Next thursday (3rd Feb) it's time for another 'Offset Festival Presents...' here at the Macbeth.In the past few months we've seen Bo Ningen, Teeth and The Neat (and many many more), and this month we are proud to present the live return of Thomas Tantrum.
Megan of the band was kind enough to answer us some questions about their new record:
1) It's been 3 years since the release of your debut LP. Fill us in on what has been going on in those 3 years.
Hello! Well it's actually just been a little over 2 but it does seem like longer. After the touring of the first album finished, our drummer unfortunately decided to go on to pastures new. Finding a new drummer who was right for us took quite a while, but we were lucky enough to find a winner in Dave Wade Brown! Having a new band member means a whole new influence on songwriting, so a lot of trial and error tunes were experimented with before we started writing material we felt was right for our second album. I guess this is why it has been a long time coming! We've had a lot of fun though and still been playing shows including a tour with the lovely Band Of Skulls and some summer festivals. Everything is coming into place for our second album now though so it's getting really exciting again.
2) The Cure circa 'Wish' seems to be an obvious influence on your new EP 'Birdsong'. What other bands have you been inspired by more recently?
Ha. Yeah, the cure was a huge inspiration for the 'face the music' track off the ep. I think there is more coming from that direction because it really works. I wouldn't say I was particularly influenced by any other bands during the writing of the album. In fact, i tried to stay away from listening to other bands too much because I think that strategy can make for the purest of music. You don't want to latch on to what's popular, you just have to do your own thing. Obviously I am only one quarter of the band though and we all vary quite drastically in our musical tastes. I would say the second album is possibly more mature and melancholic yet still retaining an enthusiastic pop sensibility.
3) Have you guys started working on album no 2 yet? Can we expect a new Thomas Tantrum full-length in 2011?
Album number 2 is all finished and ready to go. We don't have an official release date yet but the single should be coming out late March and the album somewhen after that. The problem with having such a big gap between records is that we have too much material, it's tough deciding which tracks will go on the record.
4) Got any new band tips for 2011?
There's quite a few good bands emerging from down our way actually. There's Montage Populaire, Oresteia, Suicide Party, Haunted Stereo, Maths and the Moon and Wolfe. Southampton seems to be properly on it at the moment. All worth checking out.
Thomas Tantrum will be playing our free-entry 'Offset Festival Presents...' on Thursday, 3rd Feb.
