What are the band up to at present?
Right this second, we're choosing what clothes we're going to be wearing for our photo shoot for our album. We're doing a photo shoot for that on Saturday, and I'm really excited about that. In general, we've got a single coming out in July and we've got the album coming out later in September. It's amazing how quickly it's gone, but it was only a few weeks ago that we finished recording and it's been mastered and we're getting all the bits and pieces sorted, and preparing to put it out for people to buy! So, exciting times.
How did the band get together?
I've known Pixie the bass player, since we went to school together since I was eleven, so quite a long time. Plums, the drummer I met her at a gig, she was playing in this covers band, I thought she was amazing so I kept on pestering her until she said yes she'd come and drum with us.
So, that's how we met, and that was last Christmas really, not the Christmas just gone but the Christmas before. it feels like ages ago, to be honest with you, but it's not really though is it?
Can you tell me about The Goldbug?
Well Pixie he's the bass player, he's very talented, he looks like a pixie, and he kicks out these massive, fat basslines, which is kind of a shock as he's quite petite. He hold everything together with Plums, which as I said is our drummer, and she's this amazing flamboyant drummer, I've never seen a girl who drums like that, or a guy for that matter, she's just completely unique in her style. The two of them together they make up The Goldbug, they're a real killer section I think, they're really cool. They are quite fascinating to watch, sometime I find myself staring instead of performing when I'm on stage.
Have you got any festivals coming up?
We're doing the city showcase on Regent Street, and the Beach Break in Cornwall this Wednesday, and we've got loads of other gigs, the dates are on our MySpace, we're doing lots and lots of dates. But festival wise we're doing Castle Rock in Cornwall, Latitude, Lanhydrock Festival, in July and Maker Festival in August. We've got Rip Curl Boardmasters Unleashed in Cornwall, and Shambala festival in Northamponshire. Then we've got Bestival on the BBC Introducing Stage and that's a big thank you to Rob the Bank as he asked us to play that festival, and that was quite a lovely thing. So we're very, very excited about that, indeed.
So you have a lot of festivals in Cornwall, are you based down there?
Yes, we're a Cornish band, so that's where we're from and everything we do is based down here. Apart from recording our album, we went to London to do that. We're starting to get quite a few gigs in London and we're really enjoying that. And just travelling around, we did a mini-tour last week and we went up to Liverpool, Nottingham and it was amazing actually, like a dream come true, doing gigs up in the north, that was an ambition of ours. We're travelling around a lot at the moment, there's a joke in Cornwall that you need your passport to get out of the country, because you cross over the Tamar, and it's quite an adventure for us.
So what can we expect from one of your gigs?
Well the music is getting compared to lots of things but I suppose if I was to put it into a genre it's kind of alternative rock and pop, or left of centre rock or pop music. It's very raw sounding, because we've just got bass and drums, and I play keys. So a lot of the main focus is around the bass and drums and the vocal. The piano or synths comes in over the top of that, and it's quite feisty sounding and we've got quite a few upbeat songs. Some people say my voice is like Kate Bush, which is an absolute compliment, but I think you can compare it to lots of things really, it's difficult for me to put myself into a category really. That's kind of roughly what our sound is, a very raw sound, and quite upbeat, and some of the songs because I started off as a singer songwriter they're very personal, a few piano and vocals ones, which are personal and ballady.
So who are your musical heroes?
It ranges so much, Buffy Sainte-Marie my mum got me into when i was quite young, Joan Baez and Neil Young, then I got into PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Blondie. And even The Stooges and some very rock and roll stuff I'm into as well, it's very broad. Anything that's got truth behind it, I think that's what i really relate, it doesn't have to be technically amazing, vocals are really important and emotion and the truth, that's everything for me.
What's the best band you've seen live then?
I saw Patti Smith, a couple of year's ago at Brixton Academy and I couldn't stop crying, not because it was awful, but because it was just so amazing. That was because I've loved her for a long, long time and I found that very exciting because they had such a youth about them even though they weren't youths anymore and that the energy behind it was incredible and I've never really experienced anything like that, and it made me so excited because it made me realise it doesn't matter what age you're doing music, it's what's behind it, the feeling behind it that matters. She was absolutely amazing.
