I have the pleasure to do my first interview for this blog with Nina Courson from Healthy Junkies. I almost reviewed their first album on Artrocker in 2011 but someone else ended up doing it which was highly disappointing at the time.
They attracted my attention pretty much straight away and I remember seeing them at The Purple Turtle ( now Crowndale ) supporting the mighty Walter Lure and their set was mind blowing. They had something new and refreshing, an in your face type of attitude with an angry stage presence. They also had songs that would stay in your head and that's not something you experience that often when you go out to see unknown bands.
Healthy Junkies have now two more albums under their belt and they have developed a unique patchwork of sound and performance on stage, played all over the UK and also in France, Germany, Holland and Belgium.
Their following is growing consistently and so have they. A must see !
- 3 more interviews to come soon - don't hesitate to contact me if you want me to consider your band for an interview : wendymcguiree@gmail.com
1 - Box of Chaos is the last album you released in 2015. Are you releasing a new one soon and do you have a release date ?
Yes we are. It seems weird when you say we released our last one in 2015, it just doesn't feel like three years, I guess so much has happened in those three years that time has flied.
We do not have a release date yet but we're hoping to before the end of the year at least, we have really taken our time on this album including in the mixing process, so it's taken a bit longer than planned. But it's all coming together nicely. In the meantime we are releasing a single and a video at our Punk n Roll Rendez Vous Festival on 30th of June. The song we've chosen is not on our new album. We won one day for free in this recording studio in Essex a few months ago so we decided to record that track "No Control" which is a new one, that's why it hasn't been included on our album.
2 - What should we expect in term of directions in the sound of the new album ?
We never really sit down and make massive plans about how we're going to sound. And I think that kind of shows in our songs. We've just tried to capture what we've been doing live and try to translate the chemistry between us all as a band. It's hard to describe, listen to the album and tell me what you think.
3 - I really liked your cover of La vie en rose in the first album. Was it an obvious choice to cover Edith Piaf being french and is there any new cover on the horizon ?
I guess so, that song has been part of my life since I was so little. My granddad had a music box with La Vie en rose and I used that same music box for the intro of the song on the recording. I like to choose songs that mean something to me and at the same time I wouldn't want to choose something too obvious. I wouldn't want to do Smell like teen spirit let's say or any of my favorite bands even though we play Tourettes sometimes but it's more of a shambolic jam that becomes something completely different after 1 min. I like obscure choices of covers so you can make it your own and experiment on it, it's interesting that way. Boots are made for walking are probably one of the least obscure one we've chosen but we've trashed it up a bit. If you cover something in the same vein as your band you don't need to trash up anything so what's the point, I guess it's more challenging and original to go for something different. We did find another song to cover, you wouldn't even know the band if I told you the name, and that's what's interesting... Kurt Cobain was actually a master in choosing covers from bands that no one has heard before, he kind of indirectly "taught" me that.
4 - I have noticed you are now on Cargo Records. Can you tell us a bit more about it ?
Cargo Records approached us before in 2013 when we released our second album "The Lost Refuge" and they were interested in working with us then. But at the time we were with the Manchester label STP Records and we also released Box of Chaos with them. As our time ended with STP we joined Cargo Records and they are going to release our new album as well as our next single.
Pic by Stephen Collinge
5 - There seems to be more and more bands with girl singers in the scene you mix with. Would you say that you could have influenced some of them, which I think you have and what advice would you give to some of those new bands ?
I think everyone influences each other and gets inspiration from other performances. It's something that has always happened, even the greatest and the biggest were influenced by somebody else. I don't know if I have influenced anyone but I like to think I've inspired some young girls out there at some of my gigs or with my music and have hopefully helped free some of their inhibitions by not being afraid of being themselves... I think it's important to be inspired by others but it's also equally important to find your own way otherwise it's not inspiration any more it's pure plagiarism. People with their own ideas are always moving on anyway from one idea to the next and that's how you progress I guess.
My advice for any band would be to work at it by playing as many gigs as you can to start with so you can really get into your art but not take yourself too seriously because you could fall off at any time.
6 - I have always liked the anti manufactured approach of your band and you always seem to do everything yourself. Is it something that is important to you ?
Like I said earlier we never make any plans about our music so what comes out of it is everything but manufactured. I'm a non compromise type of person when it comes to my music, I wouldn't want to get signed if that meant writing songs to please crowds and we also want to be able to organize our own gig schedule.
And yeah we do everything ourselves pretty much. When we go on tour in Europe we book our own gigs, we know a few promoters and that's enough, we obviously research it a bit but we haven't felt the need to have a booking agent. You can do the work yourself and have better results. We also like to work as a team with some of the people who come to our gigs and sometimes help. We're kind of all in the same boat and it's a nice party atmosphere at the same time. At the end of the day as a musician you're nothing without the people.
7 - How do you write your lyrics ?
When I was a teenager I always used to write pages and pages of lyrics, now it doesn't happen like that. I like to write about some of the stuff I have lived through, my experience in London since I moved here, the things you see when you travel, it's all about life experience and having something to say. There are no set rules though. You could just write about a feeling. It's all about the moment in which you find yourself when you write and anything could come out of it. My memories are endless and my life experience pretty fucked up so I guess it's all good writing material.
Pic by Stephen Collinge
8 - What would you be if you weren't a musician ?
I'm not a musician I'm a performer. And I'd probably be acting or writing. Two other passions of mine. None of them are realistic, but that's me all over.
9 - What's the first two albums you ever bought ?
Live through this by Hole and Urban Hymns by The Verve. Totally different bands. I obviously played my Hole album a lot more than the other one. Obsessively in fact, I used to listen to it on repeat with headphones on as I was in bed at night and fall asleep before I suddenly get woken up in a panic by Courtney's screams, pretty mental.
10 - Have you ever met some of your heroes and if not which one would you like to meet ?
I met Courtney Love twice already so it's not bad going. The first time she was signing her book Dirty Blonde and I actually skipped my work to go to that, I didn't get fired which was a real shame since I hated the job. The second time was at a gig she did in London a few years back, I knew one of her roadies so I got to see her backstage and you could feel her presence from miles away. I also met Krist Novoselic when I was in Seattle and what a cool guy he was. I gave him one of my band CDs and he said he loved the name, it was a magic moment. We also met Rodney Bingenheimer while in L.A. and that was cool too, he's like the American John Peel.
But I guess meeting Dave Grohl would be pretty amazing, Kurt Cobain of course, Arthur Rimbaud who was in fact the first punk rocker and also L7, and Josh Homme, don't start me on this or I'll never finish.
Pic by Stephen Collinge
No comments:
Post a Comment