Brainape Interview: 29th October 2018

I had the opportunity to sit down with London based noise makers Brain Ape. Known for their infusions of styles, riotous live act and relentless racket, we talked about everything from The Beatles, disappearing during gigs and 'peaceful anarchy'

In the modern era, going down the route of producing a DVD seems curious when people are even turning away from CDs. Is this something that's always been on your to-do list?

Minky: No, it was never on our radar. I think as a band you want to produce as much good content as possible, but when it comes to planning these sort of things… At our level, you can’t plan out on a calendar, plot certain points and say “By 2018 we’ll have a live DVD, and by February 2019 we’ll be on the Graham Norton show”. I don’t think a band like ours can plan those things out. Things come to you, rather than the other way around. This DVD came to us very naturally.

Jamie: You can have goals, though. But you’re right, this DVD wasn’t deliberate. We didn’t tell ourselves before the show at The Unicorn “This is going to be a DVD”.

Sol: The reason I think that our DVD is important for Brain Ape as a whole is because I see it as one of our albums. It holds the same ethos. It’s a snapshot of what we were doing at that time, and that particular show will never get replicated again. At least, not in the exact same format.

M: We’re a very spontaneous band, so what happened that night at The Unicorn will never be duplicated. And if you come and see us play live more than once, you will never see the same show twice. Even if we happen to play the exact same setlist, Brain Ape’s too unpredictable. The show will be different every time.

S: Minky might smash a guitar during a set, or we’ll get a show shut down for ‘excessive volume’ which has happened before. Every show is its own unique experience, and that’s what the DVD has captured: its own unique show.

M: What was nice about the set on the DVD is that, as far as smashing gear or having the gig shut down, it was quite a tame show for Brain Ape’s standards. But that lends itself to being a watchable DVD, because had it been one of our shows that gets shut down halfway through the set it would have made for a seven-minute DVD.

S: Admittedly, a funny YouTube video. But a seven-minute DVD would have been a pisstake.

M: The stars aligned that night, and we’ve come away with a show that went from start to finish in the way that we intended it to when we were in the rehearsal space. We felt that the DVD was worth sharing for that reason.

J: The energy of the crowd was really good that night, too. We were just doing what we normally do, but the energy we got from the crowd was a very positive one.

You’ve played a number of gigs this year to promote yourselves, has one stood out more than the others?

M: I’d say The Unicorn, but only in retrospect because we didn’t know it would be a gig that held so much importance while we were doing it. I think that was good for the show itself because there was no weight on our shoulders before we played the gig. We treated it like any other show, we gave it 250% while on stage because that’s how we approach everything. I think had we known it was going to be such an important gig, there would have been too much pressure and we wouldn’t have performed as well as we did. We would have been very aware of the cameras. But as it turns out, we weren’t. And that’s what lent itself to a natural performance, and it made the show a true snapshot of what Brain Ape are like day to day. If you come to see us play, we’ll perform with the same amount of commitment as we do on the DVD. Even if there are only three people in the crowd. We were lucky at The Unicorn. There was a good turn-out. But we’ve played shows where there are three or four people in the crowd, and we give it our all regardless. When the band eventually breaks up for whatever reason, we’ll always remember the show at The Unicorn. Because there’s a DVD to it.

J: I’d say Silfest was a memorable show. Luxembourg also stands out in my mind.

M: That was the first time we’d ever headlined a show, and there was a really good crowd. From the first note, they were moshing. You can’t ask for much more. We ended that set drenched in sweat.

S: Paris? I liked Paris because it was one of the first foreign shows I’ve ever played.

J: Paris is a special one for me as well because that was my first show with the band.

M: When we played the Water Rats in March, that was a good show. That was the first time ever that we’d seen a Brain Ape shirt in the crowd. And we saw more than one, too. Maybe a good dozen? That was a big thing for us.

S: Each show is wildly different, though.

J: Yeah, they’re all quite memorable in their own right really. And then there’s the travelling as the three of us. I enjoy that experience, too.

M: Well since you joined the band in January… Every time we get a new member, it’s almost like a new chapter in Brain Ape’s history. We haven’t even had twelve months as this version of Brain Ape -

S: But we’ve had more than memorable shows during this chapter already.

M: 2018 has definitely been the best year for the band, as far as us enjoying what we’re doing.

Do you think that being from London has impacted your sound at all?

