Thunder Lightning Strike, the first album from The Go! Team album was a little deceptive, as it wasn’t actually recorded by the band at all. Rather, frontman Ian Parton had recorded the album entirely by himself (in his parent’s kitchen no less), using samples and playing the instruments himself. Three years later, The Go! Team are back with a new album, written and recorded together, although Ninja, the freestyling rapper of the group, recently spoke to FasterLouder and revealed that this album might have more in common with the first than just sounding similar.
Proof of Youth opens with first single Grip Like a Vice, and the first three seconds contain a 70s-cop-show-theme-tune riff, a siren, and some sample-sounding drums. In other words, it’s business as usual for The Go! Team. “Yeah the new songs are fairly similar to the old ones,” agrees Ninja. “It’s the same instruments and samples, lots of Sonic Youth influence, and brass, and hip-hop.” This is due to the fact that Ian Parton is still the driving force behind the band. “Yeah, Ian still wrote the songs, but this time, we had a lot more to do with the recording process.”
“I think this album is a little louder. It’s noisier, its like, it’s all this stuff that has been put into a box, and it’s just bursting to get out. It’s much livelier – even when you turn it down, it still feels really loud.”
But as a band, these songs weren’t played live in the studio. “We don’t really go into the studio together,” he says. “I had no idea what I was putting down, I had just written some of my stuff, and then laid it down to the most basic backing beat. It was just me and Ian in the studio.”
“In fact, it was only once the album was completely finished, and it got sent out, that I even heard it. I think it was about a month ago…”
But Ninja is glad to have the album finally coming out, although she’s not sure if she’s excited, relieved or both. “Yeah, I’m not really feeling anything at the moment. It’s done, it’s finished, and there’s nothing you can do to change it now. I guess I’m just glad that it’s finally coming out, so I can stop telling people it’s ‘coming soon’. I’ve been telling so many people that, for so long, that I think the words have lost all meaning to me. ‘Coming soon’, what is that?”
As their music sounds like a retro collage, their film clips follow suit, filled with animation, random colours and explosions of light. In other words, they look like they sound. And Ninja reports the similarity is definitely intentional. “Yeah, we keep complete control over the clips, and make them match up to the music,” he continues. “Ian really takes control of the videos, and because we’re signed to smaller labels all around the world, there’s no big pressure. If we were signed to a major label, they’d throw money at us to make a big shiny film clip, and take control from us. Luckily, there’s none of that.”
As a live band, The Go! Team have six members, including two drummers, and the band members regularly swap instruments. And they’ll be bringing their eclectic live show to Australia at the end of the year. “Yeah, we’ve got a tour booked in for the end of the year. We’ll be playing some festivals and house shows, including Tasmania for New Years, at the Falls Festival. It’s going to be great.”
And what’s Ninja’s favourite thing about playing live? “Well, you get a chance to make some new fans,” he says. “We’re not a huge band, not an over-exposed band, so if you’re playing a festival, probably half the crowd, if not more, have never heard of you. So you’ve got to work really hard, to impress them. It’s always great to play a show and then on your MySpace, there’s all these comments saying, ‘I’ve never heard of you guys, but I saw you play, and I love you!’”
And the future for Ninja and The Go! Team? “Well, we’ve got the US tour, and the Australian tour, all this year,” Ninja says. “After that, next year, I don’t know what will happen. I’ve been working a little on my solo stuff, including contributing some tracks to the Simian Mobile Disco album, but it’s so hard to get time for that, because there’s so much Go! Team to do. I’ve done so many interviews today, I’ve lost count, and I’m going to be late for practise. But that’s just the way it goes.”
Don’t miss the Go! Team as they hit the festival scene this summer, playing Falls Festival and Southbound.
Proof of Youth is in stores Saturday September 8.
