LITTLE COMETS

One Night In October (Tuesday night) Little Comets stopped off in Manchester on their UK tour. Designer Magazine caught up with them to talk about Morrissey, Halloween and their venture into the genre of ‘Slump Pop’.

Welcome back to Manchester, will you be bringing any new stuff with you?
Rob Cole: Yeah, we’ve got a few songs we’ve been playing at the last couple of gigs. It’s quite strange because recording something and playing it live is completely different. It’s hard to gauge the crowd reaction if you play after one they know well, you don’t know whether it’s come off worse, or it’s just because they’re not familiar with it.

So what’s the general reaction?
RC: I don’t know, I can’t tell. I guess we’ll just have to see.

Maybe you should hand out questionnaires?
Matt Hall: That’d be a good idea.
Mickey Cole: Maybe. I don’t think I’d pass, me.

Today is the resurrection of The Stone Roses. Do you have any thoughts on Manchester music, maybe a bit of a conspiracy?
RC: I don’t mind. I’m not really bothered where music comes from; I just think it’s either good music or bad music. You get bands that get together just because they’re from a certain place, but that’s silly though. We like coming to Manchester, not because of the music, just because it’s a nice place.

Really?
LC: Yeah!
RC: It’s like London without the pretence. It’s got electricity in the air. It’s weird, certain cities you go to are just not great, but Manchester seems like a really vibrant place. There are lots of young people here, which makes a difference.

You get labelled ‘kitchen sink indie’ a lot, what are your thoughts on that?
RC: I’m not really sure what it means. It might be a reference to kitchen sink dramas from the 80’s, where Morrissey lifted a lot of his lyrics from. The comment on domestic situations is relevant to our music lyrically, or it could just be that we kind of mention kitchens. And sinks. I think a lot of bullshit labels get attached to bands.
MC: I think every time there’s a new band, someone wants to create a new genre. There are some ridiculous genres out there.
RC: It’s just like putting a random selection of words in front of a random type of music.
Just like flicking through the dictionary, ‘that’ll do’ kind of thing?
MC: We used to do that to take the piss when we used to promote nights. Whatever band were playing, we used to just stick words together and people would be like ‘Oh yeah! That’s exactly how it describes them’.

Your lyrics are pretty wordy, do you have a favourite word?
RC: Yeah, I had one the other day. I really like words that are not necessarily onomatopoeic, but really describe essentially what’s happening. Like a ‘slump’, that’s such a good word. I know a slump’s not a sound, I think you only associate that in your head, and if it had been any other word in the history of language it’d be exactly the same, but it just sounds like it looks. So at the moment I’d say ‘slump’ is my favourite word.

So the Little Comets are going down the Slump Pop route?
MH: Yeah, I like that actually. Yo man, we Slump Pop!

Think you can get that one to catch on?
MH: Yeah, people will be falling over themselves.

You’ve brought The Slowdown with you again, formerly The Big Sleep, if that’s what they’re called at the moment?
RC: I don’t know, I think they’re planning to change it again, maybe to an amalgamation of the two.

It just adds to the enigma
RC: Yeah, well we reckon they should just change it every gig they do.

To become an urban myth?
MH: Yeah, It’s just lovely to have people on tour with that you get along with. They get our sense of humour and we get their sense of humour too, so there’s none on that ‘did he just say that, in a kind of - weird?’ edginess. It’s all in good jest.

Finally, what are the Little Comets doing for Halloween?
MC: Is that bonfire night?
MH: No, Halloween’s the 1st October, Old Hallow’s Eve.
MC: See, I can’t be doing with it, I don’t like how Americanised it’s become. It’s not about scaring kids anymore; it’s about how much money shops can make.
RC: So nothing, we’ll probably just be in the house alone.

Complaining about commercialism?
RC: Yeah, telling kids to piss off.
MC: I had this idea of setting up a sound system you could trigger to make Halloween sounds, but then I thought that would be scary for kids. It’s a pretty weird though actually.
RC: So yeah, that’s what Mickey’s going to be doing; scaring kids.
MH: I’m having a superhero party.

Which one are you going as?
MH: Probably DC or Marvel, or I might dress up as Slash and my girlfriend might dress up as Axl Rose, and we’ll just go out and have a lot to drink and laugh at ourselves. Then maybe get smacked up, that’s what Slash would do.

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