After the review of their third album in May, the interview of the band I Am Kloot playing at Geneva's Usine PTR on Friday May 20th was an unmissable opportunity. As a matter of fact, I Am Kloot had cancelled during their former tour their Geneva concert as well as many French dates. Luckily enough, we were able to meet John Bramwell, singer and guitarist of the band, who welcomed us poised and barefoot on the borders of the Rhône river to speak of the tour, music, composing and…birds.
TheFake: When did you form the band? Why did you take the name "I Am Kloot"? John Bromwell Hargreaves : Well, I have just realized it's about six years ago that we formed the band. And we spent the first year rehearsing in Pete's cellar. And we never ever say to anyone what "I Am Kloot" means and why we chose it. It's a mystery and a secret.
You're mainly known in England, but less on the continent. Do you plan to conquer Europe or try to change the trend? J.B.H.: Well, no actually we're most known in Germany. It's the biggest place where we're receptionned. I think the gig that we played in Berlin is the biggest gig. I think that compared to most UK bands we've played in Europe more than others. But not so much in France, unfortunately. Or Switzerland, in fact. But Holland and Germany...we've played a lot there actually. I'm keen on playing in every country, because, you know, obviously for me, music is about human beings communicating on an abstract level. It isn't about nationality. And in a lot of ways with the UK scene we don't fit in and we never have fitted in. Obviously it's nice to do stuff at home, but I don't know...We were on the national news in Austria two nights ago which wouldn't happen in England for us... But you know, I see it all the same. I'd really like to play in France more. But I don't know what's happening...
In 2001, I Am Kloot was revealed with the album "Natural History" and charmed the audience with it's blunt, crude and realistic lyrics on moments spent in bars and with girls, where do this irony and this melancholy come from? J.B.H.: (Thinking hard ) I've been writing for a long time. And I felt it important that we had a recognizable style. Cause we do try different styles in the genres of music but the lyric and our delivery is what holds it, it's one of the key threads along with the way we play. But I've always wanted it to be recognizably us. And that viewpoint seemed to me just appropriate with the things you mentionned earlier and the way I write, it's seems to be a more individual voice to write like that. I suppose, as a person, I've got a certain amount of insight and pride and dark humour...I'm not keen on irony in songs, I wasn't trying to be ironic!
Your three albums are quite ecclectic, mainly because of some hispanic guitar rhythmics and jazzy rhythms, how do tackle composing songs? J.B.H.: Ever since I was...From before I can remember I have been singing. My mum and dad and my sister whenever they put a CD on, or listen to radio or whatever when I was a kid, they would always sing along. And so I've always done that. And Andy and Pete have both really got a wide musical taste and again they started music when they were kids. And so when I was a kid, even before I could remember since three or four, there was always such a wide mix of music going on in our house, from David Bowie to T-Rex, to Stéphane Grapelli, Frank Sinatra, musicals like Carroussel, and just to be in a very small...(interruption : a prey bird flies over us) Look at that bird! My God! Sorry! (Laughs) That was a bird of prey? Jesus! Wow! You got a lot up here? Yeah there's a few! We got them in England but they don't fly- you don't see ' em often. Well I don't care...Falcons... (Back to the interview) And we've never intellectualized ourselves. It's not like: ''Oh ! we want to fuze this with that'' or anything like that. It's just I write songs that swing and Andy's style is great, just getting behind the beat the songs with a swing in it. And that's why I've never played in band before I Am Kloot. Because it never worked, because the drumming was always too much like a metronome.
At the first listening of your new album "Gods and Monsters", we can sense a true maturity in your writing, what can you tell us about this? J.B.H.: Well, obviously I am older than I was five years ago! (Laughs then thinks longly)...I've tried to simplify what we've done with this record, lyrically and melodically. I have not used as much poetic metaphors as in the first LP. But even when I try to say things directly they still end up kinda cryptic (Laughs). And I can't really do anything about that because the process of writing for me is not one of sitting down and writing, it's one of singing melodies that come to me and letting, as an almost automatic process, it happen with the lyrics. I do often sit down and edit stuff out later on but...So, if there is more maturity in what I'm doing it's because maybe I am just a more mature person than I was (Laughs). It's just coming out like that now. Because this it, it's not a self-conscious process.
