An Interview conducted with iLiKETRAiNS on the afternoon of their gig launching the single "Rook House for Bobby", which had already sold out

The interview was conducted for the Vibrations fanzine. An edited version was published in March 2006 issue with photographs by Danny North. This is the "extended" version, adapted from a full transcript. The interview took place in the bar of the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds.

iLiKETRAiNS consist of: David Martin, guitar and vocals; Guy Bannister, guitar and keyboards; Alistair Bowis, bass guitar; Ashley Dean, cornet and visuals; and Simon Fogal, drums.

These tall young men's first rehearsals as iLiKETRAiNS were in 2003. Guy and Dave (friends over ten years or so) had come to Leeds from Evesham where they had once called themselves Guppy. They met up with Ashley, Alistair and Simon when they came to study Music Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Vibrations, in the wizened shape of Sam Saunders, stumbled into their sound check of their single launch gig at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds and pointed a cheap microphone into the faces of Simon, Guy and Dave. The gig was shaping up to be the highlight of a tour involving a straight week of gigs leading up to this one, with few more to follow . All seemed to be going very well and t a string section and choir were being organised just for tonight.

The following edited highlights seem to make some kind of sense. Simon had been fingered as "managing" the band as well playing drums, so this was seemed like a way to get started.

Simon: Well I just starting doing it really because I was the original one who put the website up and then everyone just used to contact me and then I just carried on from there. I get hounded by people now and it’s got to the point where it’s tiring and you can't answer all the emails that you get. I feel a bit guilty about that. But yeh … I started booking all the gigs as well.

SS: So how will that all be resolved?

Simon: We've got a few people interested now and we just need to sign some papers I think, for managers and booking agents. So it will be resolved in the next few weeks.

SS: Is the band free to be able to do tours and other commitments?

Simon: We're all in full time employment, so its really hard at the moment

(Dave arrives, talking about string rehearsals and winging it. "It’ll be alright.")

Dave: I am Dave and I sing and play guitar in iLiKETRAiNS I'm 23 Capricorn I think we don’t sound like any other band. OK?

SS: We were talking about being available for full time gigs and so on …

Dave: We're in the transition stage I guess, hopefully. Obviously Simon has been doing a great job of managing us so far but it is a lot of strain on him and he needs to get his life back. We'd be happy for him to manage us but he needs to concentrate on hitting the drums hard so we're looking to find the right person. We're not in any hurry .. well I guess we are. But we're going to make sure choose the right person, someone who is into it. Not into the money aspect I guess. Although we would like some money as well.

SS: What is the "it" that a manager has to be into?

Dave: What is the "it"? … Hmm … they need to get what we're doing. I think our music assumes a certain level of intelligence from the listener. So they need to get it in that respect I guess.

Guy: I think for us, that as a band we're typically, as far as a record label would go, we're quite uncommercial. But we're trying to get ourselves into a commercial market I suppose. Not top of the pops, but make some records and make some money. And so we need someone who can believe in us and not just see a quick buck out of something because we're not that sort of music really. We are the sort of music that grows on people. And so we're not immediately sellable. It needs a manager and people behind us who understand the sort of ethos of the music and can give their full enthusiasm towards it and be prepared to wait and not sign a massive deal and sign massive publishing things straight away. But just work on it and build up the enthusiasm.

Dave: There certainly is a market for what we are doing. It’s just a matter of finding the people who will be into it. And that takes time. It’s not going to happen overnight. We're putting that work in now. The groundwork, going round the country and playing a few people here and a few people there and getting them to talk to their friends. And yeh, the manger – an ideal candidate needs to realise that this process is going to take time. That's just the main thing – and to be into the music. To believe that given the time and the effort we can produce the albums that we know we are capable of and the music that we know we are capable of. I don’t think we're there yet. Constantly getting better. I hope.

SS: Is there a bigger social, aesthetic political thing here? Like God Speed! maybe?

