Little Comets
Thursday 19.15 @ Life
More famous for its parties than its pavilion, Brighton is a carnival city, and there’s no finer band to have along to a seaside shindig than the energetic Little Comets. Dan chats, and finds them to be just as colourful and inspiring as the perfect indie pop they produce..
You are well known for you unorthodox gigs, for example in university lecture halls, parties, shopping centres .. What draws you to these rather than the more typical venues?
These were all Micky’s ideas. He wants to train us to be socially fearless so one day we can play at Prime Minister’s Questions. We just wanted to play in places with a captive audience where people had to listen to our music and it made a nice change from playing in a normal venue. It’s really good for the skin too. In Edinburgh we played a house party where the beds snapped from people dancing on them. We thought it was really funny until we were told that was where we were sleeping…
The buzz of your home city Newcastle is captured in your music. Why do you think more Newcastle born bands have not had more success in recent years?
I don’t know really… we don’t really get involved with the whole Newcastle music scene, from the outset we’ve always tried to gig lots out of area and just play once a month at home – so with that we don’t really keep to much of an eye on what else is happening musically in Newcastle…. plus when we are at home we’ll be locked in smashed up buildings rehearsing or recording.
Many of your songs seem to recount the roller coaster ride of relationships. Is ‘One Night in October ‘written from personal experience?
Ha ha. No! I suppose it is loosely based on tales from friends that we’ve adapted into a story with some personal slights thrown in, but I’d like to think somewhere that this couple does exist….
Who are your greatest influences, and who are you currently listening to?
Hmmm I suppose we have a wide range of influences, musically people like Elgar and Jocelyn Pook but then we might take a lot from something we see around town or from a book… at the minute we are listening to a combination of Neil Young, Golden Silvers and Nina Simone….. whatever is in the van really.
As well as your unique locations the stage always tends to be filled with an array of cooking utensils—does your mother not mind that the contents of her kitchen are slowly diminishing?
So far we’ve destroyed about four pans and a whisk. We also dropped a really expensive casserole dish which now resembles a landmine…
Huw Stephens said of you “Little Comets are from Newcastle and they’re a lot of fun. I think with the recession, people need fun music again”.
How does it feel being singled out as the solution to the world economic crisis?! Well, we’ve never placed much confidence in Keynesian economic policy and Milton Friedman is overrated so why not. Apparently Huw Stephens has a phD in ‘Fiscal Stimulii: 1984 Onwards’, so he might be right…….?
