Bits of Me
Words by Dan Jude
THE RECORD I CAN’T TURN OFF
Nine Inch Nails - Downward Spiral
I used to listen to this album when I was about 15 or 16. I hadn’t heard it for ages and I found it when I was sorting through my record collection. I started listening to it again and was blown away by how fresh and raw it still sounds. The production on it is incredible, it was just totally ahead of its time. I find it a really personal album too. It’s quite industrial, and there’s a lot of emotion, it’s just very unique.
THE RECORD THAT MADE ME WANT TO FORM A BAND
The Pixies – Surfer Rosa
It was one of the first things I heard, when I started getting into The Pixies and Nirvana and all that kind of stuff. It’s just a very comfortable album and it shows that anyone can make music. You don’t need to have classical training; you can just have an album where you are just screaming at your friends. There are no rules on the album, lyrically or musically, and I love the freedom and the chaos of it.
AN UNDERRATED CLASSIC
Sweep The Leg Johnny – Going Down Swinging
This is an album that not many people will have heard about, but it’s incredible. They’ve broken up now, but they were always pretty underground - they sounded a bit like King Crimson. They were just incredible, and they used to work their arses off – they’d play about 200 shows a year. They never really achieved commercial success or anything, but it was an album that a really strong impact on me.
THE ALBUM THAT EVERYONE SHOULD OWN
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
It’s an amazing album. I saw them live this summer and it actually made me understand the record more. I think it’s very unique, I mean it’s such a strange record and yet so universal. Once you understand it, once you get past the fact that it can be a bit difficult at first, you enter its world and then it suddenly becomes really pop-py and universal.
MUSIC THAT MAKES ME HAPPY
The Ventures
When I listen to surf rock stuff, like The Ventures, it makes me feel like I’m in a really awesome film, where it’s always sunny and everyone’s beautiful and there’s unlimited amounts of money and steak and pot. Everything is good when I listen to them.
THE NEXT BIG THING
The Invisibles
Their album is coming out next year and hopefully we’re going to hear a lot more about them. They’ve got this weird sound that I love. I can just hear all these different things in it, like Prince and even some Talking Heads. They’re a 3-piece and they are just phenomenal musicians – I think their album just sounds different to anything else that is going on at the moment.
MY FAVOURITE FESTIVAL
Fuji Rock
It’s a toss-up between reading and Fuji Rock but it has to go to Fuji Rock. It’s set in the mountains in Japan and is just different to any other festival in the world. I find the whole thing about being in Japan exciting, as well as the fact that the line-up is usually great. We played there, and it was an awesome experience.
EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT
David Foster Wallace
He wrote this book called Infinite Jest, which I’m re-reading at the moment. It’s about this tennis academy, and drugs and Alcoholics Anonymous and entertainment, like TV and the addictive nature of entertainment. It’s pretty long, and it’s pretty difficult to get into, but once you do it’s totally addictive. He actually passed away a couple of months ago and is quite unknown, but as time goes on I think that he’ll come to be regarded as one of the most important authors of our generation.
MY HERO
Ernest Hemingway
He just did so many amazing things. He was brave, but was like this weirdly flawed alpha male, who was a writer but also did stuff like big game hunting. He was there for the Spanish revolution, and he’s been everywhere – he just contains everything that I think is just tragic and flawed about humanity.
THE HAIRSTYLE THAT’S MAKING A COMEBACK
The Pamplemousse
It’s the hairstyle that Walter, our bassist, likes to rock. It’s like a grapefruit of hair on your head. Not quite the Winehouse look, more like Friar Tuck.
Interview: Dan Jude
Posted Wed, January 14, 2009