CHOON

Breaking the Ice: A Pleasant Chat with Hockey

Something really odd has happened over in the US. After years of producing only boring bands that couldn’t hold a touch to stuff coming from our shores, the whole country has suddenly decided to go out en-mass and start forming really rather good bands.

Last year, the process was started when the likes of Black Kids blew up and the trend looks like continuing this year. In fact, two of the most interesting bands from the US at the moment, Passion Pit and Hockey, have been touring the UK over the last few weeks – selling out shows across the UK.

Choon managed to catch up with half of Hockey just before they played their brand of LCD Soundsystem-meets-The-Strokes indie at Cargo in London and asked them about their plans, Disney movies and being touched by Michael Jackson at the age of nine!

Hello Hockey. You guys are in the middle of a pretty big tour at the moment. How’s that going?

Bassist Jeremy ‘Jerm’ Reynolds: I think we’re having just the most fantastic time on this tour. We’ve sold out every show thus far, including tonight.

So no fights yet on the bus?

Drummer Anthony Stassi: No, not really. We live together so it’s nothing new to be in close quarters with each other – we’re already really close friends.

And have you noticed any differences between crowds in the UK and US?

Jerm: I think the kids here have quite a good time! They seem very energetic and very susceptible to wanting to dance and really let loose a little bit; maybe even more so than in the US.

Anthony: UK kids are more open to music or more open to new music anyway. Over in the States, kids aren’t that open to new bands – they think there are like a million new bands out there so they don’t give a shit. Instead they go see bands that they know are good and they have liked for a long time. But over here, kids are like ‘I heard about this new band, let’s go to their show’.

Jerm: Over here, we also have the advantage that we’re a band from another country. People go, ‘Oh, an American band’. Whereas, when you’re an American band in American it’s like, ‘Just get in line…’

Maybe it’s more to do with the fact that suddenly there are loads of great US bands again. What happened? Did they put something in the water?

Jerm: I don’t really know. I couldn’t explain it really. Is it Obama? There’s just a beautiful flowering of positivity and creative bohemian culture in the US at the moment. Specifically in places like Brooklyn, New York, Portland, Austin, Texas and San Francisco.

Talking of great new US bands, you’ve been playing lots of gigs with Passion Pit. Were you mates before this tour?

Jerm: We’d actually never met them. But we ended up really getting on with them anyway – they’re great guys. I think it’s a great match in terms of our sounds. Like, we’re not identical but there’s definitely a common thread.

Anthony: We met them in Brighton. We just showed up for the first show and we like, ‘Hey dudes – we’re touring together! An American hello to you!’

You’re due to play the South by South West Festival in Austin at the end of March…

Jerm: Yeah, we’ll finish our tour here and then go home to Portland for a short rest and then drive to Austin – to play some shows and go to some parties. This is kind of the first year we’ve been well off enough as a band I suppose to play SXSW I suppose. I don’t mean money really. Like we have enough recognition now that people want to have us at their shows. We’re going to do the Hove Festival in Norway and the Summer Sonic Festival in Osaka, Japan.

Anthony: And some other festivals in the States, like the Sasquatch! Music Festival and Lollapalooza…

Jerm: And I’ve heard things about Glastonbury and Reading and a couple of others.

I’m sure you’ll be at some UK festivals this summer, especially as people like Radio One, the BBC and the Guardian are already writing nice things about you. Do you find positive press helps or just puts lots of pressure on you?

Jerm: Obviously it’s nice when people are positive about you. But we’ve had some things that weren’t so nice, and actually for me, I think it’s the negative stuff that fired me up more. I think, ‘OK. You’re going to trash that? Talk shit about us? I’m going to come over to the UK and fucking blow your mind!’ I mean, it’s depressing at first when people are mean but then you think damn them, we’re going to show them what we’re about.

Was it criticism that made you relocate from LA to Portland?

Jerm: LA was just horrible. The singer and I were a two-piece there for many years. We went to college there. We spent some time there playing around the Hollywood dive bar scene and we didn’t love it too much. It was just that we had kind of run out of steam. We’d hit the ceiling of what two guys and a computer could do. And it turned out we knew a guy up in Washington State that wanted to join the band and could help us find a place to live. He was connected up there so one day we packed up the van and just went.

Anthony: But I feel in some ways we have a better following in LA than in Portland…

Jerm: We do. It’s a bit of a leftover from us having lived there and having our families there, who drive all their adult friends to our gigs. Tony end up having his grandma and all his cousins at the shows!

I can just imagine her dancing right at the front! Can you name one record that changed our attitude to music and one that changed your attitude to hair?

Jerm: Led Zeppelin I changed my attitude towards hair in a positive way – I wanted to grow my hair out.

Anthony: I’d say Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young…

Jerm: Oh, baby yeah! Déjà Vu – the big hair and the handlebars. That’s all coming back. It’s all good. I say let yourselves be free. Let’s forget the 90s and the early 2000s and let’s remember some cooler times. There was great music, great culture and great art.

Anthony: What about music: one album that changed your perception of music?

Jerm: Michael Jackson’s Dangerous revolutionised my life when I was nine years old and really connected physical energy and dancing with music for the first time. That was pretty powerful!

So you were touched by Michael Jackson when you were nine! There’s a headline to this story right there. And it also brings us nicely to perhaps the most important question of the interview. Which is the best Mighty Ducks movie (they’re about ice hockey you see)?

Jerm: D3!

Anthony: D2 for sure…

Jerm: Why’s D2 best?

Anthony: Emilio Estevez gets Hans to cook him his Hans Pepper n’ Eggs at the beginning. The knucklepuck. Ring any bells?

Jerm: Not really. Perhaps we’ll have to review the movies so we can speak better about the films in the future! We basically try our best to be un-sporty but we called ourselves Hockey. We’re sort of doing a disassociative thing with language. In that we’re taking something that exists and pulling it over to represent something completely different.

I’m sure Roland Barthes would be very proud…

Anthony: In other words, we don’t know shit about hockey. Never played it, don’t know the rules. I like field hockey though, with the girls in skirts…

I think we should probably end it right there. Thank you very much Jerm and Anthony from Hockey.

Hockey’s debut single, Too Fake is due out in the UK on March 2nd through Virgin. The band’s debut album should be out over here later this year.

Interview By James Cooper