Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man - Interview

 

Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man

Interview

 

With a name taken from the book of revelations referencing a looming apocalypse and a band formed out of the ashes of defunct Les Incompétents, London art-rock group Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man have created significant industry stirrings with just one ‘concept single’ release under their 20-something belts.  Having just played at the infamous SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, a surprising yet deserved feat in the bands eyes they are now in the midst of preparing for their impending June release on Transgressive Records, ‘The Lay of the Land, The Turn of the Tide’.  Described by the band as a ’26 minute opus in 5 parts’, the EP is set to be a welcome insight into how the band have developed since the release of Fatherhood/Motherhood and if their shows are anything to go by promises to be lyrically superb, dark yet dramatic and intelligently unconventional. 

 

We spoke with Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man at the Exeter Phoenix whilst on tour with Lightspeed Champion and they gave us an honest and frank opinion on how they want to be perceived, the industry as a whole and the likely demise of the major record labels.   

 

4TR - You are supporting Lightspeed Champion on his UK tour, how’s it been

going so far?

Fred Blood-Royale aka Fred Macpherson (FBR) - It’s been good, it’s only our 3rd day but it’s been really enjoyable with good crowds.

Thomas Gunnzs (TG) - We were in Bristol last night and its been sold out so far 

Jareth (J)- and it’s been like 14+ and 16+ at a lot of the shows so the pressure is off a little bit.

Fred - Yeah we pretty much get to do what we want and don’t worry about winning loads of fans.  I think some people will like us, and if a couple of people like us then….

Thomas - It’s a victory 

Fred - Yeah a little victory!

4TR – so to the questions then.

Fred - Cool hand writing by the way (smiling) It’s got a good sort of roundness to the letters, solid foundations

4TR – Thanks Fred, anyway so you guys formed at around the end of 2006?

Fred - Probably about then, good knowledge. 

4TR - I guess the majority of the press I have read about the band continually refers to you forming off the back of the demise of Les Incompétents.  Do you find now as a band some 12/18 months on that you finally have your own identity as Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man and not as offshoots of something that didn’t work out before?

Fred - I think of Les Incompétents as the building that has been knocked down to allow for the beautiful shopping mall of Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man and hopefully the foundations have run the debris into the ground, so that now its just a memory.  Les Incompetents is part of our memory and we cant deny that but its not part of our future.  (Smiling) A bit like with England and Princess Diana.  She was there and people loved her but now she has gone!  

4TR - Sure but people were speaking about her for 10 years after!

Fred - Exactly, you can’t shake it off.  

4TR - So what is Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man about – the personalities, the music, what you are striving to create? – It’s obviously a departure from what you were doing previously!

Fred - What is the skeleton that the skin of our music wraps around?

Jared - I guess I just try to write music I like, and that generally isn’t music that is hugely popular.

Fred - I think it’s a new format for popular music that doesn’t rely on tried and tested recipes.  It’s like a new slant on a classic combination.  It’s like someone trying to make a chocolate cake in a new way.  Instead they say, “I’m not going to use chocolate but it might taste a bit like chocolate”. It’s basically just trying to turn thing slightly on their head and not relying on taking immediate reference point from everything that has come before.  We try to take influence from more alternative types of music and inject it with a new pizzazz.  Our impetus isn’t just getting played on the radio and becoming mainstream, it’s about trying to make music that’s interesting, original and potentially forward thinking.  We might not have arrived at it at this age but we are definitely on the ladder to a path that will take us there. 

Jared - Each time we do something new its closer to what we want to do but thus far it’s never been completely right. 

4TR - Would you say that ‘The Lay of the Land, The Turn of the Tide’ is more towards the kind of music you have been striving towards making?

Fred - Yeah definitely. 

Jared - It’s a big step closer than the single we released last year.

Fred - Having said that we are not a band with a particular ideal that we believe we will reach, if anything we are constantly chasing something that is constantly moving! I don’t think we will ever get there and say this is Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man and now its finished.  We will always be trying to build something and the second that it is built we will be trying to build on top of that.  It’s a bit like a Tower of Babel or something. 

Jared - We always have our goal and by the time we get there the goal has changed!

Fred - A bit like Jenga, you just keep going until it all falls down, but in this case you can never finish until every piece is stacked like in middle crosses, so making it impossible to finish!

4TR - You put out your first single release, Fatherhood/Motherhood through Transgressive.  Are you doing the same with ‘The Lay of the Land, the Turn of the Tide’?

Fred - Yes we are, but this will be slightly more wide reaching.  The first one was a limited edition on just vinyl and vhs, but the EP is going to be in a cd format and a lot more are going to be printed so.  We are also going to be selling them at our gigs. 

Jared - So not limited edition basically!

4TR - Your single release was well received wasn’t it?

Fred - Yeah well much better than we thought it would be.  Zane Lowe played it and people bought it, so if anything we were slightly surprised because we wanted to do something that, without wanting to be pretentious, would be a good way to draw a line in the sand between us and our past and between us and a particular scene.  We just decided we didn’t want to exist in a world of comparison and we didn’t want to be part of a group of bands that all went hand in hand. So we did something that would put us out there on our own, and that would allow us to build our own thing without worrying about being competitive with other people who were doing similar things. We almost felt like we had broken away.  Not that we don’t like other bands but we feel more comfortable making music on our own terms rather than on the terms other people.

