EastScene

EastScene recently met up with UK’s indie heroes Sky Larkin in Toronto  to ask them all about touring, creepy churches and their debut album titled The Golden Spike.

ES: How did you all meet? How and when was Sky Larkin formed?

Katie: Well, Nestor and I were in a band together in High School, and then I went to University in London and started writing songs. Nestor came to visit London with his family, and just by complete coincidence was staying right down the road. There was a drum kit in the basement of the student halls where I was living, so he came around and we tried out a few songs that I had written, and we were like, “okay, we should make a band out of this”. I was living in London and these guys were living in Leeds, and we were just kind of doing it on the holidays and whenever we could make it work, but because of the internet and how instant it is, people would start asking, “Hey, when will you guys have a single out?”. I eventually moved back to Leeds, and we put out a single with an independent record label. Later on we signed to Wichita, another indie label.

ES: You released your debut album The Golden Spike earlier this year. Tell us what it’s all about.

Katie: Well, the reason it’s called The Golden Spike is because, like most debut records, it’s hard to thematically pin it together as one, because the songs are from different times. The Golden Spike was driven to commemorate the finishing of the American railroad, as this object that had this significance instilled into it, and that’s how I thought I would feel when I held the record in my hand.

ES: Earlier this year you encountered Nardwuar The Human Serviette. How did you all first come to discover him? Is he really that famous all the way out in Britain?

Nestor: No, no, he’s not popular there at all. Katie had this DVD that she had ordered of him, so whenever we were in London, we would all watch it together. This crazy man going around interviewing all of these really cool bands that we really liked.
Katie: I had searched for bands on the internet and came across him, and I ordered DVDs of him from the internet. It was the thing that we would throw on in London and say “Hey, come watch this guy interview Snoop Dogg!” We had asked people in Vancouver if they knew him, and someone got back to us and we spent our whole day with Nardwaur.
Doug: We tried that in Toronto with Kenny and Spenny, but nobody really knows those guys. SOMEONE must know those guys.

ES: Who do you guys look to for support as a band?

Katie: Well, it’s the great thing about touring with a band like Peggy Sue, who we bonded with, because we both really felt like fish out of water.
Nestor: We met them at a show we were playing, at the end of L.A fashion week, and it was like, “hey, were’ really English and a bit scared, you’re really English and a bit scared. Let’s be friends. And then after that it was just like, let’s go on tour together! We’ve been really lucky with the bands that we’ve gone on tour with, so far.

ES: Who are the Awesome Pals?

Katie and Doug: Copy Haho, Dananananaykroyd, Los Campesinos, Dutch Uncles, Hot Club de Paris, Johnny Foreigner, and a couple other bands

ES: Exactly how did the Awesome Pals come to be?

Katie: Well, ‘cause Calum [Dananananaykroyd] does these things.
Nestor: Basically one day, we turned on the internet, and Calum started this blog, and he sent us a message saying “hey, this is the login information for our blog” and we were like, well, okay.
Doug: The guy that does all of our online stuff got a picture that he’d drawn and pasted of Sky Larkin, and he was like, “guys, someone sent us a really weird picture”, and we saw it and we were like, “yeah, that’s Calum”. It was a picture called “Sky Larkin playing a gig for me in my bedroom”, and we had to explain that he was in Dananananaykroyd, and we really knew him.

ES: With Johnny Foreigner’s recent release of remixes for their new album Grace and the Bigger Picture, you guys helped out a remix titled under an alias for the track titled “illchoosemysideandshutup“. Why the alias? What is its origin?

Doug: Tell that was something that I was doing for a while, I had done songs a couple of years ago and I really wanted to work on the album. We have the same manager so I asked if I could and did it.
Nestor: What’s your alias, Doug?
Doug: Coati, which is like, a little South American animal, it’s like a raccoon.

ES: What was it like messing around with a friend’s song?

Doug: I really…I had done a couple of Johnny Foreigner’s songs just on my own, just for fun, and they were like “yeah, it sounds better than the other mixes, you should do one for us one day”. This was the first time where I actually had separate tracks, and he’s such an amazing guitarist that it’s so nice just listening to those tracks on their own.

ES: A lot of Awesome Pals bands have recently put out free EPs and singles and remixes on the Internet (ex. Los Campesinos! with The Sea Is A Good Place and Johnny Foreigner with Feels Like Summer and Grace and the Bigger Picture remixes). What compelled you to put your Smarts EP out on the web for free?

Katie: I think it’s basically, when you’re a band that’s not like, a sort of U2 style band like 99 percent of the bands out there, you realize very quickly that the internet is your best friend, because it’s just a way of communicating so quickly and so directly.

