my definition of music. Something that you can have a good dance to.

M – Something that makes you feel good about yourself.

R – Yeah I dunno, something that when, whatever mood you're in there’s always something, like a style of music, that you can listen to.

C – I’ve got loads of f****n’ albums you couldn’t dance to.

M – You could you can have a bit of a slowie.

R – Something that does make you happy because whenever you get down and stuff.

Do you have any celebrity stories?

M – Erm. I did trick or treat once at Ricky Tomlinson’s house when I was about 9. He lived round the corner. That’s the only one that I’ve got. Just to stay with the whole Halloween theme, as it was yesterday like.

C – Oh yeah, yeah that’s very topical … did he say a trick or a treat?

M – Oh, he said treat obviously and he took me into his house and ‘erm gave me a treat…he gave me a couple of sweets.

C – He gave you a treat?

M – He gave me a couple of sweets like. He’s a very nice gent, needs a bit of a shave like, but he’s a nice gent.

R – I can’t top that, I can’t top that celebrity one. I’ve got me guitar signed by Chesney Hawks. I went to see him at the uni.

I – I’ve got Sinbad out of Brookies autograph.

M – I have actually got one that’s better then Ricky Tomlinson. I actually got Rhinos autograph out of Gladiators cos he opened St Georges on County road. No one is beating that.

C – My sociology teacher at GCSE shagged Hunter from gladiators.

What bands are you into at the minute?

M – Hot Club De Paris I’d say. They’ve just released an album it’s a really good album.

I – I just listen to all kinds.

M – I’d say at the moment with the way that music’s going at the moment, Hot club de Paris are pretty much racing ahead of most of the bands who are up and coming.

R – The Rapture album is alright as well. There’s a lot of this new-rave stuff going on at the moment but I don’t know it. There are a lot of bands, Klaxons are alright but it’s like some bands are just getting press because they’ve got a cow bell and glowsticks.

C – We can’t say much ‘cos we’ve actually got a cow bell.

R – I know, we’ve got loads of cow bell.

C – There’s some bands that’s all they are like.

Finally – what is your favourite colour?

I – my favourite colour is red.

M – Mines black…‘cos I’m a Goth.

C – Turquoise.

R – I’ll probably go, I’ll go with brown.

C – Ah, brown's not my colour.

R – Actually no, I might change it.

C – Change it? Well, its not you’re favourite then is it? You should know what your favourite is!

R – I dunno, I haven’t really thought about it.

I – Mines definitely red.

C – Pink or brown?

R – Actually, I’ll go with red. I like red.

C – We’ve already had red. You couldn’t be on family fortunes.

R – Well if he had red can he have cherry red?

I – You can have blossom cherry then.

C – Cherry blossom B&Q paint list there, blossom cherry red.

R – Yeah right yeah, there we go.

END