M: Sol and I knew each other in sixth form when we both lived in Belgium, but we’re infinitely closer now, in London, than we ever have been. And that friendship has been fostered by the city, as has the friendship that Sol and I have had with Jamie over the last year. And we’ve met some really good people here; people who have really influenced Brain Ape as a band. There are a couple of riffs off of ‘Auslander’ which wouldn’t have been what they are without the people we’ve met along the way. Even our first album, although we were harbouring a lot of history from Belgium and the lives we lived before that record, London influenced a lot of ‘Dara O’’. The longer we stay here, the more London will have an impact on our material.

S: Bowie is a major influence for us, and I don’t think he would have been without us being in London.

M: Well ‘Ziggy Stardust’ was very, very London influenced. And then a year later he releases ‘Aladdin Sane’, after having toured the US. And he always said that ‘Aladdin Sane’ was Ziggy in America. Where a musician is, even if they’re not based there, heavily influences the music. ‘Panic in Detroit’ for example. He wouldn’t have written that had he not experience Detroit, met Iggy Pop, and taken away some of Detroit with him when he wrote that track. So even if we go abroad and take in other influences from the cities we see and the places we play, I think the fact that we’re based in London and we spend so much time writing and rehearsing here is going to have a huge impact on us.

You are noted online and amongst fans for being a band that infuses a lot of different sounds. Is this a fair judgement?

S: While we have focused on a main theme of ‘Queens of the Stone Age meets Foo Fighters’ as the core of our sound, our influences stretch to other groups like NWA. Everything we listen to has affected what we make.

M: The English scene at the moment is hugely influenced by America. You’ve got bands like The Blinders coming out now with an album called ‘Columbia’ in which they talk about America. And yes, they draw parallels between the political movement in America at the moment and the Roman political struggle with Caesar, and they draw influences from the French Revolution too, but they’re still very America focused. There’s always been a relationship between American bands and British bands where they play off each other. Cobain has been quoted saying that in the early days of Nirvana, he sang in a fake British accent because he loved bands like the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks. Keep tracing it back, and you’ll find The Beatles trying to be Elvis. The two countries have this lovely back and forth relationship, and it’s resulted in this English scene at the moment being heavily influenced by the States. But we’re getting a little bit tired of it. Not in the sense that we don’t like anything that’s coming out of England at the moment but, as a band personally, we too have been hugely influenced by the ‘Seattle Sound’, Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Fu Manchu, the whole ‘desert rock’ scene, and we feel like we’ve overstayed our welcome in that territory. In the future, we’d kind of like to maybe pay a bit of respect to what has happened to England and the UK. I mean, the UK has some names to boast that other countries would die for; Bowie -

S: Black Sabbath.

M: Sabbath, T. Rex -

S: Iron Maiden.

M: The UK has produced so many iconic bands. Even in London, it’s countless how many groups have come out of this city.

S: It’s so diverse.

M: For example, we’re hugely influenced by Damon Albarn. He’s another name to come out of London. So I think from this point on, maybe, we might focus a little bit more on what Britain has had to offer for the last hundred years, and maybe distance ourselves from the American subject. Simply because we feel like we’ve done that for two albums already, and we might want to explore new territory. And why not explore the city we are from?

What are your main influences?

J: That could be a whole separate interview… Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters, Nirvana -

S: Kyuss. My bass tone is essentially emulating theirs. But I’m a Nu Metal kid at heart, through and through. Korn is another one for me.

M: Sol and I grew up on the first three Slipknot records.

S: System of a Down. Every Arabian scale I ever play is heavily influenced by them.

M: We also listen to a lot of Frank Sinatra, a lot of Michael Jackson. Sol’s hugely into Leadbelly, too, and a lot of other people from that era.

S: Lightnin’ Hopkins. A lot of old school Blues.

M: I love boogie-woogie, especially on piano. So although we’re a three-piece, that all drip feeds into our music. What we end up producing usually boils down to a guitar, a bass, and a drum kit because we’re a punk band at heart. But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be layers to what we’re trying to do.

You seem to be (rightfully so) proud of your live performances. Does delivering a good show drive you more so than anything else?

J: Of course.

S: Delivering a live show is the most important thing we do. Making a studio album you can go back and repeat, you can do-over. A live show is a one-off firework that you have to make sure you get right.

