Sohostrut current fave band Juke Box Vandals..Tony took some time to chat to Mark from the band Mid April 2008..
How long have you been playing those tunes on myspace?
'Call It What You Like', 'Imposters Smile' and 'Think. Don't Say.' are our most recently recorded songs. We did all three of those demos in one day at London Road Studios while we were all hungover.
'She Shines' is one of our earlier songs and took a little bit longer to record because we couldn't get all five of us pinned down on the same day! We recorded that one at Earthworks Studios in Barnet.
How did the band form?
I'd known Kaj for a while and we'd always spoken about getting together to do something but never got round to it. Out of the blue, PIT got in touch with me after years of not seeing each other. We discovered we were both into our music and planned to get together too.
In the end, all three of us met up and recorded a few acoustic demos in Paul's bedroom (Dress Your Lies, Silver Dream and a cover of The Rifles' 'Robin Hood'). Lavy and Ed got dragged in kicking and screaming by Kaj who knew them both from other projects they'd been involved in.
Where does the name come from a really interesting name?
I was drinking in the SU bar at the Uni in Twickenham and overheard the barman call one of the students a Jukebox Vandal after she/he put something terrible on. So I stole it. We didn't use it at first though. When we started out we were called The Frays but we reverted to JukeBox Vandals after having our MySpace page deleted twice because of that band The Fray! We prefer JukeBox Vandals anyway!
Which bands/artists would you say have been a particular influence on you?
We all have very different influences and listen to a lot of different music ranging from hip hop through indie, rock and northern soul. Seeing as I'm writing this though, my main influences are pretty standard. The Jam, The Beatles, The Kinks, Oasis, The Libertines etc.
Is there a particular phrase you would use to describe your sound?
The one I regularly use is "indie pop rock bollocks". Whether that's accurate or not is another matter! I hate having to label our sound as I find it really difficult. It gives me the hump when people label us as a "post Libertines band" cos we don't sound like them. It's just people desperately looking for a comparison and because we play guitars, and so did The Libertines, we must sound like them.
Tell me about local scene?
Before being in the band I'd not really paid much attention to the 'local scene' but now we're a part of it and get a chance to see it regularly, I think it's really strong. There are some great bands coming out of Hertfordshire at the moment. A lot of people seem to think that to see good bands you have to go into London but it's simply not the case.
A lot of bands seem to have latched onto local scenes too and you get some very well known bands playing towns like Hitchin, Hertford and Bedford regularly now. It's nice for more local bands as they there's the chance to support some of their favourite bands when perhaps they might not have had the opportunity otherwise.
And now the dreaded Desert Island question. Which album would you take with you?
One album! Bloody hell... it changes every week. At the moment I can't turn Mystery Jets 2nd album off but I don't think I'd be able to listen to it everyday for ever more!
It'd probably have to be a Best Of compilation.
But, as I have to answer, it'd be The Best of T he Jam.