10 MINUTES WITH VANT

London Jam caught up with punk rock band VANT at Bestival. The band has grown from strength to strength, sharing their highly regarded political views on world-wide social issues. Having recently completed a successful festival circuit, with Bestival as their last for the summer, they have just released dates for an exciting UK headline tour. Vant has big backing from BBC Radio 1 DJ's Huw Stephens and Annie Mac (hottest record) along with their latest single 'Fly-by-alien' having just been nominated for the UK Music Video Awards as 'Best Rock / Indie Video - Newcomer', so fingers crossed for them! I chat with Mattie and Henry about how they prepare for a show, how they reacted when signed by major record label Parlophone, and much more.

Have you guys been at the festival all weekend?

Henry: No! We got here about an hour ago

Mattie: We were in the Isle of Wight yesterday, in a nearby town called Shanklin, and it was very nice!

H: We went swimming.

M: We did, swimming in the sea, we went for a nice run along the promenade .

H: Topless run, we got three beeps from cars.

M: I got four on my own this morning!

H: Well you went topless again.

In this weather!?

M: Saves washing and the environment, you don't have to wash your t-shirt.

Are you camping here tonight?

M: No, but we are going to stick around though and watch a few acts like Wolf Alice.

Have you camped at any other festivals you have played at this summer?

BOTH: Ummmm....No!

H: We have had to be pretty in and out, and we have had to travel. So we haven't had the chance to enjoy the summertime.

M: We stayed at Secret Garden Party last year, and at Leeds, and I think we learnt we didn't really want to do that any more.

H: We weren't the camping kind of boys .

M: We had all done it for years growing up, so it's quite nice being able to dip into a festival ,see a bit and leave now with out the bull***t to be honest!

Would you say your festival performance style differs from your normal show style?

M: A little bit, you tend to be playing to bigger audiences than you would be at your own shows, so we up the dramatics a bit more. Try and encourage some crowd involvement and rile them up a bit! I think we approach all of our shows with the same level of energy, its enjoyable to play not only to your own fans, but also to a lot of people who wouldn't come to your shows normally. So its a good opportunity.

H: Yeah definitely, I don't think there is a great difference between them.

How would you usually prepare for a show?

H: Stretches, lunges, press ups, get the blood pumping a little bit.

M: We eat way before.

H: We warmed up about half an hour ago with a game of throw the coat hanger at the rail. Er that was quite dangerous...

M: Kick a bottle in the bin..that world famous game.

H: The thing is, backstage is a tarpaulin tent, so you can do both of these things at the same time, so it gets hectic.

M: It's like mini Olympics.

H: It's dangerous.

M: There were a few casualties.

H: Pride mainly.

Mattie you are from Sunderland originally, now living in London, how would you compare the music scene between the two places?

M: Well I was quite unfortunate as I was born about three years after Sunderland had one of the best music scenes in the country. You had the like of the Furturheads and then in Newcastle Maximo Park and Kubickek, it was just an amazing music scene in the north east. Basically when I started to make music those bands had finished or were about to finish. So there is a music scene there, but its just really hard, I think there's just not enough people that want to go to shows more than anything, it's not that there aren't any talented people, just a lack of desire to see live music. Whereas London is a completely different story, there's about twenty different gigs happening everyday. It is a lot to take in and it's much easier to get lost in it , but we were fortunate enough to stay ahead of it and work our way up. So its good.

How would you describe yourselves to someone who doesn't know who you are?

M: Political punk music, I think that's a fair summary, we have a lot of musical influences from elsewhere, but the main drive of the whole project is to portray messages and talk about important issues and have interesting discussions with people and raise awareness to subjects that maybe don't have enough light shed upon them sometimes.

Can you tell us more about the political aspects of your music?

M: I guess when I started I was on my own and not with a band, I was frustrated that there was a lack of confrontation within music anymore, I grew up listening to bands like The Clash and they all had something to say, it's been lost in a majority rock music but all music was for a while, so I just wanted to do something a bit different and try and remind people why music in the past was so great and important and vital. Then when everyone else joined they all had the same philosophy so it just gave us four people to throw that message forward not just one. I think its about trying to concentrate on the difficulties of major subjects and not look at it from an anti establishment perspective, but more how can we make a difference, we obviously have a long way to go before we can make a difference but that's the overall aim.

How did you find the process of getting signed, was it difficult?

M: No! We had the most backwards way of getting signed of any band I have ever heard of. We had no intention of working with a label, we wanted to release an album of our own and see what happens, I think sometimes if you believe in something a lot, people gravitate towards it and for one reason or another, labels got wind of what we were doing and suddenly it seemed like a great opportunity to spread our message to a wider audience and Parlophone are really behind it, so that's why we went with them. There was no formula to doing it at all, it was complete coincidence and drive I think, that allowed us to be in the position that we are now.

H: I guess if you are not concentrating on that aspect of it, and you are concentrating on doing what you want to do for the best sense you can, and are completely focused like Mattie said, people are getting attracted by that, you aren't constantly looking at labels hoping they will get hold of it. If people want to get on board with it they will.

As you mentioned you are signed to Parlophone who signed legends like the Beatles and Queen, how did you react when they said they wanted to sign you?

H: It was Mattie really, I didn't believe him at first. Mattie has been doing this for so long, I joined about nearly three years ago now, and like we said we weren't focused on it at all so you know, Mattie can tell you more about when he found out.

M: Yeah, I think it was just one of those things, I was working in the music venue I used to work at and our manager called me and said, Parlophone have put in an offer, and I told him to go f**k himself because I didn't believe him! Then I rang him about six or seven times saying 'are you taking the piss' then eventually it sunk in, Henry arrived to do a shift and I said 'Henry Parolophone have put in an offer' and he told me to f**k off. Same sort of reaction. As the night went on we realised it was pretty legitimate and spent the next few weeks going to different meetings with various labels. But as you stated the prestige of Parlophone was something that really attracted us to them and they have had bands such as Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Coldplay, Blur. They have a heritage of massive bands. Myles Lennon signed us and said we were the only band in 22 years that he signed within an hour and a half of hearing one song, that was 1 minute and a half long. So its how much we excited them, and how excited we were by them as well, it was a mutual partnership that looked like it was going to work and has done so far.

H: I guess it's not only that hose bands who are huge, those bands have been allowed to evolve so much and its that sort of freedom and creativity which is definitely one of the most exciting things for us, because we want to evolve through many songs.

Is there anywhere else you are looking forward to playing?

M: This is the last show of the summer festival season. Not that you can class this as summer anymore.

H: It's still summer! Alright, it's summer until Monday.

M: Ok summer until Monday...

H: Monday is when we put our ties on.

M: We have a lot of exciting support tours coming up and we are going to be doing some of our own headline shows later in the year, which we haven't announced yet. We are personally looking forward to our own shows again, because we get to play for as long as we want, and we can show people what we have been working on, and what we have for the album when it comes out. I think your own shows, even though they may be smaller, are the the most fun.

Do you find your own shows more intimate?

M: It's not so much the intimacy, its the freedom to do what you want and not rely on limited time when supporting someone or restrictions, like not being able to sound check properly. You have control over that environment. The shows we play are getting bigger and bigger, so its more exciting every time we go out there. Theres more to see and more faces have come to see us!

H: Exactly, you know people are there to see you, you can try stuff out that you might not be able to at other shows.

M: They want to love you and they f**king should

H: We want to be loved!

If you could tour and play with anyone who would it be?

M: Neil Young, for me.

H: Neil Young is a good shout. Beck, I like Beck.

M: LCD sound system.

H: Only because they are friends.

Thanks guys!

http://www.wearevant.com/

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