Pirates show their colours

Sarah Stead • Published 3 Dec 2009 09:00 0 Comments

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Interview

I THINK we're one of the least rock and roll groups of people I know," says Peter Hefferan, guitarist with Reading's finest exports Pete And The Pirates, over a pint in The Oakford.

This comes just after, on being asked for some wild tour anecdote, fellow guitarist David Thorpe tells me about the time the band got to the Eurotunnel en route to Paris and realised bassist Pete Cattermoul was wearing odd socks. He backtracks: "That's actually probably the least cool story I could have told you."

Peter chips in, "We've definitely had more un-rock and roll moments than rock and roll moments, but most of our stories involve Pete C. Later that evening in Paris we lost him for a few hours and when he came back he had lovehearts drawn over his face. The next morning he realised he had them all over his body...We still have no idea how it happened."

Nevermind the lovehearts, these five lads from Reading have been gigging in New York, supporting Maximo Park all over Europe, working hard on their eagerly-awaited second album and they reckon they played 228 gigs in 2008. So how did THAT happen?

Peter looks at David: "I've been going round to your house to play guitar for 9 years now."

"Everybody would be round at my house all making songs separately," says David. "All of us wrote songs and just helped each other out with them and then slowly we became a band and started playing each other's songs together. The second album is more of a group effort and the themes are slightly different.

"On the first record there's a lot of fairly innocent songs about things like girls, and sleeping. We were trying to make something interesting out of the fairly mundane, it was the sort of music that I suppose comes from living in somewhere like Reading. The new stuff is more developed because we've developed as people I suppose."

"Our first two gigs were only our friends, it was like practice," says Peter, but their next gig is their Christmas homecoming show at Reading's newest venue, Sub89 on Friar Street, which they are very excited about...

"With a venue like that, Reading bands can support bigger bands which was vital for us," says David. "When we started we had some friends in bigger bands so we were playing to bigger crowds from the start which really helped. We're hugely looking forward to the gig. When we started as a band our second and third gigs were in pubs at Christmas and it was cosy inside and cold outside. I really like the idea of doing that at Christmas - and in our hometown. Hopefully it'll be more like a Christmas party than a gig.

"I'm genuinely really excited! I guess we don't play here very much and it's a new venue and I get excited when things happen in Reading. It's good to make something exciting happen here."

Peter adds: "It's going to be the biggest Reading gig we'll have done so its about us saying to everyone: 'We're still here, thanks, and here's our songs.'"

Which songs you'll hear at the gig - and which versions - is anybody's guess, though.

"We argue about which are our best songs so much, even when we're trying to write a set list," says Peter. "We change our songs quite a lot, including the old ones. We realise quite quickly what the problems are so it's constantly in flux. A similar thing has happened with this album and some of the songs we've been playing for years but they'll still be new on the album - even if you've seen every gig, ever, it'll still be new."

David agreed: "We do constantly change our songs till we reach a point where we go - yeah, that's how it should be for the time being. We recorded the first album maybe 3 years ago - I was looking at some of our set lists recently where we've only played three old songs and the rest were new."

"I think the new songs are more interesting, there's more going on in them," says Peter. "Our first album was almost childlike because of the way it came together but this time maybe we've put a bit more thought into it.

"It's more exploratory, whereas our first album's very much like - TADA!"

The band are taking their sweet time over the second album - at the moment they're working with around 17 tracks and hope to be able to record the whole thing by the end of January - but it's with good reason.

David says: "Our only ambitions when we started were just to write songs and record them for our friends. The idea's still the same, our goal is to write songs we're really happy with. If we don't sell one million records it doesn't matter."

"The important thing is we do as much as we can to make the music we really like," says Peter. "I don't know how people are going to receive it but for me it's better. We're being so particular about this album but if we don't like it, there's no reward."

"We'd just have to play a load of songs we don't like for three years!" laughs David.

Despite their exponential success, this band's extreme down-to-earthness is part of their huge appeal - borne out by the fact they'll never renounce Reading. "I always cringe when people say we're a London band," says David. "I feel like our band is very much a product of being from Reading, we're made up of its good sides and its bad sides."

"We are who we are because we're from Reading," says Peter. He and David both live in the town, but brothers Tommy (vocals) and Jonny Sanders (drums) as well as Pete C all live in London. "We've tried to resist totally moving to London, it doesn't actually help you as a band," says David. "There's so many bands and venues that you could play for the rest of your life and not progress."

Peter says: "Plus, it's easier for us to get to practice in Old Street than our drummer who lives in Crystal Palace. I don't really fancy living there. Maybe if I was really rich!"

The band have a considerable number of professional music videos under their belt but it is their homemade film to accompany Knots that gets people talking most (see below).

"It was a really fun day, which you can tell from the video, and I think that's why people like it," says David. "We're quite precious about doing videos ourselves."

Peter says: "he last two videos we released properly, well the ideas were there but they weren't REALLY there. We prefer Knots and Lost In The Woods. Lost In The Woods isn't official, me and Jonny were just drunk one day. The best ones I think are when you can tell they're part of the person that's done it. It's like when your favourite bits of songs are when the lead singer's voice goes a bit weird. If you iron everything out it goes a bit meaningless."

"With all our stuff we don't like it being too polished," says David. "The bits of music that interest me are the bits of the artist you can see."

The boys never made a conscious decision to concentrate on the band full time, but their gigging as well as time spent recording made it impossible for them to hold down jobs. Peter, who first boarded a plane for a Pirates gig in Holland, says: "Before we did the band as a job I worked in a bar and was very happy. The other boys worked in offices and were very unhappy."

"All the other jobs I ever had were the least involved things I could find so I could go home and write music," agrees David. "If the band hadn't happened I don't think I'd be very successful, I'd probably just do music in my spare time and be really poor!"

Luckily the band did happen. But the sheer volume of performances they've done has conspired with the law of averages to mean they've had varied gig experiences to say the least...

"We've played in Holland, France, Spain and Italy quite a lot, and Italy keep asking us back which is great - we played on a beach there which is about as good as it gets. The best reception we've had was in Bristol but the worst was in Hitchin.

"We got treated so badly, to the point where our sound man was pushed down some stairs and they threatened to beat up our lead singer. And the place was full of 15-year-old thugs fighting each other. They took a real disliking to us!" he says.

The touring life is hardly one of luxury then, it would seem. "Once we drove for 16 hours to reach Berlin," says David. "When we got there we realised literally all the hotels were booked up for the marathon. We had to sleep in our van in a side road."

"We decided we might as well get as drunk as we could," says Peter. "Our tour manager slept in the boot with all the kit. He nearly died."

David says: "We don't ask for anything fancy when we do gigs, the rider is mostly beer and wine and rum. Sometimes socks because you run out on tour...

"It's embarrassing sometimes when we've played with bands with ridiculously bad attitudes. They always end up having a rubbish time because they have to pay for something they've needlessly smashed up."

"There's a fine line between being rock and roll and being a total idiot!" adds Peter.

After their New York gigs, Time Out NY said they were poised to become the indie darlings of 2010. So aside from finishing the album and becoming indie darlings, what else does next year hold? David says: "We've been offered a gig in Argentina and then to be driven to Chile, Mexico and up to America. I'm calling it a South American tour!"

Pete And The Pirates play at Sub89 on Sunday, December 13 with Worship and Exlovers. Doors are at 7pm and you can buy tickets (£7) here - http://bit.ly/7DIOcH

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