Alphabeat - we're the closest thing to 100 per cent pop
Alphabeat - the fantastic six
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Tuesday, 03, Jun 2008 02:30
With first single Fascination having set up camp in the top ten for weeks on end, exuberant follow-up 10,000 Nights set to follow suit and a debut album likely to soundtrack the summer, Danish sextet Alphabeat are going to worm their way into your hearts.
After an awkward encounter with Jamie Lidell on Channel 4's Nokia Green Room was saved by a chirpy singalong with the Subways, the heartening interplay between lead vocalists Anders SG and Stine Bramsen on 10,000 Nights showed exactly why Alphabeat are the greatest Scandinavian import since Abba.
inthenews.co.uk's Lewis Bazley talked to guitarist and chief songwriter Anders B - yes, three of the six members are named Anders - about pop, the Spice Girls and "arty-farty love".
So, is it exciting to have the album out?
Well, this is like one and a half albums for us, because some of them have been released in Denmark last year but we spent a lot of time and effort on improving it and adding new songs, so it feels like a new album.
You're much more into the whole thing with the charts and positions here, and that's a cool thing, I think.
How big exactly are you in Denmark? Arctic Monkeys big, Coldplay big?
Yeah, maybe in terms of bigness, we're probably one of the five biggest.
Did signing to EMI help you rework the album for the better?
We had different options and we chose EMI because they seemed really hungry, and they're not having the best time at the moment, and they really wanted to do this. And they wanted to spend some money to give us the opportunity to work with a producer here and record new songs. They gave us the time to concentrate on music and working with a good producer, so signing with them definitely helped.
To read the inthenews.co.uk review of This Is Alphabeat, click here
You're managed by the man who helped Mika break through - does that mean you expect big things here?
Well, Iain [Hunter] was the last guy we spoke to and we really connected. Obviously when you meet with prospective managers, you talk for an hour they all say the same thing, but with him we really felt that he meant it and understood what the band was about.
But the Mika thing was... not a negative thing, but we knew were making similar music and we weren't do keen on getting known the same way, but we haven't done that, so it's all cool.
The only thing you really have in common with Mika is that you both make pop - is that the best way to describe the sound?
Yeah, I think it's the closest to 100 per cent pop that's around at the moment. And with the new stuff, we also tried to add more danceable stuff, as I think that's the direction we want to go in.
Do you think that's where the comparisons with CSS come from, in that it's pop you can dance to?
Well, we like CSS a lot, but I think the comparisons are a bit far-fetched. They're pop in a completely different way to us.
In a song like Fascination, especially, you also hear the likes of the Cure and the B52s really come through - is that more realistic?
We love all of this kind of stuff, so it's cool if people can hear lots of references to stuff that isn't necessarily similar to what we do.
The last single was 10,000 Nights - which course starts with the line "I wasn't looking for arty-farty love" - how do you define that?
It's funny, we're never asked about that in Denmark! I guess it's the language thing. I think it's the opposite of genuine affection and long-term love, but arty-farty love can be good sometimes. Loads of our lyrics are just words that we think sounds funny. People say that have some weird phrases in our songs and maybe if we were from the UK we wouldn't use this words.
You guys toured with the Ting Tings recently - are you surprised at their recent number one single?
I like the song, but I was stunned! I would have thought they were too much of an NME-type of band, so something really interesting has happened there. I think it's great that you can still be surprised by the charts. But I'm still trying to figure out who's buying the record!
Well, if we're talking about the mainstream - is it true that you were offered a support slot on the Spice Girls world tour?
Yeah, we were last year, but it was early days for us. We said 'no, thank you' but not as a cool statement or anything, I like some of the Spice Girls stuff.. But it was just too weird for us to be suddenly here and nobody knew us and then to maybe play in front of 20,000 people who wouldn't have known who we were. And I honestly don't think it would have made much difference to us. The audience who go to a Spice Girls gig are pretty different to the kind of audience you play for as a new band. In fact, they're probably more the kind of audience we could start playing for now! It was just too weird for us to do.
Lewis Bazley
Alphabeat's debut album This Is Alphabeat is out now
To read the inthenews.co.uk review of This Is Alphabeat, click here