Interview with Spider Webb of The Horrors

Words: Alyssa Thralls // Photos: Tara Thralls

[Conducted in San Francisco, June 2007]

The Horrors are, for all accounts and purposes, a band misunderstood. Drug-fuelled rock n roll orgies with blood and coffins is not exactly what one encounters upon entering the world of The Horrors. Instead their time off is spent driving through the mountains of Los Angeles to see the reunion of 60s psychedelic outfit The Strawberry Alarm Clock, and on their bus the excessively polite South-Londoners sit in black-clad rows typing away on their laptops.
When I told a friend of mine recently that I planned to interview The Horrors and expected them to be a far more interesting and compelling interview than my upcoming tête-à-tête with Arctic Monkeys, he said 'this is The Horrors we are talking about, isn't it?'. An understandable reaction, based upon the media perception of them as a novelty band, a goth-punk version of The Archies if you will. But a quick listen to the spooky-psychedelic ramblings of 'Gil Sleeping' or the Gang of Four meets The Fall majesty of 'Excellent Choice' tells you this is a band with a bit more on their minds than being pin-ups for NME readers who wear eyeliner. I sat down with organist Rhys Webb and asked him about this misconception. He felt their music spoke for itself...
"From the offset, from the word go, we did run into that kind of problem. At the time I think it was, for some people more than others, really annoying - I found it really annoying. We all just felt, when the album comes out, that's what's gonna be the turning point, that will hopefully change people's perception. And not everyone [was negative], for people that actually are into music and music history and music that doesn't just span the last 5 years, The Libertines etc, people who look beyond that, can actually see in the aesthetic, the roots and where it's actually coming from, so I think for some people, it's not really a question. But others who aren't necessarily aware of our musical background, or our tastes, who find it slightly out there, who obviously probably don't know better than to have that immediate opinion, so you know, at first it was something that really pissed me off. Then I said let's just wait for the album, 'cause we'd only released stuff on vinyl, there were quite limited runs, people couldn't always hear it. And people probably saw more pictures, or read more about us, than heard the music. People who couldn't look further into it, just went for that immediate thing, missed the point completely. But anyway, the album has been kind of greatly received across the board from critics and fans and a lot of opinion as far as I'm concerned has changed. But, at the same time we're never gonna appeal to everyone, and we don't even want to. I don't want to be in Arctic Monkeys or Oasis or, god forbid, something like Coldplay. I know that's what most bands would say but, to be honest, the idea of mediocrity is something that scares me very much. I'd rather sit on one side of someone's fence and I'll quite happily sit on the [side of] hatred, I quite enjoy that. Especially if you're playing gigs, if you're supporting bands or doing an NME tour for example and you get a lot of people that really hate you, it actually makes you play much better show, and then the people that love you get really into it. I think it's quite a good position to be in."

 

However, not everyone judges the monochromatic flåneurs harshly. In fact some do rather enjoy their look, your correspondent included. Thus the question of hair products seemed inevitable, and it was revealed that Spider, Tom and Coffin Joe all claim to use no product whatsoever, whilst Joshua's ragamuffin poof is held aloft with the use of grease, talcum powder and a ratting comb. Only the scraggly hair of singer Faris has succumbed to the devilish charms of hairspray, much to the chagrin of his bandmate.

Rhys (aka Spider) revealed further nuggets to set the messageboards alight when questioned as to how The Horrors came upon their name
"We were all sitting round at the time at Tom's house, after literally our second rehearsal, we decided we were gonna play a gig as well and we didn't have a name. So we're all sitting on his bed watching TV afterwards, it was probably a Sunday night, and I just, it just rolled off the tongue. What about The Horrors? We were obviously talking about loads of things - oh yea, actually, we were once [called something else], Faris & Tom were known as The Brothers Grimm. As a kinda DJ team, but then there was a film that was called The Brothers Grimm so, we were [originally] gonna be the Brothers Grimm, but when the film came out that went out the window, but you know, thank god, cause it's really a crap name anyway, so. But that's it, that's what it was before. In fact, on MySpace there is actually a page that says The Brothers Grimm that we set up and tried to delete that just floats around with no music or anything, Faris set it up.
But the fanatics on the messageboards all know about this page of course?
I don't think they do actually, I don't think anyone does. There's your scoop. We'll be sure to delete it before this thing goes to print. Although it's just a blank page really."

