Apes & Androids

Apes & Androids Interview

UK Adapta caught up with one of the coolest acts from the NYC underground scene, Apes & Androids who were finally hitting their first ever UK tour. We were totally overwhelmed by their glamourous stage show. Over the top live show? Nah, it’s never too much. Thrilling synth-rock, flamboyant fashion, sparkling make-up and confetti working just right to bring everything you would want from an exciting night like this. We later on had a chance to ask them a few questions...

- Can you give us a breakdown of Apes & Androids?

Brian Jacobs: The band was started by me and David.  We’d been writing songs together since we were kids. The other guys we met in New York.

- What about your influences? Music, art, films, literature... ?

BJ: I think our personal influences vary, but both of us are very inspired by our friends. A lot of them are also artists, but all of them are great people who give us a lot of support and inspiration.

- Could you talk a little about the creative and production process? Do you take roles to share it or do together?

BJ: David and I work individually in our own writing studios and then we get together to finish songs together. We engineered, produced and performed all of the songs on our record.

- Choose one word best describes your sound.

BJ: Strange

- What is your view on the New York music scene?  Do you think it’s much different from London?

BJ: I’m sure it’s slightly different, but much more similar than different. I imagine that London probably values DJ/Dance culture a bit more than New York, but only slightly. I actually shouldn’t be answering this question because I don’t know much about the London scene. The New York music scene is amazing. There’s pretty much everything happening here. It’s actually dizzying sometimes.

youtube : Four Eyed Monsters DVD Release Party

- Did you have any chance to see any other music acts in London this time?

BJ: Only the bands that opened our shows, actually. They were all really cool. Ebony Bones were great.

- I came down to your gig at the ICA, which was such a spectacular, especially with confetti! Do you shows always involve razzmatazz? What’s the best bit you’ve done on stage?

BJ: Our shows in New York are much crazier because we have more time to prepare and a lot of friends around to help.  One of my favorites was a Halloween show. I’m not sure if you guys have Halloween… so if not just Google it or whatever.

Anyway it’s a big deal in New York. So we played this big Halloween show and as part of it we performed Michael Jackson’s Thriller. We spent the week before editing the Thriller video into 3D and rehearsing with dancers. So at the show everyone got 3D glasses and we projected the video really big and we had a whole troupe of Zombie dancers with amazing costumes and movie-grade zombie make-up. It was totally awesome. I had trouble concentrating on performing because the dancers were so good. They had the whole routine down.

youtube : Apes and Androids Music Video

- It seems you have a distinctive visual style. Can you tell us about your ideas of presenting yourselves? Is it equally important as your music?

BJ: Our style just developed organically. I think it’s basically just an extension of how we all dress normally. When we perform we recognize that the experience can be more than just auditory, and that it is more than just auditory whether or not we want it to be. So we want to take control over as much of the experience as possible. We’ve got lots of ideas and they’re not all musical so the shows are a great place for us to put a lot of our ideas.

- What’s your favourite item of clothing? 

BJ: Morgan’s golden stretch pants.

- Have you ever been to Japan? What's your impression of the country?

BJ: No, we’ve never been, but we hope to go soon!

- You are coming back to London for Field Day in August! What else is up next for you?

BJ: More shows, more music. Soon hopefully.

myspace : apesandandroids

Written by Yuka Maeno