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Help She Can’t Swim

With enough punch of their own to floor the proverbial Man, we caught up with Help She Can't Swim for a chat. And we really mean a chat.

Posted 2nd March 2006, 6:52pm in Interviews, by David Quinn
Help She Can’t Swim We've been waiting for years for a band we can shove the 'new Bis' tag onto. Just one look at the sleave of their new single 'Bunty vs Beano' echoes back to those halcyon days of Manda and co, but Help She Can't Swim aren't just trying to entertain our musical wet dreams. With enough punch of their own to floor the proverbial Man, we caught up with them for a chat. And we really mean a chat...

So for the people who've never heard you could you tell us who plays what in the band and what you sound like
Leesey: I sing and play keyboards
Tom: That's Leesey by the way. I'm Tom, playing guitar, singing and keyboards
Tom2: Other Tom I play guitar keys, and dabble in bass
Tim: And I'm Tim and I play bass
Tom: Soundwise, what do we sound like?
Leesey: Excellent
Tom: Yeah, we keep on getting compared to Sonic Youth and Bis which is quite nice.

Bis are fantastic!
Leesey: 'Course they are
Tom: I think someone once described up as 'Yelpcore' which I thought was a bit rubbish because it's not even a real word

So, How did you all start out?
Leesey: We were bored
Tom: But not just being bored, part of it was being bored because where we lived there were no decent bands

Where abouts did you live?
Tom: We all, kind of, live in different places and it all started off because we went to Uni in Southampton, and that's a place where people think that Ian Brown is really kick. But I'd lived in Brighton and got to see loads of bands playing and ended up really fed up with not having a band, so we wanted to throw our hat into the ring.

You've got a new album coming out soon, do you want to give us a few details about that?
Tom: Some of the songs on the album are ones that were written at the very first practice we ever did, but that's quite nice considering we didn't drop them for being at the first practice.
Leesey: You'll have to have a listen to it then you can tell us
Tom: It's different from the 'Suck Our Band' EP that was only a demo on Vacuous Pop
Leesey: And someone was stupid enough to release it
Tom: Yeah, they erm...liked it enough to release it and well the album's more developed Some bits are more poppy and other bits are more noisy and stuff, but it's all us. I can't think of much to say about the album. I don't hate it yet, I thought I was going to hate it as soon as we recorded it but I still quite like it so that's at least good for me

Who are your main influences then?
Leesey: I listen to lots of girl music, nearly all girl music, I like girls, girls are good.
Tom: Lots of riot grrrl things, not many really. Things that are on Kill Rock Stars, Touch and Go, Dischord and fun American labels. There aren't that many English bands that are alive at the moment that I like.
The interesting ones?
Tom: Bat Slingway are the best ones in this country
Leesey: They're from Scotland
Tom: Who else is good?
Leesey: We listened to The Kitchen then they split up
Tom: Yeah The Kitchen were good then they split up
Leesey: Poor Manda
Tom: Yeah Manda got divorced from her husband

Have you got any essentials that you take with you on tour?
Tom: Well it's not even a tour, it's just a group of gigs that are around the same time and I always have to tie my shoes before I go on stage playing, otherwise I feel a bit funny
Tim: Red Bull
Tom: Yeah Red Bull 'cause we always have to drive after a gig, so that's essential
Leesey: I need my book full of lyrics
Tom: Book full of lyrics is good, and tuner for the bass because Tim takes forever to tune his bass. It's never happened yet but the last practice we had before we went to record the album I forgot my bag full of all my leads and pedals and the plug for the keyboard. So bassically the one practice we had before the album was absolutely appalling. Everything was wrong so we found another keyboard and all the settings were different so it all just sounded
Leesey: Brilliant, it was brill
Tom: It was like a remixed version of all our songs and it was just wrong, so after that I never forget it
Leesey: So what kind of bands do you listen to?

Blood Brothers and Liars, anyone who's trying to do something different really...
Tom: Yeah we like bands like that, we're playing with the bass and drummer who after the first album got booted out of Liars, we're playing with their new band whatever they're called.

