Not only are folk-tastic Hey Sholay our favourite crafters of poppy melodyscapes – they’re also very, very chatty. We let them do the talking …
What happened the last time you were in Camden?
We played in Koko as part of the NME awards shows, got a parking ticket within four seconds of stopping, sampled an ingenius cross-cultural fusing of the Mexican wrap and the donner kebab, signed our first record deal with Fierce Panda, and tried to sleep in a van to no avail.
What is the one single most important thing to know about the band?
That in Whitby, Liam our singer was informed in a tarot reading that he was destined to work at the Large Hadron Collider facility, and that his pursuing of a musical career was a farce. All this happened while we were at the ‘post a kipper’ stand next door. We had to restrain him from getting into a kayak and paddling to Switzerland just moments later.
You can have one artist, living or dead, on stage with you: who is it and why?
Each band member would have someone completely different, but I think we may all agree on either David Bowie, Brian Eno, Frank Zappa or Tom Waits. I’ll go with Tom Waits as he would a) bring his two kids to play drums and Clarinet (the more the merrier); b) because his music is completely and utterly different to ours and finally c) if we mess up live and grind to a halt – he can always entertain the audience with facts about ejaculating praying Mantis’. Which he does quite regularly I hear.
Recommend us a tune by a band other than you that we should download right now.
‘Red Horse’ by Colin Stetson – He’s a fella who plays (what i think is) a baritone saxophone. He squeeks away, beats, creates hypnotic but really catchy songs. The musical middleground between Seasick Steve and Derek Bailey (R.I.P), organic but totally electronic-music influenced.
What is the most outlandish item on your rider?
Usually either Double Dip sherbet or that mouth popping candy that has all the E numbers in it. Keeps us going for days.
If each member of the band had to appear in fancy dress on stage, who would wear what?
We’ve already done the military polar bear suit thing, which was so warm that our bassist suffered from heatstroke. He died. We had to replace him with a new person – luckily for us no one knew who the first one was before he passed. This actually explains why we mime onstage nowadays to avoid exhaustion… capes are good too.
Anything specific you want to plug?
Our debut album comes out early May, so keep an eye out for our single beforehand, competitions to choose the line-up order of songs on the record, and some live performances of each track as a preview…
Hey Sholay will be appearing at CC2012 on Sunday 6th May. Check out their profile page for more info