Dave: That we're not just trying to make pretty sounds, we're trying to say something at the same time? I hope so. Our music tells stories and they're generally tragedies really, I think we are attracted to the tragic elements of the songs we chose to write. We haven’t got any overt political message as a band if that's what you mean. We're not trying to change the world. I think we are telling people stories. You'll have noticed we often tell stories in the first person. We try and put ourselves into the shoes of the characters in the story and how they are feeling.

SS: Are you a learned band? Are you readers?

Dave: Alistair is! Yes, but not great thick things! I like to read biographies and autobiographies. And that leads to songs I guess.

SS: So what sources are you using for your songs. The Bobby Fisher song, for example?

Guy: Well that was me. It’s basically from the internet. Every morning when I get to work I check the headlines in the news on the BBC News website. And right down at the very end of one of those lists there was a story about a chess legend who was arrested in Japan and I was quite interested and read more about it. I had never heard of Bobby Fisher before, but just through the internet I started researching and found it really fascinating how he has been on the run from the CIA for 15 years or something now , for playing a game of chess. The story sounded quite ridiculous. As I read more and more I found a song developing in my head about the exploits of this chess player on the run from the American Government for the past 15 years as a result of just playing a game of chess. It started from there, and I told Dave about it and we started having ideas about how to write a song about a chess player. We thought it was quite a striking thing to write a song about because it was so non rock and roll. It’s different and it’s interesting. That's the thing for me.

SS: Your approach to song writing does seem to be different

Guy: Yes I think it is different. I was saying this the other day. For me it grew out of the fact that Dave had written "Stainless Steel" and I was so in awe that he had written this amazing story, this love ballad from the point of view of the woman killing her cheating boyfriend and I just didn’t feel as though I could compete with that sort of imagination. So I wrote "William's Last Breath" which was my counter to it, about William Huskisson, the first passenger to die on the British railway system. I find it easier to write a song about a real thing. I bought a book about it, I could read about it on the internet and I could research it. And therefore it didn’t need me to make anything up. It was all there for me just to put together into a song. And that's how I wrote "William's last breath" and ever since then I've just found it easy, and fun, to write a song about a real thing and a real person. Our song writing has developed through that. This chess song was a result of that. Just me trying to find a way of writing a song that is a good story. An where is there a better story than real life? So that's what we do basically now just take things out of what really happens because it's more unbelievable than anything you can make up I think. And it strikes a nerve with a lot of people. Just that there's a whole story behind it actually means something,. It’s not just making up a story . It’s a real story that really happened

Simon: It has worked pretty well for the single. People have latched on to the story. Numerous chess web sites talk about Bobby Fisher and talk about the song. It’s quite funny. And crazy.

Dave: Apparently the Abba musical "Chess" was about Bobby Fisher and Boris Sparsky. They changed the names for it. But this was written at a time before he played the game in Yugoslavia that got him in all this trouble. So it’s quite an interesting continuation of a musical. Abba and Time rice wrote a music about his life up to that point.

SS: Does this lead to a concept album?

Dave: (laughs) Well, we'll see. We haven’t discussed it. But when we're writing a song and doing all this research you have to narrow it down eventually to this one character whose perspective you’re wring it from. We're playing a new song tonight about Scott's expedition in Antarctica, his failed expedition. In doing the research for that song I found out about another character who was in the Norwegian expedition to the South Pole. He actually had a disagreement with Amundsen and got kicked off the expedition and had to go home. So when they got back to Norway he got very depressed and eventually he killed himself. So I'm toying with the idea of wring a companion piece to the first song. So you can always find, from the research we do, tangents where you can go off and write about. So somewhere there probably is, given the right subject, a concept album inside us, you know. I wouldn’t rule it out, but it’s nothing that we've talked about or plan to do.

You have to try and occupy the world these characters are living in order get the feelings across in the song, so it drags you in and it can be quite hard to leave it behind and move on to another subject. But as we write new songs the old ones seem to drop out of the set.