4TR - Is that why you didn’t want to go through a major label?

Fred - Yeah we had meetings with major labels, but any label that is going to put pressure on a band to write radio singles and get in the top 40 and sell a million albums, its not very conducive or productive to trying to create something original really. 

4TR - So what was it about Transgressive Records that made you want to work with them?

Jared - The 2 guys that run it basically, Tim and Toby!

Fred - They are people who are music fans who care more about the music than what sounds good and what sells.  Look at what they did with Foals, by taking a genuinely alternative band and marketing them in a way that would mean as many people could hear them as possible, but not necessarily trying to force them to sell albums.  When it got to the stage that they got a number 3 album in the charts, I think everyone was surprised but also felt vindicated in the fact that they had taken something extremely different and ran with it.  We are not necessarily expecting or even attempting to repeat that level of success, but we felt that if there were two like 23 or 24 year old guys who could do that with a band like Foals, then it would be the sort of family we would want to be part of.  It’s was the same with the Young Knives who got Mercury nominated.  It just seems like a place where when good things happen they are celebrated but when other things happen that aren’t as good, they are not commiserated.  

4TR - How was the prestigious SxSW festival for you guys?

Fred - Interesting!  I don’t think we ever thought we would leave London to perform, let alone go to Austin.

Jared - We have quite high hopes, but when they get realised it’s always a surprise. 

Thomas - When they said we were going there we didn’t really think it would happen. 

Jared - And then there were various points along the way we thought we are about to be sent home, even when we were finally on the plane!

Fred - It was just a very surreal experience that really helped to confound everything we have been doing until now and helped solidify it slightly.  Moments like that mean a lot.  We were playing on a roof in Texas at 3pm in the afternoon.  It was like 33 degrees or something in the middle of the day and all this sunlight was streaming.  It was just really weird and amazing at the same time. 

4TR - Is it as bizarre as people say it is?

Fred - It’s like a sort of miss-mash of things that we had experienced before but then it re-contextualises suddenly.  I mean I have been to America before but I hadn’t been prepared for what Austin would be like.  

Thomas - It’s a frenzy when you are there but I think we all got a lot out of the experience.

Fred - And we all got to see other bands perform and hang out with them.  Going to America to play a festival like that means you can become invigorated by the fact that there really is some alternative, interesting music happening around the world and that in other parts if the world it is celebrated.  The minority can almost be the majority, and when you get somewhere like that it’s just a lot of different artists celebrating themselves and each other in a non-cliquey way.

4TR - So in that case do you think then that alternative music is not really as celebrated in the UK?

Fred - I think in Europe and America definitely there is a lot more potential for underground artists to not necessarily break through into the mainstream but there is a bigger area for it.  Especially with electronic music in Europe for example, and there is a really good scene of bands in America who sort of touch the mainstream but don’t really worry about it, like TV On The Radio and Liars.  There are also a lot of New York bands, even the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to a certain extent, that can sort of have this flirtation with people knowing who they are but can just get on with making really interesting albums and collaborating with different artists, not worrying about it and I think that’s the way it should be.  But in Britain I think there is a real competitive nature that sort of overrides other peoples desires to make things like that, because they see their contemporaries getting signed for hundreds of thousands of pounds, so they think well if I can do that by just doing something slightly more mainstream, why don’t I do that? 

4TR - yes but you can understand why bands do that when huge advances etc are discussed!

Fred - absolutely I can understand that but think it’s a very dangerous game to play.  At the same time Britain has a lot of great bands and I think if anything independent music is becoming stronger with labels like XL and Domino getting ever more powerful. Mainstream record labels are almost starting to lose their grip, the fact that EMI is completely disintegrating and people say that labels like Warner are just behind it and its almost quite funny in an ironic way to see large scale multi national companies like that falling apart.

4TR - Its going to be a very interesting year from that point of view to see how the monopoly that the majors once had on the industry continues to crumble whilst the independents and DIY labels, even the bands putting music out there funded themselves start to flourish and become more recognisable.  

Fred - It’s exciting because I do believe it’s a revolutionary era that we are entering.  It will be a kind of Robin Hood sort of thing, taking from the people who have a lot of money and starting to spread it a bit more evenly.  There is going to be a slight redistribution.  We might be sort of entering a record label communism era, it should be interesting for bands and hopefully for fans as well, as it will allow access to hear more and to buy more and make things easier and cheaper and quicker.  Maybe or maybe not, it could just be all shit!  You never know do you!

 

So finally any advice for anyone just starting out and trying to get their music out there to a wider audience?

Jared - Just do as much as you can yourself wherever possible!

Fred - Look at the example of Patrick Wolf who put out 2 albums himself which sold out and which received such acclamation.  It was not until his 3rd record that he put it out through a label.  Get yourself into the position whereby you don’t need the labels and they need you more than you need them.  Be different!  You don’t have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else necessarily to make and put out great music.

 

Interview by Francesca Strange

Photography by Gabriella Strange and Lucy Knapp