Brief Encounters — Chk! Chk! Chk!

Frontman Nic Offer tells us why shitty synths are great, reveals his inner Stereolab obsession and what was the song he heard in ‘One Girl/One Boy’?

You clocked up two decades as a band with the recently released ‘Shake The Shudder’ album. Happy anniversary! What’s the secret to staying together for that long?

“I don’t really know. It could’ve just as easily fallen apart the first month, it could just as easily fall apart next month, but I do have a few ideas as to how it may have happened. We were all friends from the start and everyone who was invited to the first practice were basically cool and would be fun to sit next to for hours in the van. Several of those members are gone, but everyone who has come into the band since has brought something fresh and become part of the family.”

The new album is a delightful hotch-potch of all sorts of influences isn’t it?

“Well, we always kind of take that approach. We liked the way certain hip hop albums sounded different because of all the different producers. We want every song to feel different from the last. It will always sound like you because it is in fact, you, so why not attempt to make it fresh?”

What was your soundtrack to the making of the new album?

“Oh so many, always so many. The deaths of Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen and George Michael loomed large over the record, they were the proper songwriters that influenced this record. We were also listening to a lot of club music like Moodymann and such, old house like that Dance Mania compilation that came out a few years ago and there was a lot of rap from these days, Drake, Kanye, Kendrick, Future, Migos.

Do you tend to listen to music other than your own when you’re making a record?

“Always. We’ve remained music fans. We’re always looking for something new.”

Does listening to other people help or not?

“I think it does. we’re always looking for fresh ideas, and it helps to have your perspective constantly changing. I know some artists try to avoid listening to the work of other artists, but I think there’s more examples throughout rock history of bands finding unique things by being inspired by other music. The 1960s were partly such a great time for music because there was so much cross pollination. The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, they were all listening and often covering each other. Remember Hendrix covered ‘Sgt Pepper’s…’ the same week it came out?”

You spent time “jamming in Barcelona” before making the record. How long were you there?

“It just so happened that we had a week off between festivals in Barcelona and Corsica with nothing to do but lay on the beach, so we decided to take advantage of our time together and lay down some tracks in the studio. It was long enough to get a lot of great stuff happening.”

It’s a place isn’t it? Any good tips if people are planning a visit?

“Definitely plan on going out late. We always thought it was a myth that Spaniards go out late, but it’s really true.

“I hated the first keyboard we began jamming with for this album, loathed it, by the end of the week I loved it”

When you play live you say “we try to play it the way James Brown’s JBs would”. That’s some big talk. Care to elaborate?

“You know that thing where his whole band just sounds like a train, intricately working parts, all sweating together, rising and falling so it feels like a machine that’s breathing as one animal. That was the idea.”

We like reading about you. We also notice you say “there’s no such thing as a bad synth”. That’s as maybe, but there’s some real stinkers, right?

“We currently don’t think so. I absolutely hated the first keyboard we began jamming with for this album, loathed it, but by the end of the week I decided I loved it. The bad ones force you to try things you wouldn’t normally do and you end up finding that they can do more interesting stuff.”

Essentially, so bad they’re good?

“Yeah man. Of course. That’s our whole point. The limits are only in the player’s imaginations. Add a little delay, compression, reverb and you should be able to make any synth sound cool… that said, those synths with little tiny AC adapters in the back, fuck those. They break off so easily. Any synth without an IEC adapter is bullshit. They want you to spend $1,000 on a synth with a 50 cent adapter in back? Fuck all companies that use those.

Right, enough of all that. Let’s talk Stereolab. Any plans for you to support yourself with the Stereolad covers side project again?

“I think if we did it again, we would probably try another band. We wanted it to be a learning experience, and I think we would learn more by covering another band next time… although there is talk of us backing up Laetitia if she ever opens for us in London….

There’s a press shot of Stereolad. You can’t unsee stuff like that. How did you decide who’d wear that dress?

“We found it at The Salvation Army. We all tried it on, I looked best in it so I wore it.”

“Call it heresy, but I’d rather listen to Stereolab records than Neu! any fucking day”

How did you first come across Stereolab?

“It must have been 1993, I had a layover in Cincinnati on a Greyhound bus trip across America. I wandered around in the rain for a few hours and happened upon a record shop that was playing their new album at the time, ‘Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements’. I was instantly taken by it and asked the record clerk what it was.”

What is it about them that seems to resonate?

“I find the albums from my youth that have stayed with me the most are ones with a lot of space, the sort of records that you can hear something new in every time you listen to them. I think Stereolab still resonate mainly because they’re fucking great. Call it heresy, but I’d rather listen to their records than Neu! any fucking day.”

“The song in ‘One Girl/One Boy’? There were several songs that reminded me of this girl”

Are you a fan of Cavern Of Anti-Matter too?

“I do think they’re pretty fresh sounding. It’s some great psychedelic stuff, in the way that I like to get psychedelic.”

Last question. Always wondered this. You know in ‘One Girl/One Boy’, what is the song you hear?

“Oh geez, I don’t know if I feel I should give this away. I will say this though, there were in fact several songs that reminded me of this girl. We had loads of songs together, and three titles are encoded in the lyrics. She would maybe be the only one that could guess them, but they are very clearly stated.”

This is the full, unedited version of an interview that first appeared in Issue 29 of Electronic Sound.