ES: So what were you going for with the Smarts EP? Smarts is very unlike what we heard on The Golden Spike. What’s Smarts all about and why that sound?

Doug: Well, we had like a day to record the two songs, so there was definitely a sort of urgency behind it, and we went into it thinking, “okay, we’ve got about 14 hours to record this, so let’s just do it.
Katie: We actually recorded in the same place that Black Sabbath recorded, so we were kind of channelling their spirit in recording. Apparently if you take the soundproofing off the walls in the studios, you can see pentagrams that Ozzy would draw, but we didn’t dare.

ES: How has the power of Internet, more importantly the power of Twitter affected your music/popularity?

Nestor: I think it’s great because it’s right from you, the artist, and right to the people, rather than having four or five filters in between. It kind of takes away the smoke and mirrors because everyone’s on the same platform as everyone else.

ES: With your current tour you’ve been handing out these handy “Letters to America” zines with messages addressed to particular stops on your tour. What was the inspiration behind this?

Katie: I had always wanted to take something with us on tour that brings something from home, and it’s full of bits from all these other artists that are touring, and we collectively pool our resources into these zines. I wanted the other artists to write for themselves, rather than me just writing “this band is good” 12 times. The bands are basically writing letters to the cities or places that they’ve been. I’d definitely want to do it again.

ES: What is “The Crypt”?

Katie: The Crypt is this space that we’ve been using to write, and we recorded the acoustic version of “Matador” there. It’s underneath a Victorian in a part of Yorkshire, outside of Leeds.
Nestor: It’s a creepy looking church on top of a hill beside graveyards, and you have to drive up this big long winding road to get to the church. The crypt is actually set in the hill, and the man that built the church is actually buried in a tomb within the Crypt, it’s pretty awesome.
Doug: Before we were in there, it was a Sunday school. So it’s like, covered in loads of murals and stuff from horror movies, with children’s handprints on the walls. We’ve only been there in the summer and it’s gorgeous, but we’re going to be there for the next couple months so it’ll be very interesting.

ES: Where do you guys hope to be in 5 years?

Katie: Toronto!
Doug: Anywhere in eastern Canada, listening to hardcore punk music.
Nestor: I’d like to be playing music, really.
Doug: Play music really?
Nestor: Well yeah, instead of what I do now. If you look closely you’ll actually see I don’t even play, it’s just a backing track.

Doug: I’d like to be in Broken Social Scene. I’d love to be doing this part time, when I’m not playing with Broken Social Scene.

ES:  If you weren’t playing music, where would you be?

Doug: I would be trying to do music. It’s all about music.

What can we expect next year from Sky Larkin?

Doug: Recording the best album ever made.
Katie: The best album part two, aside from what we’ve already released.
Doug: By summer, I want to write a jazz odyssey based on the works of some war poet.
Katie: That’s what all English bands do, write something about a war poet.
Doug: Have a record out, tour with some amazing Canadian bands, with three word names. About things that aren’t fixed anymore.

ES: Favourite track on The Golden Spike?

Katie: Antibodies.
Nestor: Matador.
Doug: …
Nestor: Speed round, Douglas.
Doug: Matador

ES: Nestor and Doug: Hollywood man-crushes?

Nestor: Jeff Goldblum.
Katie: What?
Nestor: He’s amazing! I just think he’s so cool! Or Morgan Freeman.
Doug: I would say Johnny Depp, but that’s too obvious. I can’t think of another one.
Katie: [to Doug] You look a bit like Jeff Goldblum.

ES: Favourite football team?

Nestor: Brentford FC.
Katie: Who’s that?
Nestor: A small team from London.
Katie: You’re so indie!
Nestor: I always feel sorry for them because people say, “where’s that?” and I’m like, they have their own football team!
Doug: I would say Melbourne FC.
Katie: I’ve never been to a football match in my entire life.

ES: If you could only eat one food on tour, what would it be?

Nestor: American pizza by the slice. It’s massive, and it’s usually fresh.
Katie: I would say salad but that sounds really bad.

Doug: If I could eat one thing and it would be prepared properly for me, and wouldn’t make me feel like crap, I’d say steak.

ES: Any special messages for all your fans out there?

Katie: We’d love to come back to Canada, so if you’re having any sort of Bar Mitzvahs, birthdays…
Doug: We’d love to go to Montreal, or Ottawa. Maybe other places. There are only so many places I know in Canada.

Fans can listen to the bands’ tracks on their MySpace; you can also order The Golden Spike here.