Gigwise Does The Research

The Research don’t like Gigwise very much.  Well particularly Russell (Vocals and keyboards) "Are you from Gigwise? Oh man I hate gigwise!".  Apparently, one of our more cloth eared reviewers made a rather damaging mistake in their review of the Camden Crawl. "He said we were amusing but never enthralling which I suppose is fair enough because its their opinion but then he said that they keep the audience amused with lyrics like ‘get your teeth out of my penis’, I would never write a line like that.  It makes me sick to think that someone will read it and think that I would.  I think ‘I can trust you like a shark/get your teeth out of my heart (the actual lyric, unnamed Gigwise hack) is much better.  How can you confuse 'penis' and 'heart?" "Yeah, find out who it was!" Sarah (Drums, Vocals) adds.  Quite.  Apologies all round then.

Despite starting on a somewhat sour note, it appears that we have caught The Research in a good mood.Fresh off stage after playing at Nottingham’s own version of the said crawl, the Dot-to-Dot festival, talk turns to the serious important side of making music on pawn shop instruments, the genius of, ahem, Bruce Springsteen (except when he goes a bit blue) and toying with cheeky A&R men...

Gigwise: How would you describe the sound of the band? In five words?
Russell: "hmm… mediocre?"
Sarah: "Pop!"
Russell: "Metal…mediocre, pop metal"
Sarah: "Disco?"
Russell: "Pretence... put pretentious before disco.  That’s it, mediocre pop metal pretentious disco!"

Really it’s a delightful blend of short, sharp pop hooks, composed on the most bare bones of equipment.The Research have a pop aesthetic, but with an honest and insightful edge. And it seems it comes from the most unlikely of places…

Gigwise: Who would you say are your most important bands and influences?
Russell: "Sarah went to see Bruce Springsteen last night."
Sarah: "I like him a whole lot." (she burst into a fit of laughter)
Russell: "I quite like him, does Georgia (Bass, off to get some food) like him? She likes the classics but she doesn’t like his perverted songs."
Sarah: "I don’t want you to print that in case Bruce Springsteen comes onto Gigwise and realises that I’ve said his songs are perverted!"

We're sure the old 'perv' won’t mind…

Gigwise: You seem to have a pretty D.I.Y approach to making music, is it right that your keyboard cost 9 quid?
Russell: "Yeah, I’m actually using a one pound one at the moment, the nine pound one is in pieces, it's in a right old mess. I found out that you could whack the keyboard on your lap and it triggers all the sensors which made this (Russell makes an odd high pitched whooping sound) noise and rings out all the notes, but now the 9 pound one doesn’t do that any more. When you bash it now it starts the drum loops beats off which is completely useless."

Gigwise: Well it adds a random element…
Russell: "That’s true I suppose."

Gigwise: Is it right that Sarah couldn’t play the drums either when you first got started?
Sarah: "Yeah it’s kind of true, I had lessons when I was eleven, then didn’t play for years and years, so I guess its true that I couldn’t play when we got together."

Gigwise: Weren’t the bass and the drums borrowed at the start as well?
Sarah: "They still are!"
Russell: "The bass is ours now, we have a nice one now, it’s a nice piece of musical equipment (goes off on a tangent about the properties of a certain brand of Bass guitar) it seemed like a good investment.
Sarah: "The bass drum is still borrowed, so is the snare."
Russell: "But the snares broke anyway."

Gigwise: How has the tour been?
Sarah: "We were on tour with Maximo Park, The Go! Team.  I really liked the Go! team dates, we really liked our time with them but I’m not sure if we are just saying that because…"
Russell: "We really liked them?"
Sarah: "Yeah, playing at the Electric Ballroom was really nice; it was a good venue to finish off in. The Mystery Jets were lovely company as well; they were smaller gigs that we played with less people there so that was good."

