Our interview with one of the hottest prospects of british music – Shame – was set few moments after their great gig at Off Festival. Sometimes controversial, full of pure energy, and a little bit chaotic – either controlled and uncontrolled due to some technical malfunctions – this show made one of the greatest histories of the festival. As it turned out, our interview with five young musician, was exactly the same – controversial, energetic, chaotic, but mostly – very pleasant.

Great gig, guys, but not without the problems. What was happening to your strap, Josh?

Josh Finerty [bassist]: It’s got a strap-lock on it, so when it comes off, you can’t just put it back on.
Charlie Steen [vocalist]: It shouldn’t come off.
Josh: I know it shouldn’t! But it was nice to sit down for few songs.

Not a usual thing to do at your concert. You’re rather active onstage.

Charlie S.: Yessss.
Charlie Forbes [drummer]: A nice change.
Josh: Well, we did a tour once with Fat White Family and I had to sit down the whole tour, because I broke my leg.
Charlie F.: You weren’t sitting down the whole tour. You were dancing round with your big cast.

What’s wrong with your legs? You [Charlie Steen – vocalist] had a cast on your leg few weeks ago at Rock For People.

Charlie S.: Yeah, I sprained my ankle on the stage. I’ve got a bandage and I was quite drunk so I went to sleep. I woke up at five in the morning and it was sooo big and I was like: „for fuck’s sake” [laughs]. And then we’re in Barcelona and it was like 30 degrees and it was our first time in a really hot, beautiful country and I was in a hospital for six hours.

So this is your first time in Poland, right?

Eddie Green [guitarist]: First time in Poland.
Josh: He’s been here [points at Charlie S.] Charlie S.: I’ve been here three times with my family. I’ve got a lot of polish friends. I’ve been to two polish weddings. It’s fuckin’ great, man! I don’t know where in Poland, though. I think one was in Cracow and then my mother wanted me to go to see Auschwitz. So we stayed with other family friends in the mountains and I was speaking with, how do you call them – Highlanders?

Yeah.

Charlie S.: Tough people! Big, fat, so strong! [laughs] And that was weird. But, yeah, Auschwitz is definitely a place that everyone should go to see.

Oh, that’s nice. And how do you feel after your gig here, in Katowice?

Charlie F.: Really good.
Josh: It was hot.
Sean Coyle-Smith [guitarist]: Yeah, it was really hot.
Josh: I was all sweaty. I wanted to take my trousers off.
Charlie S.: We haven’t really slept today so it was nice to go and play to feel a bit like…
Charlie F.: Alive again.
Charlie S.: Yeah, exactly.
Sean: But also dead. [laughs] Charlie S.: It’s way worse when you have to play at 2 AM, so you just wait.
Josh: The crowd was insane.
Charlie F.: Great gig. One of the best we’ve done this summer. Definitely. Top 5!
Sean: Top 5? Top 2 for me! It was good. It was real fun.

Did you hear anything about Off Festival before you came here?

Charlie F.: Yeah, it’s very prestigous in Europe.
Eddie: Oh, I didn’t hear anything. [laughs] I’ve heard that Poland is a good thing and that’s all.
Sean: The lineup is great. We just watched Ulrika Spacek. And I guess IDLES are playing tonight, right?

Oh, we couldn’t see Ulrika Spacek, because we were interviewing Joe from IDLES. He wanted to say hello to you.

Josh: Oh! Hello back! [laughs]

And he has a question for you, as well. He wanted to know, when is your debut album coming out.

Charlie S.: Yeah, january 2018.

That’s cool! But he had one more question – Will you do a split vinyl with IDLES?

Everyone: OOOOH!
Josh: Yeah, we’d love to!

So you’ve got a deal, but we won’t set this up. You have to do it yourselves. Anyway, Off Festival is known for it’s alternative lineup. When you come here, you usually know 3-4 bands and watch the rest only out of curiosity. If you could invite some yet to be known bands here, which bands would it be?

Charlie S.: Monk.
Josh: Yeah, Monk! They don’t have any official releases, but they’ve got some stuff on Soundcloud. They are our friends from South London. I don’t know whether it’s a self-confidence thing or something, but they all have got into university and every time I see them live, I’m like: „Why don’t you do this full time?”
Charlie S.: Yeah, they’ve only played a few venues in South London and that’s all. We’ve put them on for past two years and we love them. They’re our close friends.

By the way, we’ve heard that you don’t like festivals.

Josh: Whaaat? Really?
Charlie F.: That was him! [Points at Eddie] Eddie: I don’t like going to festivals.

Why?

Charlie F.: He doesn’t like camping. It’s not a thing here, but in the UK everyone camps, no matter how muddy and how rainy it is.
Eddie: And actually it’s disgusting.
Josh: It’s very different being on the other side.
Sean: We do love festivals.
Charlie S.: We don’t like some festivals.

Like?

Charlie S.: Kendal Calling.
Josh: No, no, no!
Charlie S.: I hated Kendal Calling.
Josh: There’s no need for that [laughs] Eddie: A lot of UK festivals are just really shit. They charge people stupid amounts of money to go…
Charlie F.: This festival is cheap. Same kind of thing in the UK would be like… 200 euros.
Eddie: More than that – 300 euros for a shitty festival.
Charlie S.: You have to have a lot of money when you go to an english festival, because all the food you wanna eat is so expensive.
Charlie F.: And also in Europe – most of the places – people are a real musicheads. In Britain a lot of people go to the festival and aren’t really there for music. They just go to see Djs and…
Sean: Smoke some bloody ketamine. [laughs] People seem to care a lot more about music here.
Charlie F.: It’s good for us!

So, do you have any tips for people, who go to festivals? Any do’s and don’ts?

