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Zico
Chain are a hard-rocking trio from London who are fast on the way to
superstardom and I had a chance to sit down with the band for a quick
chat before their show in Leeds.
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MM:
So how’s the tour going so far?
ZC: Very good thanks. We’ve done 4 dates so far with
another 5 to go, it’s been great.
MM:
What have you got planned for when it’s finished?
ZC: We don’t really know to be honest. We’re
trying to get the record done before summer and sort a deal out. We’ve
written everything so it’s just a matter of getting into the studio to
finish it off.
MM:
Are there any summer festivals in the pipeline that you’d be able to
tell us about yet?
ZC: Not yet, no. We want to do them all but we’ve
not confirmed anything yet as they don’t tend to announce the smaller
bands until later anyway.
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MM:
What was it like being the very first band of Download 2007?
ZC: It was awesome yeah to open a festival like that
and see everyone piling in and ready to go, yeah it was amazing. We got
a good reception too and it was at a great point in our career as well
as we were touring with Velvet Revolver at the time so it couldn’t
have come at a better time to be honest.
MM:
Does a moment like that tend to just flash by really quickly?
ZC: We were given strict instructions by our
management to make the most of the moment and to take it all in...
Ollie: I totally missed it, ha-ha! I just put my head down, hit the
drums and by the end I was like ‘shit, what just happened!’
Chris: I had about five minutes to take it in when my
bass broke, ha-ha! Basically I was shitting myself not knowing what to
do; I don’t think air-bass works to well in those situations!
Paul: We weren’t about to pull a ‘White Stripes’, ha-ha!
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MM:
How close is the new album to being finished?
ZC: We’ve got about 10 tracks ready, we initially
did about 30 but we went off in some weird directions and now we’ve
got it back to where we want it to be. We’ve just got a couple that
could end up getting wrote on the way to the studio for all we know, so
yeah we’re pretty much ready to go with it.
MM:
Where does the idea for a title like ‘These Birds Will Kill Us All’
come from?
Ollie: Well there was a bird in our flat which scared
the crap out of me! It kept flapping around my head and I couldn’t get
rid of it.
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Chris: I think where it actually comes from is that we
create so many problems for ourselves to worry about all the fucking
time but it could just end up being a bird or a pig that eventually just
wipes us out, so why bother?
MM:
So not bird flu then?
Ollie: Well a little towards that, I suppose. I think we
wrote it around the time of bird flu, I guess now it should be ‘These
Pigs Will Kill Us All’, ha-ha!
Chris: You see all these happening in London and you
turn the page of the newspaper and apparently it’s the birds that
we’ve got to worry about and you think what the fuck are we doing
making problems for ourselves when this could wipe us out? I guess
it’s kind of a twisted way of saying just enjoy life, really.
MM:
You mentioned Velvet Revolver earlier...
ZC: Did we? We usually mention in the first 17 seconds
our something, ha-ha! If we don’t one of us will just sneeze and
mention it!
MM:
Slash and Duff once described you as their favourite new band. What’s
it like when you hear a comment like that from so high up?
Chris: I think that was just an internet thing and what they
actually said was Muse was their favourite new band and we just dubbed
Zico Chain over it! Ha-ha!
Ollie: In all seriousness we loved it because those
guys are our heroes. Seeing them watching us on stage was awesome too.
You kind of glance over and see this big top hat and you start shitting
yourself!
Chris: Nar, catering was just on the other side of the
stage and they were waiting until we got out of the way! Ha-ha!
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MM:
Apart from Guns N Roses, who else were the big bands for you when you
were starting out?
Chris: Motorhead. I just loved the speed and rawness of it.
And I was a grunge baby so I loved Pearl Jam and those bands and the
melody of it all. I love looking like you’re so pissed off you can’t
go on with life, ha-ha!
MM:
Which member of the band has the worst habits when you’re on tour?
ZC: That’s a great question. Is this where we all
end up fighting because you’ve caused a riot! Ha-ha!
Ollie: I like picking toenails...
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Chris: He likes picking other peoples’! We all lived
with each other back home so being on tour’s no different really.
We’ve known each other over five years so we don’t tend to notice
that stuff now.
MM:
Reading the Myspace blog, it seems that things can sometimes get a bit
messy when you go out on the road...
Chris: The mad thing is, we never seem to get pissed
at the same time. We left Paul in the dressing room at Sheffield for an
hour with a bottle of whisky and when we came back, he was fucked!
Because we notice each other’s drunken actions, there’s always one
of us to try and tone it down.
MM:
Speaking of the Myspace blog Ollie, has your new 80’s porn star pose
actually worked yet? (NB – if you haven’t read it, check it out,
it’s hilarious)
Ollie: The best time was when a girl looked at me
doing across from the bar and shook her head as if to say ‘no fucking
chance!’ and then ran out! Ha-ha! Every now and then I’ll find
myself at the traffic lights and just give a little a knock on the
window...
Chris: Anyone who knows him knows he loves
awkwardness. If we were sat in a bar on a night out, he would love
nothing more than to make me, you and Paul look like absolute dickheads,
ha-ha!
MM:
Cool, well thanks for the interview guys and good luck for tonight.
ZC: Thanks, man, no problem.
Interview
by: Adam G
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