M: Whenever we make a record, we try and capture what we sound like life anyway. So our records are always a statement: “If you can’t catch us live, this is what we sound like”. When people are putting our albums on in their livings rooms, on their iPods, or listening to us on Spotify, they’re not seeing us in the flesh make these sounds but it’s the next best thing to that.

J: Exactly. At our shows, people come to see us recreate the album live and that’s what we give them. But we also don’t just play the album from a USB stick. We’re giving them a live experience while bringing the albums to life, giving them energy and sincerity from the stage. The human element.

M: We’ve never been a band that goes into the studio to try and create a ‘Sergeant Pepper’ record. We always make albums that we can replicate live on stage. If we were to record twenty-eight vocal harmonies, fifty-six guitar parts, and the like, we wouldn’t be able to do that on stage as a three-piece.

You shot this show on the DVD at The Unicorn. Is this a venue that holds significance to your band?

M: I don’t think it held significance for the band beforehand, but it did for me. Throughout my early twenties, my evenings in Camden were stamped by going to The Unicorn and seeing some bands who I’ve been fans of for years. It’s a great venue, and usually free entry which is a huge thing for people who might not be well-off. But now the band will always remember the show we played there.

S: It’s a DVD of ours now, so it will always hold a place in our hearts.

What was the process when you were writing these songs?

M: As a band who have released two albums, it’s difficult to say what the process was for each individual song. Each track comes from a different place, a different time in your life. When you eventually release an album, the tracks on there represent a couple of years of your life.

S: Well the final product is a representation of a couple years of your life, but the actual tracks change and adapt as you change and adapt as a person. The album, when it’s finished, is you at that very specific moment.

M: True, and that’s why I’d never go back and tinker with the old product. When I listen to our first album there’re so many things that we could do far better, or maybe I’d change a lyric or two -

S: But that’s not the point.

M: Exactly. The point of that album is “That’s who we were in 2014”, and ‘Auslander’ is who we were in 2017. And our next album will be the same for whenever we record it. It’s not about going back in time and looking for perfection. We’re not looking for perfection, we’re looking for sincerity. And that’s what you get from leaving the past alone.


Were you trying to convey something or was this a case of creative expression?

S: No matter what kind of art you do, you always have an idea of what you’re trying to convey. But whether that is or isn't creative expression…

M: Our first two albums aren’t political at all if that’s what you mean. We ignored politics on our first two records because the material dealt with dissecting the human condition at the age we were. When we wrote ‘Dara O’’ we were only just in our twenties, in our late teens even, so the material reflects that and the album became a ‘coming of age’ story. Our experiences growing up were in no way unique, but we used the album as a cathartic experience. And then ‘Auslander’ was a continuation of that; where we’ve come from, uncertainty of where we’re going next. Very typical of what people go through as young adults. But moving forward, we may not shy away from politics. The three of us are very opinionated about personal, political, and religious topics, so perhaps that will show up in our material to come. If we do venture into that territory, we’ll be very honest about our opinions concerning politics and historical events. The last thing we’ll ever do is lie on a record, so the more we come to terms with our own political, religious, and philosophical views, the more that will show in our records. In all honesty, we’re no longer teenagers, so we will most likely not be writing songs about going through puberty. If we do, then we’re a band who have stagnated. Going forward, I’m hoping to write about being a young adult in the twenty-first century, reflecting upon how history has treated our generation. I doubt we’ll make the same record twice.

S: But are we trying to say something? Yes, I think we are. It doesn’t have to be political. If I say something, it’s an expression of how I feel and think at the time. So in that vein, yes we are trying to say something.

M: We’ve already been a band for six years. If the band continues for the next six it will be really interesting to see what our views are on album number four and see whether they contradict what we were saying on album number one. It would be a really interesting testament to humans changing their minds, and there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind as long as you feel like you’ve come to that conclusion in a reasoned manner.

S: Change is not weakness.


There’s an anger in the songs that I've heard but no malice, so is it all just for fun or is there something more serious afoot?

S: All Minky wants is peaceful anarchy.