I went to see them a while back and they weren't that good
Tom: The new Liars? I bought their album and took it back and I never take albums back so that's always a bad sign. I bought the single which was good because it was still dancey.
Leesey: It's just that the first album was so good and amazing
Tom: But now they've just gone

It's really surreal, witches and all that
Leesey: Spending too much time with Karen O, that's what it is. Enough.
Tom: Yeah, we like their first album, the second was a bit rubbish. I think they dress up funny now which is never good

Yeah he was wearing a dress with 'weapons of ass destruction' on the back
Tom: That's nice, y'see they're putting in the effort there but not really writing any good songs. That's something we had to do, we avoided having a band where you all dress up in matching clothes. It either really works, you have to get it right then it's amazing
Leesey: You have to be The Make Up for it to work
Tom: Yeah but The Make Up are now called The Hives and they're shit
Leesey: I can't think of any bands other than The Make Up
Tom: Devo they were good
Tom:That's another thing, we get some funny comparisons, I mean Idlewild.
Tom: Yeah we got compared to Ikara Colt
Tom: Yeah Ikara Colt and Idlewild, I can't really see that.

The art-punk's in there somewhere
Tom: But Bunty vs. Beano I read something about that, and even that was being compared to Bis and that's one of our shouty songs. But that's one thing, comparisons that make no sense.

You mean they aren't the bands you want to sound like?
Leesey: No, I want to sound like Bis, I love Bis.
Tom: I mean I like getting compared to Sonic Youth and Bis 'cause I think that's a really goo comparison to get. Getting compared to Idlewild, I like Idlewild but it's just not right. If you only have a frame of reference that goes as far as Idlewild and The Libertines then we're not going to sound like The Libertines so you'll have to go with Idlewild

But The Libertines are shit
Tom: Yeah they're shit. Smack is no substitute for writing songs
Tom 2: Didn't recording Tom's mate go out with someone from The Libertines?
Leesey: Yeah Pete's ex girlfriend
Tom: Yeah she was going out with Pete 'I look like a baby on smack' Doherty. That pisses me off as well, there is no reason why they should be as big as they are, it's just that the British music press has turned them into icons
Leesey:But they're so so exciting - sarcasm
Tom: Yeah it's like a soap opera
That's the only interesting thing about them, their lifestyle
Tom: But even that's got boring now, the guys already gone to prison what's he going to do to top that? But if he died
Leesey: It'd be brilliant
Tom: But he'd be turned into some awful Kurt Cobain figure
Leesey: No he wouldn't
Tom: Well people would try and turn him into one. He was a poet and a prophet and also a talent less smackhead. Why can't they shed the limelight on some talented smackheads?

Like The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster?
Tom: No they're shit. I went to school with one of those he was a twat

Which one?
Tom: Andy, the guitarist with the big hair
Leesey: He went out with one of my best friends

You're doing your own management at the moment. Is that part of any great musical ethic?
Tom: Yeah, you go and see some bands and they're obviously had a manager tell them exactly what to do
Leesey: Some of them are fucking puppets
Tom: Yeah
Leesey: We like to have people helping us but we want to do our own thing
Tom: It's not as if loads of people know who we are, but if we had a manager they'd probably be pushing us to do something we don't want to do. I don't like playing with these lame Indie bands where you have to go 'That was great guys' then just walk off. I always try and find something nice to say
Leesey: No you don't
Tom: Oh yeah, we played with this band the other night and they'd basically heard a Faint album and decided that was what they wanted to sound like.

What were they called?
Tom: Nemo, so there you go, Nemo rip off the Faint
Leesey: Were they the band that had that 'We are the colour of sound' song?
Tom: Yeah they repeated this line about fifty times
Leesey: Just stop it now

Trying too hard to be obscure?
Tom: Nah they just got a Faint album and thought they were wacky like Depeche Mode. We're not usually this bitchy.
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