Then I went to Reading festival last year and saw quite a lot of great bands there as well. I like the Gossip a lot, they're fantastic, I like the rawness of them, they put that across really well. And the White Stripes, and a band called the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs they are another band I really love, and that's because they're raw and they don't have a massive complicated instrumental backing section, they're really stripped down, that's great.
I think there's a lot of really good music about at the moment, I think we're quite spoilt at the moment, there's some really amazing bands around, I just feel very excited. The Ting Tings I think they're incredible, when they got to number one I just couldn't believe it, a band that's alternative and stripped back like that going to number one, and great vocals, they're a fantastic band, I'm very excited about them at the moment. And Bat For Lashes I think they're absolutely incredible.
So you're into your female lead vocalists then!
Very much, I think the more girls doing it the better. I think it's a very male dominated industry and I don't think it needs to be, there's plenty of very talented women around.
At a recent awards ceremony the only bloke who got an award was Mark Ronson.
Really! Fantastic, that's so cool. But, you know I think wherever the best music's coming from that's what counts. It's just exciting when a girl does it as well. I like it I think it's good. Coming from a band with two girls in it I think it's exciting to see other girls being successful.
If you could have anyone else up on stage to guest with you , who would it be or why?
Do they have to be dead or alive? Either? Okay, probably John Lennon because that would be the most awe inspiring experience and I think his sing writing's incredible and to perform live with a legend like that would be amazing.
And what's the best gig you've played as a band?
Funnily enough, it's one down in Cornwall, it was last year and it was in Truro in a really small venue, and there was a really electric atmosphere and we really went for it. It was a really tiny room and everyone was kind of on top of each other, but it was just the most energised I've ever felt from a gig. It was really, really amazing, and that was kind of mind blowing really how exciting it was and it didn't really matter where it was, it was just right. The atmosphere was perfect, everything was perfect about it and I felt really in control of what we're doing and the songs came across really well, as well.
If you had to go to a fancy dress party, who would you go dressed as?
I'd like to say someone really controversial but my manager would kill me. So, I'll stick to someone safe and say, I'd go as Jesus. I think also, because I could get his beard of quite well, by shaving my cat and putting it on my face.
Anything else you'd like to mention?
Our single out for download on the 4th July and our album in September.
Who did you do the album with?
The producer was Jim Eliot, he's in a band called Kish Mauve and he wrote and produced Kylie's come back single 'Two Hearts'. That was cool working with him, because he's like this amazingly talented wizard that we all felt very inspired by. So working with him was really cool, and we all had a great time recording with him in his basement in Soho.
Did you find the recording stuff easy to do?
I absolutely love it, I don't think there's one part of what I'm doing that I don't absolutely love at the moment. I think the whole thing is amazing. But the recording was just great, we had a really silly time, lots of laughing, and made sure the recording was as live as possible. We stuck to first takes wherever we could, Jim was very much about that, we really went for capturing the moment with a band, and I really hope that's come across on record. But people will have to listen and decide for themselves and see what they think and let us know, feedback is always good, that would be great.
So what about the writing is it all done by you?
I do the writing and then for some of the songs I collaborated with different people, I wrote with Jim our producer on a couple of the tracks and El Presidente the band from Glasgow, they're really cool. And I wrote with Marcella Detroit who used to be in Shakespeare's Sister, that was really lovely.
How did you go about getting them on board?
It's a really small world actually, because once you get to know people in the industry as a new band, and people start introducing to different people, and then before you know it, you've got to know people. It's a bit of a strange world like that, the Marcella one was through a company that was interested in us, and put us in touch with her and she was absolutely lovely. This song writing world is quite strange, I got used to writing in my own, and Marcella was the first person that was suggested for me to write with. I hadn't really thought of writing with other people really, then when that cam about I thought, why not it's fun to write with other people, and that opened up so much other doors.
Does Marcella sing on the album?
Yes, she's on a track called 'Strange Girl' and her vocal sound really great on that.
And what's the single called by the way?
It's called 'War Of The Roses' it's the first single.
Well I hope you have a good summer, and I'll try to catch you at a festival this summer.
Thank you, take care, good bye.
Check their MySpace and the website for all the latest on Rosie and The Goldbug.
article by: Scott Williams
published: 10/06/2008 11:32
FUTURE GIGS
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