What did you learn from the last four years spent on tour, and from these three albums, speaking in terms of life experience? J.B.H.: Well as a band I think musically we've learned a lot. Not so much in a ?musal? way, it's just the three of us playing with each other and bringing more drama out in our songs we can do that now, better than when we started. I've learned that it's good to be able to have a nice flat where I live and to be able to have a actual home when I feel that it is a home. Because I spend six months of the year on tour, so to be able to have that and to have at least a month or two of serenity in my life. I was just very hectic before and kinda catastrophic all the time. And not really having much money either. So I am more reflective than I was as a consequence. And I prefer it. (Pause) I learned that what you persue in life, who you are and what you persure, if you can combine those two things together then, really, as long as you're not worried about a place to live, then you've got something really special in life that not many people have the chance to have.
Unlike the first album, you have set aside your folk touch for most of the songs, do you approve when we say that your new opus is a pop album? J.B.H.: We felt it was a pop album. The artwork as well on the sleeve and everything is reflecting of that I think. We started with the idea of making, not a folk album or a pop album, but using a different recording process every time we record. So the first LP was only on a portable eight-track and recorded in a church in Scotland, on an island, near the Loch. We didn't see anybody for three weeks. It was great. The guy from Elbow was producing. Because of the ambiance, of the roof, the church, the acoustic instruments were far more suited to that. You could really get things quite light and they were just hanging in the sound there. And this album, it was actually quite the opposite. Everything, the microphones are right close. So in fact, how we're actually playing, as I said we've improoved as a group, we add more drama. But in fact the instruments that we're playing are actually not that much different it's just that we've recorded them different. It's more the use microphones in a different way than the use of instruments. I think it's given it a less atmospheric and crisper kind of thing which ofcourse is a more a pop sensibility...These are brilliant answers, you know! (Laughs)
What are the latest musical discoveries you've made? J.B.H.: When we recorded this, we put microphones everywhere. We only needed about six or seven microphones to record our instruments, but then we had twenty tracks on our recording console. So we used those and we miked up the room. We miked up a coffee table with cups on it. Because when you play certain notes the table would vibrate. And it would be a frequency thing. So then we get all that in little places of the room, things rattling at certain frequencies. There was a used drumkit in the corner that we miked up, we weren't playing it, but it would. So, all those frequency things, those ''accidents'' resonated with what we were playing. We put them into the recording. But you can't actually hear them, you wouldn't go ''what's that?'', it's noise...So musically what I found fascinating was the idea that these things resonate, as notes. And it can be really mad. It can be like, one coffee table's different than another! (Laughs) So what's mad musically is that...you can play a coffee table!
What's the most rock'n'roll thing you've ever done? J.B.H.: I've ever done?... Motorbike crashes... Yesterday we turned up at the venue. I walked in the room. Oh the ride hasn't arrived yet. Still, it'll be here in a bit. I'll sit down and wait. I wait for ten minutes. This guy came in. He goes : "What are you doing?''. I said : ''I'm just waiting, I'm playing here tonight''. He goes : ''What do you mean playing?''. I said : ''Well, you know I'm playing here tonight.'' I was thinking, well how else can I put it? He goes : ''Come with me.'' So we walked out through this other door. He was a German guy. And I was in a swimming bath. I wasn't in the venue, I was in a swimming pool, this is it, you see. And my state of mind, you see was... not right. That is just a kind of example...The most rock'n'roll thing... Frequently when me and my mates go to the club, I go to the bouncers cause I am very reluctant to leave the club once I'm drunk. Because I just can't be bothered you know. Because I want to stay in the club. But then, that leads to disaster because of the drinking. So, I frequently have to ask the bouncers to throw me out. Because I refuse to leave myself. So I put a time on it and I get them to throw me out before there's any trouble. So, there we are.
Julien GARRIC & Yoanna CLAQUIN
Translated by Yoanna CLAQUIN
