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After having finished touring in Japan earlier this year and playing Wire’s Drill: London festival, Comanechi members Akiko (aka Keex) and Simon caught a breather before launching into their latest UK tour, in support of recently released album You Owe Me Nothing But Love, out now on Tigertrap Records.
As well as discussing the recording of the album we spoke about the serendipitous origin of the album art, playing with the Holloways and being set on fire by ageing punks. Arriving at Keex’s Stoke Newington abode, a former minicab office converted into an art rock bolt hole, we’re greeted by a trifecta of dogs, Edward, Barbara and Pasty.
Patsy is something of the unofficial fourth member of the band (Comanechi is completed by new drummer, Charlie) and is the white poodle depicted on the album’s striking cover, which Keex has framed and hung in her room. She’s also the subject matter of an eponymous song, an eight-minute bludgeoning that sits in the album’s centre and is perhaps the track that sticks in your mind the most upon a first play of the album.
We settle down as the canines jostle for position on the floor and begin the interview…
This is your first album you’ve recorded as a three piece. How did the process differ from doing the last album, which was recorded live?
Simon: It was recorded as live. We worked those songs out over the first two or three years of our existence and just recorded them as we’d been playing them. With this album we’d decided that we wanted to expand to a three piece and have a drummer. But we wrote and recorded ourselves and Charlie joined us …
Keex: … after we were finishing off the album, 24 Hour Boyfriend and Patsy, we still hadn’t recorded. Those songs we did with Charlie.
Patsy is something of a standout track in that it’s a bit of a litmus test. It’s so full on …
Simon: I’m glad you say that. That song and Death Threat for me my two favourites.
After Patsy, you get some much gentler music afterwards, almost like a balm for what’s come before.
Keex: Last night, weirdly, after working in a restaurant I listened to the album. I’d never had time to relax or anything after the tour, I’ve just been too busy. I was on my own last night just listening to the whole album again. You don’t immediately want to listen back to your album as soon as you’ve recorded it, so it was the first time I’d listened to it all the way through! I was listening on my headphones and it just built up from the start all the way up to Patsy and I was like “Oh my God… Oh wow.” Track orders are always important. You wouldn’t want something like Patsy from the start…
Did you consider the structure of the album beforehand?
Keex: No, not until everything came together and we’d got all the tracks done, you know?
Simon: Both of us are people who are into albums, LPs. So when we were doing the tracklisting, we think in terms of the album as a whole. So what you just spoke about, we thought about building to certain points. But also there’s the Prologue and Epilogue tracks here. We want you to kind of enter this Comanechi world through the Prologue and come out the other side.
Who did the artwork for the new album?
Keex: This guy called Bob Nozawa. He lives in SF. His wife Naoko Nozawa is really famous in Japan. She used to be a stand-up comedian and did weird music as well. But she moved to New York and met Bob. She was really popular in the 80s and the early 90s. She goes back to Japan every now and then to make some more money because everyone still knows her. So Bob isn’t really that famous at all. However somehow he found me on Facebook and we became friends. One day I was going through requests with a Japanese friend, she went, “Oh my God! Bob Nozawa. Why haven’t you added him, he’s the husband of Naoko Nozawa.” So I added him and we started having a chat. He read my blog and got into what I do. I didn’t ask him to, but he sent me a painting of me, a portrait with my cat I used to have.
(Called Interspecies Vignette Illustrating the Pain and Ultimate Futility of Beauty and/or Life or Keex and the Bad Pussy)
When I saw this I was like, “I’m going to get him to do the cover.” And we were nearly finished with the album, so it was great timing.
I didn’t notice immediately, but after looking at the art a few times I started noticing things like the severed penis on the floor next to some scissors …
Keex: Actually, it was just a plain green wall at the start. No shit on the floor or anything. I asked him to add more things. It needed more offensive images.
It compliments the album well, because while the music is catchy and accessible, every now and then these shocking lyrics leap out at you.
Keex: On the first album I only used very simple words and anger, very simple emotions. Punk anger. But I was listening to different bands, stuff that I wouldn’t normally listen to. Like The Drums. I went on tour with them with The Big Pink –and their lyrics are both obvious but not obvious and honest. So I thought why can I not be more honest this time? I shouldn’t feel like I should have to wrap up … Sometimes my lyrics are a bit twisted because I was a bit shy before. It’s hard being the singer, sometimes its hard to express. I just want to be more honest and share.
The music on this album comes across as more instant and catchy than on Crime of Love.
Simon: Both with the lyrics and the music, we wanted everything to have more depth and be an album that’s going to sit on your Top 20 or 30 albums next to your stereo for a long time, not just a couple of weeks. So we were really hard on ourselves making sure there were words for every verse rather than just repeating a phrase. With overdubs we were going in and adding that little bits to every second or third chorus to make sure that everything is always building up. Essentially we produced it ourselves. We kind of figured out from the first album what we wanted to do. At the same time, we had more songs that are actually on the album but we had the freedom to remove songs and parts of songs
How did you meet Charlie?
Keex: (At) Gunfactory Studios, where we rehearse. Charlie’s uncle runs it. It’s not far from here and loads of bands big and small use it. Faris from The Horrors other band, Cat’s Eyes, Big Pink a couple of times … Once I saw the Holloways name up on the booking board!
Simon: I’ve just remembered, we played a show with them once. It was that Sex Pistols show at St. Martin’s Hall. They were headlining and somebody set me on fire during the set … I was wearing this crazy nylon jumper. It was to celebrate the opening of the Hall as a music venue that had been shut since the 70s and it was the 25th anniversary of the Sex Pistols playing there. We turned up and there was this f**king picket line round the place and we didn’t know what was going on. It turned out that the organiser had banned pupils from St. Martin’s College from going to it, but had invited loads of press down …
So none of the students could get in?
Simon: People were heckling us as we went in and we were like “Should we do this?” So we did it, and all these kind of mid-50s speed and cider-fuelled punks turned up and just trashed the place. I remember we were playing and full cans were hurling past our heads. Then this cigarette butt came flying out of the crowd and caught me … I smelt smoke, looked down and then more cigarette butts came. I remember thinking at the time this is the total opposite of what it should have been. All the kids were outside, forming a picket line, there was a stand off with security and we were being set on fire …
by Thomas Newton
All images Sachio Hata
Comanechi are just back from their latest UK tour. Hopefully the punk rock relics stayed at home.
You Owe Me Nothing But Love is out now on Tigertrap Records