M: The reason we write music is frustration. And we’re not alone in that, I don’t think. Even if you go back as far as The Beatles when they wrote ‘Sergeant Pepper’, or the ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ albums, they were singing about peace and love but that was coming from frustration at the lack of those things in the world at the time. Frustration towards war and famine lead them to write those albums. So for us, although there’s an aggression in what we do we’re not going out and asking people to slit each other’s throats. Our music comes from frustration, from anger at our surroundings, and it’s a cathartic way for us to deal with that. Hopefully, people can use our material to deal with whatever they’re going through. Life isn’t fucking fair, but if you’ve got something to help you through it… I mean, for fuck’s sake, when I was a kid the only thing that got me through puberty was listening to bands who I felt like I could relate to. And if we can offer that, not to just youngsters, but to anybody who’s going through something fucking difficult then that is why we do what we do. Even in this band recently, we’ve been through stuff that’s not easy and we’ve used our music as a positive way to deal with fucking difficult shit.

You are signed to a record company. Does this add to your confidence or is this just another step for the band?

S: In fairness, the record company is run by the singer in our band.

J: But even if it wasn’t, being signed to a record label doesn’t mean anything really. The only thing a record label gives you is money.

M: Even then, it’s just an advance.

J: Schlimbum Records might very well be a self-made thing, but that just means that we’ve got the control in our own hands. We don’t need to answer to anyone else. It’s something else that Minky has put together that he wants to do, and I can tell that he’s passionate about it. But in the future, if someone else wants to take us under their wing then that’s cool. But at the moment, we’ve done what we’ve done and we’ve released two albums without backing which is a rare thing. And I think that’s something we should be proud of.

S: Being signed to a record label is something that, for a lot of musicians when they first start out, is a dream. But once you actually start working in any industry, be it film, TV, music, art, you realise that there are steps and there are things you need to do that those dreams don’t quite correlate to any more.

M: You could spend your entire life in your bedroom creating music, but if you don’t take the steps to distribute that music to a larger audience who might benefit from it then you might end up looking back on your life and realising that although there was a reason that you were doing what you were doing, there was a lot more potential to it. That’s the approach we always take. We’re not looking to cash-out quickly, sell our image, and play the same songs for the rest of our lives. If I’m playing ‘Rig It’ by the time I’m forty-eight I will probably off myself. But the fact that what we’re doing is clearly grabbing the attention of other people, why on earth wouldn’t we take that opportunity? If Universal Music came to us tomorrow and asked us to sign a major label deal on our terms and distribute what we’re doing worldwide, why on earth wouldn’t we take that opportunity? We’d still be in control creatively, we’d still be making music for what we feel are the right reasons, and now we’d be enabling an entire worldwide audience to access that material, and hopefully, our songs would help people through hardships. Why the fuck would we turn that down?

S: Having said all that, being signed to a label isn’t a “be all end all” solution. You need to make art on your own terms more than anything else.

M: And we’ve always done that. We never sit down and go “by 2020 we’re going to make our next record”, just because that works in a marketing schedule. We always need to feel as though it is the right time for us personally to make an album.

J: We’re not at that point right now where we feel like we want to make a new album. We’re going to get this DVD release out of the way, seal off 2018, play a few more shows next year, and then maybe we’ll be at our next horizon. That next step will be us asking ourselves “Okay, who do we want to be now? What do we want to do?”. And then we’ll create something new.

M: And that’s the exciting part. We don’t know what’s coming next, and whatever is coming our way in the near future we want to let evolve organically.

S: Being signed to a label doesn’t necessarily enable any of those things.

J: Well if you’re told that you have to get an album out by the first six months of 2019 -

S: What does that do for you creatively?

J: It chokes you.

What was your favourite moment of the night when you shot the DVD?

S: I said this in our last interview, but I’ll say it again because it was great: Jamie taking off his shirt in the space of half a second. It was fucking ridiculous. I also really liked Minky hitting his head against my bass. I think I knocked him out a little.

M: You didn’t knock me out. I did not fall to the floor.

J: For me, it was the bit where Minky was singing in that baby voice.

M: During the show, my favourite bit was jumping into the audience towards the end of the show because the interaction between the musician and the crowd is the reason we put on shows.

J: You disappeared.

S: I didn’t even realise it was happening. I looked at Jamie and then I looked back and Minky was gone.

J: He eventually came back.

M: Just before we go into the last section of ‘Rig It’, there’s a lovely little bit where we kind of hang on the last note before the breakdown and we ask the audience to get moving for the end of the song. That kind of summed up the whole show for me. We were inviting the crowd to be a part of this flash in history -

J: And they could choose to accept, or decline.

M: And that’s the beauty of live music. Even if they were a little bit sore the next day, I think quite a few people could sit back after that show and feel like they hadn’t wasted their Saturday evening.