Delving further into the more experimental side of The Horrors we questioned him as to whether the notoriously fast-moving band ever did any 'jams'
"Last night [in LA] there was a track at the end that we played that was more of a psychedelic freak out, it was verging on more of a kind of Velvet Underground thing than a pacified idea of a jam, but in the studio, when we're rehearsing, if Faris is wandering around or you know pops out to do an email or something we do play a lot of quite mad psychedelic music like really early Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett-era, like Interstellar Overdrive or The Silver Apples, an American band from NY that experimented with a lot of electronics. We kind of do these mad psychedelic jams which are very unlike the Horrors, just loads of strange noises and kind of pulsing rhythms and then Faris comes back in and says 'What are you doing? Get back to work!'
Do you ever play Gil Sleeping live?
No, we don't, no. That song came out of a jam actually.
Yea, that makes sense, it's very different, more psychedelic, it reminds me of Can actually.
That's it. Cause when we recorded the album we were quite eager to make an LP in a kind of classic album idea of an album that you kind of start with and end with and you have the journey throughout and it wasn't an idea that we wanted to kind of pack it with singles or radio-friendly hits, that wasn't an interest of ours. So, you know, things like Gil Sleeping, was just a way of exploring what you can actually do with an album as a journey more than just a package.
Like Excellent Choice?
Yes, exactly, that one is the same kind of idea.

This reporter wears 'fancy dress', as the kids are calling it, on a daily basis, but nonetheless spent a fair bit of time agonizing over what to wear to see The Horrors, so it was asked if in fact many people dress up to come and see the well-coiffed band....
"Yea they do actually, and I think it's great cause fashion is a reaction to music. That's a natural thing, this is something that has always been [part of music] from day one, that's why I find this argument that you've spoken of quite amusing myself, like, can people really actually not see beyond that? Perhaps it's just a bit too much for some people.

 For me my fashion is about trying to show my individuality
And that's very much linked to what you listen to, and why you're involved in music, and what you listen to at home, and why you're doing this interview now, it's all completely relative."

For all the technical nerds out there we asked Rhys a bit about his organ...
Do you play a Hammond?
"I have a Vox Continental. I can't travel with it though so I'm using a Hammond tonight. I've also got a Vox Jaguar which is like my stand in, this one is just hired, a digital analog modelling thing. For the next tour I'm gonna buy a Vox keyboard and store it over here.

Have you always played keyboards?
No, I used to play bass in a band when I was really young. Not really young, I was 14. Well, I guess that is pretty young. Then in Southend it was hard to find people who would actually get bands together so I used to record a lot of kind of home stuff and it was quite electronic and quite weird, I'd kind of set up drums and I'd just play everything myself but I certainly can't play guitar and stuff, I used to just play a bit of stuff on there, so I think I was kind of playing more of a synthesizer before a keyboard. But the organ has always been my favourite instrument in garage music or jazz or something. For me the organ is probably the most natural instrument, and my favourite instrument to play I think.
It's funny how you stumble into things, cause I did actually think I would probably not be in a band, cause the Horrors didn't happen til a couple of years ago. I had actually got to the point where; I always thought I'd end up being in a band, and then I actively thought 'Oh, shame I've missed that one, I'm not gonna do that.' that was before The Horrors started, so it's funny how it works out cause I wasn't even necessarily playing 100% before. That's what's kind of cool about this band, things happen in a good way and it seemed to have just been right, from the people meeting the people and the name of the group, everything, finding the instrument, it's all been a nice smooth journey and that's before even thinking about releasing records."

Champions of new music as we are here at No-OrdinaryMusic it was a natural ask if there were any new bands we should be listening to
"Yes there are! There's a band called These New Puritans, They're great. They're from South-end-on-Sea which is where me, Josh and Joe come from. Also The Guillotines, who we had support us.
Not the Guillemots?
No, no, not them, no way. The Guillotines. They're kind of a bit like Screaming Jay Hawkins meets The Sonics, really heavy rocking blues and garage.
We've just been playing with a band called Dandi Wind from Montreal who played with us in Europe, and they're a completely different style, electronic two piece, and they're amazing too. There's always great bands, it's funny, you don't get to hear about a lot of them really, but we're lucky enough to stumble across a few."

This reporter, and her mum, were more than a little relieved to have had such a fascinating first interview, Rhys even gave us some tips for our future work for No-OrdinaryMusic; cautioning strongly against my idea to wear a 'Fuck Arctic Monkeys' shirt to go interview them, and suggesting instead that Maximo Park, who's "intellect lies a bit deeper" might find it more amusing.

Later on in the evening I was surprised by Rhys' unique performance, he spun around the stage, leaping and dancing the part of a ghoul or zombie. Alas, his spooky movements seemed to often go unnoticed by the audience of rowdy drunks, hell bent on moshing with a certain No-OrdinaryMusic correspondent and oogling Faris' antics. Perhaps, Faris' mad hair, mangled crowd surfing and destruction of the club's disco ball, next to Rhys' well kept appearance and charming horror-film character dancing, is a metaphor for the band and how people perceive them. Seemingly opposite ideas held at once; tidy and messy, punk and psychedelic, goth and mod, black and white. They are calculating and self-aware, but by their own means, not as the industry pop-tarts one could so easily pigeon-hole them as. The Horrors are a unique experience in a musical landscape cluttered with Kooks and Fratellis and all manner of other bands with no care for musical history or even an interest in a unique style or aesthetic, and perhaps you'll find there's a bit more to them than you expect.

 

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