The Answering Machine Interview

The Answering Machine
Interview by Alexander Laurence

The Answering Machine is a band from Manchester, England. I read about them
in the NME earlier this year. They sounded really interesting. I saw them
play in March 2009, in Los Angeles. They were definitely an exciting band
with fresh ideas on music. They are Martin Colclough (vocals/guitar), Pat
Fogarty (guitar), Gemma Evans (bass), and Ben Perry (drums). They played a few
shows at CMJ. They considered New York City their favorite city, and home away
from home. They recently played at SXSW 2009 and Glastonbury. I got to ask
them about their new music. Their first album is Another City, Another Sorry
(2009).


AL: When did the band form?

Gemma: We formed in the last year of University in late 2005. Pat and
Martin were introduced through a mutual friend and just decided to start writing
songs together, they used to meet at uni, get a crate of beer from the
supermarket and just go back to Pat's get drunk and write songs. I was on the
same course as Pat and he asked me to play bass, we played some gigs for a
year or so with a drum machine. Ben joined on drums in 2007 and we haven't
looked back since.

AL: Do the members in the band come from a musical family?

Gemma: Well there's no famous musicians in any of our families but they
definitely had an influence on us. Pat and Martin both used to be in bands
with their brothers, Ben's dad is a brass musician and his uncle is a tour
manager. In fact I think I probably come from the least musical family, my
brother can play The Pink Panther theme tune on the clarinet and that's about
it!

AL How does a song begin for the band? Is it music first or lyrics and
melody first?

Gemma: It's changes, usually Pat or Martin will come in with an idea on the
guitar, either a little riff or sometimes more of a structured song. We'll
then play it in our rehearsal room until it becomes a more fully formed
idea, or we decide it's not going anywhere and move on. Usually lyrics and
vocal melodies come last.

AL: How was your experiences at CMJ this year?

Gemma: It was a complete blur, I was really ill for it so I have pretty
hazy memories of forcing myself to get out of bed and going to play a show.
The atmosphere around all the venues was amazing though, there'd be loads of
people and bands just hanging out. It was always a mad rush to get onstage
and soundcheck and then play the show it was very raw and ramshackle but a
lot of fun to do! We were really pleased that even though there were loads of
bands playing we still had a lot of people come see us.

AL: Can you talk about making your video with the ice skating? How do you
go about making videos?

Gemma: We always like to use our friends or friends of friends to make our
videos, we know a lot of talented people and are lucky that they want to get
involved and help us out with stuff like videos. The Curling video was the
most fun we've ever had, it just came out an idea to do a sort of spoof
video similar to Mighty Ducks or Blades of Glory and these guys in LA said they
could make it happen. We had some shows organized over there anyway so it
all fell into place!

AL: What other bands have you played with in the past year?

Gemma: We've done a ton of support shows, probably the most exciting was
The Manic Street Preachers support tour. We've also played with Bombay
Bicycle Club, Casio Kids, The Charlatans, Ra Ra Riot. On our recent tour we had
The Crookes and Driver Drive Faster on the road with us, both are exciting new
bands.

AL: Are there any other bands do you like, apart from those?

Gemma: We saw Phoenix play at Monolith festival earlier this year and they
just blew us away at how good they were, they've become a firm favorite.
The other bands on our label are awesome as well LoveLikeFire and The
Pomegranates. Other records that have been on repeat include Dutch Uncles, Bad
Veins, The Antlers. We always cite our classic band favorites as following The
Strokes, Shout Out Louds, and The Radio Dept,

AL: Can you recommend a book for us?

Gemma: I could recommend several but today i shall go for Michael Ondaatje
'Coming Through Slaughter' it's this beautifully written poetic prose that
really captures the life of the New Orleans jazz musician it depicts. It's a
short book but leaves you stunned as to how good it is.

AL: What should people expect from the band in the shows in 2010?

Gemma: I'd say a more mature sound and more developed, adventurous song
writing, We've been working on our guitar sounds and collecting guitar pedals
so that there'll be more depth to our sound. And obviously we'll be playing
live loads, if anyone's got any gigs, we'll play 'em!

AL: Will you come back and tour the USA?

Gemma: Yes of course we will if you'll have us. We love it out here and
just hope people want us to come back!