Gigwise: Is it right that you were supported by Girls Aloud once?
Russell: "They run a club night in Liverpool at the university…"
Sarah: (clarifying) "Girls aloud don’t, its just a club night."
Russell: "Sorry yeah, it’s at the Academy, which is a really big room which holds about 2000 people and they put big pop acts on in there like Girls Aloud and pay them a fortune. They finish at 9 o’clock so they can go and get some beauty sleep and all the punters come into this little room just behind it where bands like The Research play…I heard they did a good show though."
Sarah: "Yeah they warmed the crowd up really good for us! I think we should thank them!"

Gigwise: Another rumour is it right you sold one of your early demos to Sony? And you still have the cheque?
Russell: "To be honest, I’d been in a lot of bands before The Research as a guitar player and I was never allowed to sing because they didn’t think I was very good.  I spent quite a few years with other bands trying to get a record deal and I just thought that my time was over so I’d pretty much given up on that.  Then I started playing with The Research and we just suddenly started getting calls from A&R men in London who had been told we were good by some promoter of a venue in Leeds, so they thought they would phone us up and get a demo, which I thought was pretty cheeky.  I mean why should we give away out music to them?"

Gigwise: What was the going rate then?
Russell: "Two songs on it, two pounds.  I kept the cheque from Sony; they were the only ones that sent one actually.  I told them you send the cheques and I’ll send the CD’s and then kind of sent the CD’s off first…"

Gigwise: Not exactly sound business then…
Russell: (Laughs) "Nah, I guess not."

Gigwise: This ones for you Russell.  On the bio on your web site it says you added ‘The Disaster’ after your name.  Can you explain?           
Russell: "I didn’t actually change my name by deed poll or anything…"

Gigwise: What’s the significance of the ‘disaster part then’?
Russell: "My mum always calls me a disaster.  My brothers are very academic and were very successful from an early age…"

Gigwise: So blame the parents then?
Russell: "She loves me, but she says I’m a disaster.  It’s probably true; I mean I do feel like a disaster sometimes, I suck people into my life then mess things up for them."
Sarah: "I’m alright Russell!"
Russell: "You’re not really are you? Look what you’re doing for a living! You’re poor and lonely all the time, and it’s my fault."

Gigwise changes the subject before things get too emotional…

Gigwise: Let’s talk about the Album.  You recorded it with John McEntire (Tortoise, Stereolab) in Chicago, how was that?
Russell: "It was brilliant."
Sarah: "He just let us be The Research really, which was the best thing about it.  We’d be like, can we try this? Or do that? And he’s just said ‘yup’ go ahead."
Russell: "Chicago was really easy to navigate around; the food was really good…"
Sarah: "And we went up a couple of high buildings."
Russell: "Yeah I had a Manhattan up the top of a really high building."

Gigwise: What’s the album going to be called?
Russell: "I think its going to be called ‘breaking up’."

Gigwise: What’s the significance of that? Who picked it?
Russell: "With your first album... it feels like the most important thing, I mean my life for the past two years has been building up to releasing this album and to come up with a name for it is just a really hard thing to do. I want it to reflect the songs, me individually and the band and our relationship, then you think all these things and end up coming up with the most pretentious names and I don’t want that... ‘Breaking up’ seemed to be not that pretentious, I think you can read more into it than is initially there."
Sarah: "A few people might just say it’s called that because of the chorus of the first song I guess."
Russell: "We’re going to break up after we’ve released it."
Sarah: "Yeah, I’m going to become a country singer in Nashville."

Gigwise: You could meet Bruce Springsteen!
Sarah: (bowled over by the idea) "Oh my god"
Russell: (laughing) "Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about Sarah! It’s called Reno! (in a fit of giggles) its one of his dirty ones."

Gigwise: So what’s the future for The Research then guys?
Russell: "Hopefully we’ll have split up, but still be talking to each other.  Sarah will have a solo album on the way; I’m going to go back to working at my dad’s car garage."

Gigwise: It's all rock and roll then?
Russell: "Yeah!"
Sarah: "And Georgia will still be kissing boys.  What would she have said if she was here? She’d say: ‘I like being drunk, I like boys and I hate Russell!"

On that note, Gigwise leaves The Research to enjoy the rest of their evening safe in the knowledge that we might have won them back around.  That is unless Bruce is an avid reader then we could be in a whole world of trouble…