An Interview with WEVIE STONDER

AL: me & you & some others.

HARRY: lost souls, buccaneers, renegrades, djeynerates and assbeans. 4 or 5 of the 9 quartz lobbers.

TVP : the doom

How would you describe your music to someone who's never heard it before?

AL: Stupid.

HARRY: marmite for your ear. love it or hay tit.

TVP: It´s very elegant, perfect for weddings, funerals and playing doom.

How did you all meet ? and was it an instant "lets do this" or was it a gradual morphing into the sound that was defined on the first record..

AL: It's more like a curse. Me & Rich met aged six and formed a band with some chickens and a tape recorder. It's moved on only slightly since. Attracting the ever wayward, as harry describes above.

HARRY: universe alley. out the back, behind the shed. morph refused to be any part of it.

TVP: The key figure in this game is a welsh man called russel. He somehow introduced me to chris - and from there on we were doomed.

The music that Wevie put out is wildly eclectic.. infact it covers pretty much without exception, every genre in existence (plus some that are yet to be named)... So what are the musical influences that have helped shape the Wevie sound?

AL: I think doing wevie there's something in every genre of music to learn from...

HARRY: personally speaking, my fluences are Rum, Bum and Concertina.

TVP: diles mavis, flink poyd computer games like doom.

Theatre is obviously vital to the live experience and there seem to be paralells to be drawn with comedic tragedy, pantomime dames and slapstick.. are there any plans for a video?

HARRY: I long to see the bluebottles flying in formation, something latin, and anything i find on the night of a gig , no rehearsal, no cooperation just 4 cunts on open...throw anything you´ve got at us we deserve it. Hands up who´s staying?

AL: Er, Yeah. Matteo Manzini made us a brilliant video for MR Monkey >

The track never ended up on the album. I kinda like it out on it's own tho - he's covering new ground for us.

TVP: dunno about any more digital releases. currently i am writing the script for "doomy days - a cack musical about the life and work of wevie stonder"

Tell us the story behind one of your songs... either ladies leg licked or gypsy chimp.. or both (or another)

HARRY : ton wah -Thinkin bout being ferried home by the AA after the van broke down and their sat nav directions being so funny.. half a bottle of vodka on a thursday afternoon, one take and the vocal was done...all a long time before the sat nav thing really took over of course...very very ahead of our time..
In fact within 24 hours the entire De Crepon was pretty much finnished...(dont tell sonig that.)

AL: Lady's leg licked > Rich saw a cat licking the leg of an old lady in George St, Hove and came home to report.
(De Crepon actually took at least 2 months work but harry was there for 24 hours of it - he suffers from alcohol induced optical illusions.)

What's your favourite track from the wevie back cat (and why)

HARRY: i try not to think a bow tit. I fucking HATE electronic music.

AL: Calm down mate.

TVP: didn´t i tell you - we are doomed.

Skam (to me) is quite a 'serious electronica' label, with artists such as boards of canada and gescom being the most renown.. How did it come about that you've released most of your catalogue through them ..?

AL: We used to get asked this at every gig we played - mainly cos we were booked by mistake into quite a few serious electronica nights in the beginning..
To cut a long story short, skam & rephlex were both interested in the first stonder album "Eat your own ears"..
Rephlex called up and said they liked it but that "Richard would want to hear at least another 5 dat tapes full of stuff before he signs anyone" - so we sent them a 15 second track with rich doing a vocal done through a comb saying they should just release the album.
we never heard back.
Meanwhile, Skam loved it, and were really nice guys on the phone, and were up for releasing it as is - cover & all. so it was an easy decision to make !
1 month later we played our debut gig at sonar festival and started ruining their reputation from then on in. Good Times.

HARRY: they thought it would be a laugh. blame some chemicals theyd had that weekend i suppose.

AL: He really does have no idea.

Why the new label?

AL: because it's the right time.
We have for some time now wanted to take control of our own stuff, and setting up cack records is the only way to do this.
It's the most difficult time in history for small labels and the financial world is collapsing around us. It's the perfect time to start a label and try to sell people cack music.

HARRY: Time to do things properly

TVP: Hahahaha.....

Mr. Vast?

AL : Ask Harry

HARRY: No comment

AL: Ok well that's that then.

Peel back the frivolous and fun loving surface of the records and live shows and there is an extremely high standard of production and seemingly unlimited intricacies that go into the music hinting at a wealth of experience in the studio.. were you ever tempted to use these skills to make music with the bar lowered for a wider audience?

HARRY: I would widen the bar for a lower audience, the bar is and will always be the highest priority for me in this band.

AL: No there are plenty of people doing that already - am not knocking that > I can see why they do it, and it's not necessarily better or worse than what anyone else does in music, but it's just not for wevie.
We don't decide on our audience, or set out to deliberately make music to only cater for a select bunch of freaks and weirdos, it's just how it naturally comes out. We can't help it.

TVP: Two pints please. That will lower me right down for the audience.

What are the roles of everyone.. is it very much a defined music/show making process or is it more freeform with everyone having a go at everything..

HARRY: Al does the music, chris is a leotard and pube specialist, the vive president can play some chords on several instruments, rich is tobacco tech, Im in charge of Alperts lost proper titty.

AL: he said it.

How does it work out with 2 of the band living abroad? studio time? internet ?

AL: I only ever work with one wevie at a time due to safety reasons - so it actually works ok being in different countries, but things do take a lot longer to do.

HARRY: its a disaster, probably the end of the world.

TVP: we are doomed - but not that much that we even have to spend time together apart of the live shows.

What are the plans for the future?

AL: More stonder releases, new live show, videos and collaborations.
The Ham short story project will be out on CR late autumn. More to follow.

HARRY : see above.

TVP: faster computer, better games, new teeth and a different band. Getting the Wevie musical to a broad way.

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