SS: Do you remember that really weird review you got for a very early gig, at the Vine I think it was?

Dave: Yes. Our first ever gig.

Guy: It was our first ever review, so we were a bit upset by it at but at the same time we spotted that it wasn't the most well-written review so we didn’t take it properly to heart. But it was our first review so it was a bit of a knock to the self esteem. We could tell from what the guy was saying that he didn’t really get it so it wasn't something that was really worth bothering about. But it still comes up if you search on Google if you search on our name that review still come up quite high on the list.

Dave: The thing I noticed is that the guy who did it doesn't do reviews anymore, so you have to wonder where he's got to.

I'm glad that we don’t connect with everyone. IT means we’re doing something right. It seems to fiercely divide opinion. No one is, like "Oh, they're all right". People are either "Really good, yeh, excellent" or "absolute … er …. whatever". I'm happy to be like that. No one wants to be like… who does everyone like? … well. Exactly.

SS: You came together as a band when you were all in Leeds for a variety of reasons, but is there any sense in which being part of Leeds music community for the last couple of years made a real difference to the band?

Dave: Well, yes. It took us a while to really get to know the people in the scene – the movers and the shakers, so as to speak. And we weren't sure if we would get embraced by a scene. But it has been really nice. A lot of the bands who do play around and who are beginning to get a bit of recognition really respect what we're doing and a lot people really enjoy it. And that's good. I really enjoy being a "Leeds Band" although none of us are not properly from Leeds it feels like a very nice community to be part of.

SS: Now that you're getting around the country more, do people elsewhere have expectations of you, knowing that you are a Leeds band?

Simon: On this tour people have been surprised. The press hadn’t really been done and we were the support band. But this part, with Redjetson we've found a really good response to both bands.

Guy: One thing we found a lot on the last tour, and a bit on this one was what you might call the Kaiser Chiefs Effect where everyone knows there's a good Leeds scene and so people do expect you to be good. I saw that in July for our last single. We had never toured before, we had only played London and Manchester and a few town. But we went all round the country and we were expecting to play empty venues but it was always quite busy. And I think the bands in Leeds are generally good and it’s so fiercely competitive, if you are seen as a good Leeds band then people think you are really good. And that is brought about by bands like The Kaiser Chiefs and the ¡Forward, Russians! And all these good bands from Leeds that have raised the stakes a little bit which puts you ahead of other towns. So if you are a Leeds band and you’re a big Leeds band then people just assume you are going to be good which is really helpful for gigs because people come to see you just out of interest. So The Kaiser Chiefs and Duels and everyone have done a lot of good for the scene especially as an out of town band, even though we sound noting like them,. That's what I like about the Leeds scene, although it’s really close knit but it's just diverse. There are very bands that sound the same. Other towns like Manchester and Bristol there/s a sound that the bands have – and that's the scene. And in Leeds it's not the sound at all - its just the commitment to making good music and that's what I like about it and why I live here. . It’s just brilliant that all these bands that just sound completely different are just good and get on well and keep doing music. There's a lot of mutual respect and support for bands that I wouldn't normally be into but you get to know them and get into it.

SS: Well there was an example just now - what was happening earlier with Yellow Stripe Nine turning up for a rehearsal?

Guy: (chuckles - well we are doing a song tonight called the Beeching Report, the B side to our single. And we wanted a choir so we got all the people we knew from bands as far as possible to come along and sing for us and tried to organise a rehearsal. I had told Yellow Stripe Nine (foolishly as it happens) that we were going to have time for a practice before we go on … but that's not going to happen now. But It's another good thing about Leeds – everyone is wiling to help each other. I'm producing the b side to Yellow Stripe Nine's next single. I've been seeing a lot of them. Everybody just helps everybody. There's no tension between bands. You get towns where all the bands are really competitive and the y hate each other. In Leeds everyone embraces other bands and helps where possible. Which think is really really good.

