Black Manila Beach Parade sound like the band that would soundtrack that road trip you were never going to take. They’ve already made two of my favourite songs last year (Brixton Hill and Jean Le Loup) and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better I found out the band have uploaded many more nuggets of delight like Sensation and Happiness. Conrad (singer) does take some lyrical cues from Lou Reed but definitely manages to find his own voice. They’re showing that music can sound grandiose and anthemic without sounding like White Lies the and look set to be a very entertaining live prospect this year.
How do you come up with the lyrics to your songs?
There is no general rule to writing lyrics or coming up with them. For me Lyrics are either observational, sensational, nonsensical or emotional. They either come to you from the unexplainable cosmos where thoughts and inspiration begins... or the back of a cereal box. You sometimes just have to let them come to you from the most unexpected of places, let them come when it’s time for them to come, forcing lyrics out can lead to some terrible forced overblown James Bluntish verse (and we don't want that now do we). You just have to keep on writing and eventually your confused scribbles will form a song. Sometimes a song just flows from you and you write the whole thing from start to finish in one go, then sometimes a song forms with a Burroughs approach with off cuts pasted together from fragments evolving over time. Sometimes its just freestyle. Poets like Allen Ginsberg 'Howl', Auden 'As I walked out', Lou Reed, Brautigan 'Love Poem' have been a big inspiration, their words have changed my life.
How DIY is the band? The band is pretty DIY, we are from a fine tradition of garage bands playing on crackling amps at full volume where noise complaints are frequent. We began in a DIY basement studio of a Warehouse called Cordy House on Curtain Road in Shoreditch, where we had a shared space with The onlyjoe Dub Band, but since that site closed down we have moved to another homemade studio in the South East. All our records are written, produced and recorded by us and we have all taught ourselves to play our instruments so i guess we are DIY, but I have never really thought about it in a sense of being DIY before, it has just been the most natural process for us as individuals.
Are you musically trained? I don't know what that means anymore, we have spent our lives listening to and loving music, that is all the training you need to make beautifully loud noise. Sid Vicious and Mozart play the same notes on their instruments, a C is always a C, Notes are just the written descriptions of sounds, and sounds are really easy to make. We are trained in sound. I think we need to redefine what musically trained is, as some of the greatest musicians of recent times have been self taught with no 'Formal, traditional' musical background, most obvious example that comes to mind is Jimi Hendrix.
Last book you loved? Mikhail Bulgakov - Master and Margarita. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - Venus in Furs. Gareth (Guitar) is reading the John Lennon Biography.
When will you do a UK tour? Festivals in the summer. Then we are taking some time out to write an album in Berlin. We have played in Brighton but are ready for a UK tour whenever the UK will have us.
Who would you get to cover your songs? Let the gypsy trumpets ring out with Brian Jones standing amidst the chaos wearing a vampire’s cloak. We have a lot of love for Isaac Brock from Modest mouse, Anton Newcombe from Brian Jones Town Massacre, Lou Reed, but if anyone covered our songs i would want them to sound almost unrecognisable as i would want them to interpret them their own way, and bring their own styles and ideas to the music.
What are the prominent themes of your songs? Happiness.
Did you have any jobs before being in a band? I work at Plastic People, and did a club night called Bukkake at Madame JoJo's for a year and a few Warehouse parties in Shoreditch called 'The Shoreditch Triangle'. Liam (Drums) works for the Art department of a film company making low budget vampire stripper gangster movies, which is a pretty cool job.
Was it always what you wanted to do? I am a painter and will always be a painter as well as playing in a band, have always wanted to make music, and will always make music, i don't care about the money, it’s just that i can't not do what i do, it’s a compulsion, even if i die penniless i will be happy and fulfilled from a life of art and music. It’s Gareth’s Destiny to play Guitar, and Liam is a visionary drummer, so i think we are stuck with this dream.
Top tip for an aspiring band? Do it for the love, if you don't love playing and you don't need to make music then don't quit the day job. If you aren't making music because you don't need to make music then people probably don't need to hear it. There is so much bad soulless music out there being made for the wrong reasons, we need to find the soul again. Also become a good live band, don't rely on backing tracks and over production, the future of the music industry is in Live music.
Where next for the band? Berlin and the Black Forest.
Rock n roll tale? Wait for Gareth's autobiography, i don't want to spoil the start of the book before its even written.
Rejected band names? We were called Wolf on our first show and had 7 people on stage, we were then called Wolfgang and had 5 people on stage, we then found out that there was another Wolfgang in town when they played the Stag and Dagger festival and people thought it was us. We were then called No Bardo with 4 people on stage. Now we have the longest name of our history Black Manila Beach Parade and have just 3 people on stage.
I’ll let Conrad have the last word
"What becomes of life, when inspired by a chess playing cat"
Dan W
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