Mystery Jets: Ghosts and Food Fights
» Falls Festival - Marion Bay, Tas - December 31, 2008
» Mystery Jets - Take Off - May 24, 2007
“I’m drawing a picture of me...it’s a self portrait, with a black biro pen”
William Rees of UK indie kids Mystery Jets sure know how to start mischief; between self portraits, food fights (“Blaine and Kai had a food fight, which was pretty outrageous. It was in our dressing room, ham and cheese. It’s all sticky and horrible. We were emptying packets on crisps on their head”) and a reputation for trashing their hotel rooms (“(“I’m amazed what Australia knows about our touring activities, we like to have fun...doesn’t everyone?”), I don’t know how the Aussies will be able to keep them in line when they head here at the break of the New Year!
Their latest record, Twenty One, was recorded and created with a mixture of pleasure and pain; “I don’t know if the songs are better but we tried to write better songs and to keep it simple, the best things in life are simple. Recording it was very hard, it was in a studio in north London and the studio is haunted. The Kinks own it. Bands have bad experiences there, we didn’t enjoy it. Lots of sleepless nights, fights, and the recording was hard; it took about a year. There are ten different versions of Hideaway; we just couldn’t get it right”
“The great thing about festivals is you meet other people in bands and get up to mischief” he states cheekily, when I query on whether the band prefer the larger scale festival shows or more intimate venues like the Hi Fi Bar (where they will play January 1st!) “With club shows you get a sound check and all that, indoor shows are more exciting, I think. It’s all the energy contained in this box, dark, lights...”
“I like a lot of Australian music” he confesses, already looking forward to their trip down under. “I know quite a lot about Modular releases; the Presets, Ladyhawke, Van She, there’s a lot of really good dance music out there at the moment. We DJ, so we make it our business to know. The Triffids are amazing!”
Twenty One is our now through Warner Music.
Mystery Jets play:
Hi Fi Bar- Melbourne- January 1, 2009.
The Metro- Sydney- January 4, 2009