SS: Has anyone bought the single?

Dave: They're all gone apparently. About 200 were sold in London before midday on Monday. I don’t know who would get up on a Monday morning and think "I want to buy the iLiKETRAiNS single" .. but yeh, that nice. We went to number 38 in the Indie Charts (laughs)

Simon: Yes, the bar code didn’t scan on half of them we hear, but it still got to number 38 in the indie chart., which is quite nice.

SS: What next, then?

Simon: We’re going to demo some songs for a producer who has shown an interest, with a hope to release some songs on an EP in March or April. But it won't be cheap (more laughter)

SS: So no rush then?

Dave: No, I don’t think so, we've done two single now and we've played  two tours, So hopefully people won’t forget us in the few months that it will take to record and write it. I don’t think our style off music is ever going to be in fashion, so I don't think it can go out of fashion either. There's not a time window where we need to get something out.

SS: There's something different with this single though. I sense something in the air.

Dave: Really, in what respect? I think that the perhaps the subject matter is more defiant because this guy Bobby Fischer fought with the CIA and he was arrested, but he's still a free man. He's living in Iceland. He sought refuge in Iceland and they granted it. So it’s quite defiant in that respect. But we've grown in confidence too.

SS: Did you send him a copy?

I'd be interested to know if he's heard of us. Maybe we should have ... I don’t know. He might not like it. He had some questionable political views that I'm not going to go into. I did want to send it to some Icelandic radio stations. He's quite big news there. He put Reykjavik on the map when he played a big championship game there. We'll see,

SS: Anything else on your mind at present?

Simon: On the question of Leeds bands helping each other out - 0n the ¡Forward, Russia! tour, they've got a massive 28 day tour. They are taking a lot of Leeds bands with them, sharing their success with them and helping put other Leeds bands n the map. The names aren’t all confirmed yet, but it's nice of them to be doing that.

SS: What about the Railway story.? It’s in the name, and it’s in the uniform How long will that last?

Guy: Well the whole name thing came about as a sort of joke . Me and Dave have been together musically for about eight years, writing and recording. Its only in the last two years that we have formed iLiKETRAiNS so iLiKETRAiNS was just a working title for everything we've written. We've written the best part of about 50 songs together now and have been writing and recording together at home for years. It was always the name that we called ourselves. Because it was a bit obtuse. We couldn’t think of anything better. And when we got Simon and Alistair and Ashley and we started becoming a real band we never changed it. We do find that having the name is quite helpful because it’s striking. And like the music it does divide people. People either thing it’s the worst band name they've ever heard or it’s the beset. But their er way they remember it. Which is really good. And it lends itself to the British Rail thing and the grimy England sort of working class scene.

It’s nice to have geographical location to music and we try and be English. I think that's something different to a lot of post rock contemporary bands that are just trying to be the next Sigur Ros. That's something we are not trying to do really. We are taking what they have done and are running with it in a different direction.

The name was never a thought-out thing, It was just the name we chose, but it was useful because people remembered our name. It was different. It lead into the whole Beeching Report idea of the British railway system and it’s got bigger implications in terms of society, which we don’t delve into too deeply. But it's nice for a listener to take that from it and to think what they will from the name and what we do with the British Rail iconography. And songs like the Beeching Report and William's Last Breath are based very centrally on the railways. I think it’s quite a good pace to be really. The railways have always defined British engineering and prowess in the world. There's is a lot of depth to picking one subject and sticking to it. The railways are good because, among other things, I really love the architecture.

We did a gig in Wakefield recently near the Westgate Railway Station, which is completely beyond repair. It’s a grand Victorian railway Station which is now completely beyond repair. It's terrible. But you get nice feeling on the platforms in this really grand architecture that has been laid waste and is just decaying around you. It gives me a lot of inspiration – those windy platforms.