On The Road With The Motorettes

With their relentless UK tour coming to an end and a debut album on the cards, The Motorettes are feeling buoyant, if a little tired from last nights pre-end of tour antics. Sat outside in a bustling Manchester park we dodge the screaming children playing in the nearby fountain to talk about music, their plans for the future and… cider.

Jed and Jack are brothers who hail from the small Teeside town of Tynemouth, outside Newcastle. They met Robin, who lives on a nearby street and decided to form a band. That’s the short version, Jed helps fill in the blanks: “The main reason is I had a friend that was in the band before Jack joined. He said to me ‘my friend Robin’s been in America for a bit, he’s come home and wants to join a band. You’re the only person in town that plays the drums, do you want to do it?’” Robin chips in: “The other lad lasted about 10 minutes because he was rubbish!” These American influences crop up all over The Motorettes music, with their much reported love of 50s and 60s girl bands and structured harmonies. Jed’s brother Jack started out as a drummer but, as the band needed a bass player he bought a bass and taught himself how to play.

Summing up their music Robin described them as: “Fast melodic, pretty pop songs”. He adds: “We basically don’t try to sound like anything and we’ve just steadily evolved over the years and taken out all the rubbish that we don’t need. We’re just like unashamed pop really”. Jack interjects: “Lots of energy and lots of melody and lots of loud guitars. That the idea really”. The banter flows thick and fast as Robin adds: “Not trying to be cool about it. Although we are damn cool!”.

Hailing from the North East with catchy choruses and looping vocals set against a backdrop of crashing drums they draw inevitable comparisons to bands like The Futureheads. It’s something The Motorettes are used to, but evident by the collective sigh that emits from the group, something they’ve grown tired of hearing. Robin says: “I really like them as a band I think the only reason that people say we sound like them is because we’re from the North East and because more than one of us sings at the same time. It’s just lazy journalism”.
 
Gigwise changes tack and probes them about their current listening habits. Robin says: “Kubichek! who we’re on tour with are ace. I say this all the time but I’ve just recently started listening to loads of 60’s girl groups like The Shirelles and The Ronettes and The Bobettes and all like all the 50’s Rock 'n' Roll stuff. And it’s because of all the tunes. It’s all about the song”. He adds: “It’s weird, like I was reading this book at the moment and its all about like the songwriting teams behind them. Although the groups were class and the musicians were class it’s weird because it’s so much about the song. It’s about the songwriter and the song and not necessarily the faces of people who do it. I just like the fact that it’s all about having a good tune. Which I think a lot of people just forget about. There’s so much effort into like, looking a certain way and having a certain sound, people like forget to have good songs”.

The group aren’t afraid to experiment with sounds and wear their influences on their sleeves. But don’t people find it weird that a self-styled rock and roll band borrows most of their influences from girls? Robin replies: “I don’t think so. I mean we’ve shown up at gigs where people have expected us to be girls. Don’t get us wrong there’s lots of groups with boys in that I like. It’s the harmonies, girl groups have got the harmonies, really quite like intricate harmonies and like two melodies going on at once. And that’s kind of what we take from them.” He continues: “I mean a lot of the time it’s not like I’m the lead singer and Jacks not the lead singer. It’s like for the most part we’re both singing at the same time in different melodies that go with each-other. I think that kind of the main influence from that stuff isn’t it.