Preview
FUTUREHEADS
Thursday, April 14
MacEwan Hall (U of C)
Speaking to Barry Hyde of Futureheads, the vocalist-guitarist doles out references as briskly as the stylistic shifts heard on the Sunderland quartet’s self-titled debut. In the Futureheads’ world, blues great Billie Holiday rubs shoulders with noise merchant Steve Albini, minimalist composers influence the group’s distinctive vocal interplay and girls have proven more influential than boys.
The Futureheads return to North America for the fourth time since their debut, for a tour with the like-minded Hot Hot Heat (who cover the band’s "Decent Days and Nights") and an appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Although the Futureheads are seen as part of a new British Invasion – "Meantime" is heard on the hip U.K. compilation Future’s Burning alongside Franz Ferdinand and the Libertines, and up and comers Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs – Hyde is quick to distinguish the Futureheads from the flag-wavers of Brit pop and the view that the band exists only to supersede British-pop figureheads.
"We take as much from bands like Fugazi and Shellac as we do bands like XTC," Hyde says from London, a day before the band flies to Canada to begin the tour. "The one niggling thing that annoys me is the constant comparisons the band gets to the Jam, because we don’t cite them as an influence at all. In general, that’s the kind of band people say we sound like in the press, because they’re the band that everyone who reads the press has heard of."
Hyde is eager to point to the significant but short-lived female punk band The Slits as a greater influence on the Futureheads. Although The Slits’ progression from two-chord rants to Reggae-influenced material is in line with the Futureheads’ lurching eclecticism, Hyde expects the reason they are overlooked is a matter of gender.
"The Slits are one of the greatest new-wave punk bands of all time. I think the reason that people don’t make that comparison is because we’re boys and they’re girls. People always assume that bands with boys are only influenced by bands with boys in them."
The band also covered "Hounds of Love," Kate Bush’s 1985 U.K. No. 1 single, and it nabbed them the top slot on the New Musical Express singles chart in February. The song beat out other cover tracks vying for a slot on the Futureheads album, such as "Jumping Someone Else’s Train" by The Cure and the 1940 Billie Holiday number "I Hear Music" – which Hyde croons over the phone – as the album’s lone emblematic cover after bassist Jaff brought the song to the group on a mixed tape.
"Everybody fancied Kate Bush," he says with a laugh, when informed that Jaff said Bush was popular with the Futureheads’ fathers. "One of the reasons she gets overlooked as a creative force is because she is so beautiful and people look at her and think ‘oh, it’s just about the way she looks,’ but her music is some of the most interesting, outrageously adventurous pop music ever written."
The band still demonstrate a degree of laddish charm onstage, due in part to their five years together as much as a desire to drive each other further.
"It’s something we do to make it interesting for ourselves. Because it’s good-natured, it relaxes people a lot. It puts them in a good mood, because they can tell we’re having fun," says Hyde. "It helps us focus our songs as we’re playing them, because someone will say something about you on the microphone. You’ll play the next song really well and try a bit harder, so that someone else makes a mistake and then they become the target of ridicule for one song and then it goes on throughout a whole set."
In the U.K., underage fans can still be admitted to clubs. Hyde looks forward to more all-ages dates on this North American tour. The difference comes down to audience expectations, as he has seen in the U.K.
"They haven’t had enough time to formulate opinions and they’ve still got an abundance of energy and enthusiasm – outward enthusiasm for music. I think, as we get older, our appreciation of music becomes an inward thing rather than an outward thing. I can’t wait. All-ages shows are great." |
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