Girl Band

What’s in a name? Deception, in the case of Girl Band. Far from saccharine sweet, manufactured pop nonsense, the Dublin quartet deals in righteous rackets married to infectious grooves and cacophonous guitars, a heady mix that’s seen them lauded despite only releasing a smattering of singles and one (stellar) EP. We made bassist Daniel Fox look into his crystal ball to consider the future of music, the band and humanity

Interview by Derek Robertson, photos shot by Maciej Pestka in Dublin, Ireland

‘It’s futuristic in the sense that we’re not trying to make music in homage to any bygone era’

It’s getting harder and harder to make a living from music. How do you see the future panning out for musicians?

It’s hard to tell ’cos music is such a huge thing. It’s very, very old, so it’s not going to go anywhere. The context, if you like, in terms of writing and bands and touring, is a relatively new idea so it’s probably going to change over time. There are so many forces at play… but it’s certainly a lot harder than it used to be, financially speaking.

Would you say that your sound is quite futuristic, given that you use a lot of loops and pedals and stuff like that? 

I suppose so, yeah. We all listen to a lot of old music, but we listen to a lot of electronic and contemporary stuff as well. It’s futuristic in the sense that we’re not trying to make music in homage to any bygone era or anything like that. We’re fans of different eras but want to keep looking forward in terms of what we do ourselves.

In art, the future is frequently depicted as a dark, dystopian nightmare. Do you think we’re headed in that direction? 

I really hope not! Sometimes, you’d think we are, because everybody knows that the world is heating up and eventually things are gonna be pretty bad for a lot of people. That’s an insanely dark question… but it’s quite possible that will happen.

If Girl Band sent a member back from that future to dispense some advice, what do you think they’d say? 

Probably something about not getting on Flight E603. Or beware of roadside and rest-stop food.

Is it particularly bad?

Sometimes. The stuff in the UK is okay most of the time. It’s funny, any time we visit the UK, we get the boat over to Holyhead and we keep stopping at the same service station outside of Birmingham. It’s unintentional, ’cos there are fucking millions of them, but it’s really weird. That one is nice, but on the continent they can be funny – it’s all just strange baked goods, and sausage pastries that are perhaps past their prime.

You’re not big fans of giving yourselves deadlines to finish stuff, are you?

No. It can just feel like you’re rushing things, and you have to make decisions based on wanting to get this song finished instead of finding the right part for the sake of it being right. It might work for loads of people, but for us, it’s better when we let things happen. It’s not that we’re being perfectionists, or taking a crazy long time to meticulously go over everything, but sometimes you’ve got to have a little bit of space to come back to things.

So what does the rest of 2014 look like for the band?

It’s looking busy! We’ll be touring loads; it’ll be the longest tour we’ve done, and our first time in Spain, France and Belgium. Then we’re planning on doing another single, before hitting the road again in September and October. For the end of the year we plan to do a bit of writing and rehearsing, and come up with some new ideas.

If could have one wish for the future of the band, what would it be? 

We’re pretty happy on the trajectory that we have. To keep touring would be good, and do a really good album and get it out in the way we’d like to put it across. Just to keep putting out good records, really, and putting on good shows in places we want to see.

Girl Band play on 19 June at OCCII in Amsterdam, and on 22 June at EKKO in Utrecht. The showsare free for Subbacultcha! members.