This Town Needs Guns Interview

Here in the UK, today is election day. However, the electoral commission are not the only ones who have been conducting polls, just recently in a poll of our podcast listeners we found that the band you guys like the most are This Town Needs Guns, featured way back in episode 7. Luckily for us, Tim Collis, the expert guitarist from This Town Needs Guns, found some time to talk with us. Topics covered include Japan, wellies and mathematics. Remember to check out our iTunes feed where you can find their awesome song Baboon, along with our comments in Episode 7.

NMT: We hear you are off to Japan, what are the band’s feelings going into the tour?

TTNG: Indeed we are! As you can probably guess, we’re all incredibly excited to be going to visit somewhere as exotic and far away as Japan. Just the prospect of being a tourist there is enough for me, but the fact that we are lucky enough to play a few shows whilst there is even more amazing. The Animals release over there on Zankyo records will happen just before we head out so we’re hoping a few people will get to hear it and come down to one of the shows. I guess we’re a tiny bit apprehensive in that we’ve never played in Japan so we’re just hoping the turn outs at the shows are good. To be honest even if they aren’t so good it won’t matter, we’ll still be in Japan

NMT: Your music is full of complicated rhythms and melodies, a theme common in Asian pop music. Could this become a major stomping ground for the band?

TTNG: Well, it would be nice if that happened and I like the idea of it. I can see similarities between TTNG and certain Japanese bands, in particuar Toe, and for that reason I don’t think it would be impossible to have some success there and in other Asian countries with regards to the genre or the accessibility of the music. To be honest, I don’t know of too many UK bands at our level who have had an overwhelming amount of success in Asian countries, so in a way it’s hard to say. I think realistically, it will take a while to develop some sort of fanbase over there which in turn would warrant a label helping us (both logistically and financially) to keep coming back. Word of mouth is a powerful thing though, and if we make a few friends along the way too, it might allow us to do it off our own backs. I can safely say it is somewhere we’d all love to keep going.

NMT: How do you feel when people say you make music for musicians?

TTNG: Of course I would say it is for everyone and not just musicians. I see what they mean though as the music is quite technical in places with all the time changes etc. and admittedly it might not be instantly accessible to some listeners. To be honest, I think we quite like the fact that it takes a few listens and is actually a bit challenging to work out what’s going on sometimes. It’s not like we purposefully try to write a section in a particular time signature and then stick it to another completely different one just to flex our math muscles, but more like we actually enjoy irregular sounding sections (and trying to play them). It usually takes us a while to get them right and understand them but that’s most of the enjoyment and fun we get from playing music together. I can see why the math side of things could be annoying to some people who want some sort of instant ‘pop’ hit and minimum effort as a listener, but I like to think we aren’t totally math, we aren’t totally pop but somewhere in the middle perhaps. Having said all that I think people’s interpretation of the term ‘math’ can be very different to how I’ve explained it so I don’t know, I get pretty confused with all this genre-ising! Next!

NMT: Nerdy question. What guitar(s)/gear will you be taking to Japan?

TTNG: Ideally, we’d always use all our own stuff as we know it and are comfortable with it but we’re only able to take the guitars over with us for this trip. I think it is usually worst for drummers who have to get used to a new kit at each show so I think Chris is the unlucky one here. The rest of us should be ok as the amps etc have been sorted out to use at each show.

NMT: How did you get involved with Sargent House?

TTNG: We were lucky enough to be approached by Cathy at SH as I think she’d become a follower of BSM and heard a few of our songs. She then contacted us and was interested to see if we’d like to release Animals over there. With the strength of the roster and the hard work she has obviously put into building up such an amazing label, we didn’t have to think to hard about that one.

NMT: Many of our listeners picked up “Animals” straight after hearing you, and have really enjoyed it. Can they expect anything new in the near future?

TTNG: Excellent, thanks people. Yes, we’re currently working on some new stuff and have almost finished three or four songs. We seem to be fairly productive at the moment and have all really been enjoying writing the new songs, especially with Jamie writing his own parts and contributing massively to the sound of the new stuff. We really don’t want to rush if we can help it but we’re hoping to record a demo of a few tracks later in the year.

NMT: Festival season is just around the corner. Can we expect to see you in any muddy British fields this year?

TTNG: I hope so, we’ll have to see if we get asked first. I actually bought some wellies this year just in case.