Interview : Water Signs

1. Your first musical memories?
There’s a tape of me singing “Walking on the moon” by the Police aged about 3 I think, technically it’s a bootleg because it was recorded without consent.

2. The best record you received as a present? / The worse one?
Anyone buying a record as a present hopefully knows me well enough to not buy me anything bad.
If you want present ideas though we can recommend the new EP we’re on – a 4 track record for Manchester Aid to Kosovo*

3. The first record that you lost?
DJing over the past couple of years and getting drinks as payment means I’ve lost quite a few – none that I miss terribly though. And I have managed to gain 2 copies of ESG - A south Bronx Story somehow. Have we not lost all records to mp3s now anyway?

4. The name of your imaginary band?
I think of band names all the time. The latest one I thought of was CATHEDRALS – quite like that one. I was passing a cathedral at the time.

5. In which environment do you like to record music?
Alone, lights off, stood in a circle of skulls on the verge of a celestial breath mint, silently hand carving ambience from a widows bank account... failing that, in our studio, evening, with red wine.

6. What will music sound like in 50 years / 5000 years?
Same as it always was - oldies arguing with teenagers; saying that it’s all a racket and nothing is as good as it used to be.

7. Which underrated album will start a new musical genre?
Genres are created by bored music journalists, not albums.

8. Which album should never have been made?
We don’t begrudge people making albums. Anything good or bad can be an inspiration so even someone’s tedious meanderings spur you on to better things.

9. Your favourite album to have a drink?
Needles In The Camel’s Eye by Brian Eno is a great getting ready to go out tune. Once out, anything that’s loud, psychedelic and soulful.

10. Your dream collaboration?
Harry Nilsson and Black Dice

11. The record that freaks you out?
Anything by Liars – I love the way they can move through albums and experiment so much but always sound like Liars.

12. The record you would like to listen to right now?
Some of the new stuff we’re working on I’d like to hear finished and out there right now this second. It’s always hard to hold things back and plan your next move when you believe in them so much - but it’s also good to keep a few aces up your sleeve.

13. The film that tickles your creativity?
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud by Louis Malle.

14. The little-known track that everyone should have heard of?
Richie Havens – Going Back To My Roots. The germs of house music can be heard in that piano – and this was in ‘81. Or alternatively Ape Call by Nervous Norvus… But obviously… OBVIOUSLY the version with the Ape Call in it.

15. An album or an artist you wouldn’t want to be?
Wouldn’t want to be in any band but WATER SIGNS

16. The cover version you would love to do?
Always fancied doing Vienna by Ultravox for some reason, the bleak, starkness of it all then going into the mental krautrock bit in the middle.

17. The mashup you would love to do?
Think mashups are all a bit dated now and have been done to death really. Like anything the concept got diluted until it all became a bit safe and silly. When the big pop moguls get their hands on stuff it’s time for a rethink.

18. The text you would like to produce a soundtrack for?
Depths by Henning Mankell. There’s such a beautiful, scary, sparse atmosphere to the whole book.

19. Have you ever had auditory hallucinations?
The voices inside my head says no.

20. How would you like to die?
In the final moments of planetary apocalypse on the cusp of an emotional epiphany




Water Signs will be on tour :
Sep 21 - La Cave Aux Poètes // Roubaix, France
Sep 22 - Le Point Ephémère // Paris, France
Sep 23 - L'Ubu // Rennes, France
Oct 14 - Gullivers // Manchester, UK
Nov 11 - Stereolux // Nantes, France
Dec 2 - An Outlet // Manchester, UK

Check their website, their bandcamp, their facebook page, their youtube channel and our precedent post on Water Signs : Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.


*The Manchester MAK 1 - Feat Badly Drawn Boy / Silverclub / Water Signs / Ernest+Tom