Eddie: Don’t buy a really cheap pop up tent.
Sean: Don’t go to hard on the first night.
Charlie S.: Bring your own toilet paper.
Josh: Wet wipes.
Eddie: Yeah. Essential!
Charlie S.: Pack as light as possible, because you don’t wanna get… You know, this is the worst kind of feeling when it’s the last day of the festival and you’re getting back and you realise how much stuff you have to put in a bag.
Sean: Especially when it’s all covered in mud.
Charlie S.: Yeah. Don’t bring anything you care about.
Sean: Yeah. That’s a big one.
Eddie: Yeah, you’re gonna take drugs… [laughs] Sean: Stop half first. Take a half. [laughs] Josh: Bring some band-aids, maybe?
Eddie: Bring your own air cooler! I did this at Glastonbury. We’ve put it on a parking lot near our vehicle and it was great.
Charlie F.: We used to have a van, so it was working. Yeah, it’s true.

Anyway, as you said you love festivals. Can you compare them to smaller, club gigs? What’s better?

Josh: Yeah. It’s different.
Charlie S.: So different.
Charlie F.: It depends on the crowd. It’s pretty amazing getting to play on, like, a really big stage, but nothing beats playing in a sweaty basement.
Charlie S.: Yeah, and as Charlie said earlier, in Europe people seem to care a lot more about music. In England at some festivals you kinda feel people paid so much money, they feel they have to have a certain amount of fun so it feels quite falsed.
Eddie: Yeah, they’re having too much fun.
Charlie F.: Not that we’re against fun.
Josh: We love fun!
Eddie: Yeah, but people are like: „Right, I must get as fucked as possible within next 18 hours”.

So you’re saying it’s just a british thing to get drunk at festivals?

Josh: [laughs] It might be!
Eddie: We’re doing it right now.
Charlie F.: We’re massive hypocrites [laughs] But yeah, If you came to Glastonbury, you would see people more fucked at 4 PM than here at 1 AM.
Sean: Oh, I don’t know about that. That’s yet to be seen!

We have a question that we asked Joe from IDLES as well. You’re getting more and more popular in Britain and continental Europe. The same with IDLES, Cabbage, Fat White Family, Slaves – all that politically active, filled with british sense of humour bands are now a big thing. Do you have any thoughts what’s the reason?

Charlie S.: I think we should take Slaves out of the equation.

What’s wrong with Slaves?

Sean: We’ve played, like, 20 shows with them.
Charlie S.: They charged me  for putting a microphone down in my pants and they paid us less for a show.
Josh: They made us sign a contract that we’re not allowed to drink beer before we went on the stage.
Eddie: Yeah, they made us be sober on the stage [laughs].
Charlie S.: Yeah, then we were not allowed to have water on the stage, so we would have to do, like 35 – 40 minutes set of full energy without any water.
Charlie F.: Yeah, they’re what you call a facade.
Charlie S.: Money, money, money!
Charlie F.: They’re punk onstage, but behind the fuckin’ courtains it seems like a fuckin’ lie. There’s no character, there’s just money.

Ok. So let’s forget we’ve mentioned Slaves.

Charlie F.: They’re not like Fat Whites – they do the show and then come off stage and they’re actually, like, the same people.
Charlie S.: Yeah, unfortunately [laughs]. We toured with Fat Whites and we toured with Slaves. At first we were new to Fat Whites but, for example, they let us in their dressing room, let us have beers.
Charlie F.: Made us feel welcome.
Charlie S.: If you support a band in England, you have, like, 5 beers a gig. You lose money – gas, parking lot. Sorry, what was the question again?
Josh: Brexit bands!
Eddie: I think that from a continental perspective – an outsider point of view – british politics at the moments is quite interesting, quite exciting.
Sean: Not in a good way.
Eddie: Yeah, and people are just interested to see, like, what kind of subcultures have emerged from what is going on. It’s like – I don’t know – loads of anti-Trump bands in America are poping up and getting popular now.
Charlie S.: I think people in Britain are getting bored. We sort of lived through that X-factor generation which started in early 2000s and probably ended a few years ago.
Sean: There’s still that kind of music.
Josh: There’s always that kind of music.
Charlie S.: Yeah, but i think people got tired and want something that is actually more interesting.
Sean: Meaningful. From our hearts. From our souls [laughs]

So, as you’re getting more popular now, do you have time to enjoy some music as a fans? What was the last non-festival gig you saw?

Josh: Yeah, you know, honestly – when you spend so much time playing shows, you have to stay away from that in your free time.
Charlie F.: We’re going to our friends shows. Apart from that I haven’t been to a gig since, like, last october.
Eddie: I saw Mac DeMarco.
Charlie S.: Oh, I saw Mac DeMarco as well. I don’t really like him, but I was there, so…
Josh: We’re really lucky that we play with so many bands that we like.
Charlie F.: Yeah. Like today. I probably wouldn’t have seen Ulrika Spacek if we weren’t here.
Charlie S.: We did a festival in France where we were lucky to play, like, 2 hours before Iggy Pop.
Charlie F.: Yeah, that’s the big stuff!

And what was the last album, you’ve heard?

Sean: Childhood – Universal High.
Josh: On a plane here, I’ve listened to „Public Strain” by Women.

Oh! We have an interview with Preoccupations [a band of two former members of Women] on sunday.

Josh: Oh! Can we have a question for them?

Yes.

Josh: Can we support you, please? [laughs] Charlie F.: No, no, no, no… That’s not the question.
Charlie S.: Can we give them a compliment instead?
Charlie F.: Yeah, good shit!

That’s not the question.

Charlie F.: Good shit and then question mark.

Ok.

Josh: And also „Can we support you?”

 

Agata Hudomięt & Krzysztof Sarosiek