We always think our music sounds nothing like the stuff we are into. Not really sure how what we listen to influences our own music. That’s not to say there isn’t any good new bands about, there are, but you have to root to find em. It’s like there’s a machine churning out mediocre tunes made by rich kids with trust funds. A lot of bands nowadays seem quite bland and safe which we’re not into. We listen to anything from Jazz like John Coltrane to spoken word poetry like Richard Brautigan or Bukowski, to repetitive psych stuff like Silver Apples, to Riot Grrl like Huggy Bear and obscure sitar tracks to hardcore punk like Black Flag. A lot of stuff we’re into is from the ’60s and ’70s. LTW: Which bands do you listen to? How does the music you listen to influence your own? Sometimes we scream and go “arrggghhhh this is getting too much” but at the end of the day there’s always cider! We love the creative freedom of doing our own stuff but the admin/business side of things can be a right ball ache. We set up our own label to release our own stuff and that was that. We didn’t consciously decide to be DIY We started off releasing stuff on DIY label Cherryade Records and it just sort of happened cos they wanted to take a break and we wanted to release more records so we called their distributor and they took us on. It’s a pretty empowering feeling! On the flip side, we are not well connected people so it can sometimes be tough!! You can also become friends with promoters and fans and get to know a good network of people so you make your own scene. You can make the music you like, no one tells you what to release, you have complete artistic control. The benefits of being DIY is FREEDOM! You don’t have to answer to anyone. LTW: What are the benefits and pitfalls of being so DIY? Was it a definite decision to deal directly with the business of being a band as well as the creative side? So that all takes its toll and winds itself up into a giant elastic band ball with us two stuck in the middle. And we love the popiness of Pavement and the surrealness of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. For example we love a meaty Black Sabbath type guitar sound. Obviously we also have our musical influences. So we suppose we take inspiration from situations as they arise every day. It’s like taking everyday life and putting it under the microscope and realising that every damn thing is just fucking ridiculous. He always seemed to find the surreal in normal everyday things. We’re hugely influenced by the author Richard Brautigan who seems to see things in that way. It just depends what glasses you have on.

Generally we are influenced by the magic and mundanity of everyday life. LTW: What are your main influences? Are these longstanding or are you finding new inspiration all the time? We’ve got a funny relationship with Lancaster. It’s important for us to stand up and stand out and say look we’re from round here, we’re a proper band and we still live here! There is no reason to turn yer back on where you are from, unless you hate the shithole you come from, which we do to a certain extent, but we also love it and defend it fiercely. It’s like you’ve got to cast off your roots and homogenise yourself in order to fit in. We think it’s bullshit that as a band there’s a lot of pressure on you to move to London or a big city to “make it” in the music industry. In fact it’s an integral part of our band. LTW: How important is place and regional identity to your music? Who knows what we’ll do next just whatever we want. More recently we’ve been more consistently heavy in our sound and have started dicking about with drum machines and that. Weird songs using weird instruments and we had quite a basic sound. When we first started out we did quite a lot of experimental stuff. Obviously what we enjoy doing has changed over the years.

So we just make music that we get a kick out of doing. There are SO many miserable bands around that argue and end up falling out and splitting up and ultimately stop enjoying making music. Our main objective being in a band has always been to have fun and a party and enjoy playing together. Well, we don’t think our approach to making music has really changed in the last 10 years. LTW: How have things changed musically and in your approach over the 10 years you’ve been creating music? We grabbed a quick chat with the band before they piled into the van for the first date. Forming in 2006 they re-released their first three albums – 2009’s If You Were Fruit, 2011’s Cob Dominos and 2012’s Wildlife – on coloured vinyl and having toured extensively with This Is Our Nowhere last year they head out again over the next few weeks for UK dates.

The lovely eggs