THE WINTER OLYMPICS

CENSUS THINGS

Have you filled in your census yet? It’s a legal requirement you know. Being fine upstanding citizens, your Winter Olympics duly filled in the form for our TOP SECRET Office Rock HQ.

Number of residents on 27 March 2011: 5 (yes, the band does all live together. It’s just like the Monkees)

Number of visitors stopping over on 27 March: let’s say, more than none, yeah. Oh, alright, none. 

Number of faceless minions down in the basement manning the Church of Merch: Unknown

We were slightly disappointed that the Census didn’t want to ask us anything a bit more, you know, rock and roll: How long have you guys been together? Who are your biggest influences? How did you get your name?

Some of Europe’s finest publications have been kind enough to ask us this sort of thing recently, and I’m not sure if we shared them with you. Here are some of the entries we logged for the great indie rock Doomsday Book this month.

There was this in TourTimes magazine (the issue with Patrick Wolf on the front)

Then there was this in The Cardonald Courier (click the picture to enlarge)

My favourite, though, was with the amazing LoudHorizon. I don’t have a photo for you, but here’s the unexpurgated version of our chat (why not go and make a mug of tea at this stage… if there’s anything I like doing it’s talking about myself and our band).

How did the band form? Is it a classic origin story? How long have you been together? Why “The Winter Olympics”?

Martin and I formed The Winter Olympics about eight or nine years ago. Just before we got together I’d been working as a music writer. I didn’t pick up many plaudits for my work, but I did get an idea of what I thought a really amazing band should be like, and would moan and moan at Marty about how there weren’t enough of them around. Eventually, he gave in and suggested we try and do it ourselves. It’s been a long, personnel heavy, march towards turning our great idea into a good band ever since, but it hasn’t been boring.

The name is a respectful nod to the often overlooked sportspeople of the winter games. Men and women who put in four years’ of back breaking, heart-aching, training and toil, a lifetime of painstaking preparation, sacrifice and compromise, only to see it all come down to four minutes of lung-busting glory or grisly defeat; a bit like some of our early shows.

What were the early days like? Did you know from the start you wanted to be a “dance punk rock and roll group” or did that come later? 

The early days were, by-and-large, an excuse to go to the pub on a school night. We would notionally book band practice, but there was no real guarantee that we’d get to it. The practice place we used to use would ring the pub around the corner to see if it was worth them wheeling in the amps or whether we were just having ‘talking practice’. It’s a bit embarrassing thinking back on it now, but we had a very good time.

I don’t think it was necessarily our intention then to become rock and roll dance punks! For a long time we were just trying to do the best we could. And for a long time the best we could manage was being a watered down Weezer. It’s only been in the last couple of years that we’ve been confident and (nearly) competent enough to let other influences come through. Martin has always been a big dance music fan while my heart lies closer to Castle Donnington, so I think the sound was pretty inevitable. It wasn’t really a conscious attempt to try and put the Dio in Disco.

Who are the major influences that the band calls on? Who do you consider your peers?

I’ve always been a fan of a twisted pop song; songs that are bold and bright and obvious, but with something sinister or unexpected going on underneath. That was certainly the plan with I Miss the Nineties and The Fourth Time (I’ve Been in Your House). Hopefully, there’s something a bit more to them than first meets the ear, and I think that comes down to the band’s love of the Pixies. On top of them, my musical upbringing was pretty metal – big hairy stadium acts like Van Halen, Kiss and Priest - and that’s definitely informed our stage show, you know, it’s important to make sure that the people at the back can see what you’re doing.

Martin doesn’t like it if when I get too meat-and-potatoes metal, though. “What’s the point in rock without the roll?” he’ll ask before going off to mess about with synth sounds for a bit. Weirdly for a lead guitarist growing up in the nineties, he always preferred Underworld to Nevermind, and trying to ensure that people can dance to our songs is usually the first thing on his mind when writing new material.

Peers? Let’s see. Slightly older guys in M & S ties doing big choruses you can sing in the shower? Popular in the nineties, and a big hit with your Mum and older sister? Take That are clearly our only peers.

Your official website says that you are not like other bands. Can you elaborate on this?

Ha! Us being “not like the other bands” is a lift from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. I don’t know if you remember but at the start of the video Michael asks his date if she wants to go steady with him, but warns her he’s “not like the other boys”. You can put your own jokes in there, but he definitely isn’t. The full moon comes out and he turns into a were-beast that’s brilliant at dancing. Amazing. We’re not saying we’re anywhere near as good as that, but you know, off stage, we try and put the punk in punctual and polite, we want people to ‘go steady’ with the band – but on it, well we hope that the full moon comes out every now and then.

What are your ultimate goals as a band? Is there a certain level of success you have in your head that you would like to achieve? How certain are you that you will reach it?

Our immediate goal is to get our album finished, and for it to be as good as it can possibly be. Unbelievably, it’s been nearly ten years in the making: Nine years of sitting in the pub bickering about how it should sound and six months of bloody hard work. We’re really very nearly there – and it even has a name now; we’re calling it Profit and Loss, though our bass player Neil prefers ‘Prophet and Lost’ not sure he’ll get that past the committee though. 

After that’s done we want to get out and play to more people. We’re hoping to ink in some festival dates: home, abroad, big or small, we don’t mind. We have a song called The Great Outdoors and it’s high time we road-tested it outside. I first really met Martin Olympics at a Reading Festival in about 1957 or something and we have a long, grisly, festival-going history since then, so a decent slot in a big tent somewhere, would be a big deal for us, and is exactly the sort of thing we’re setting our sights on. 

That said, Martin has always maintained that his ultimate musical goal is for the band to appear on Top of the Pops. There’s only one of those a year now, so it looks like we’re going to have to come up with a Christmas Number one. That can’t be hard, right?

 “The Winter Olympics IV” contains two very different sounding songs. Which one is more indicative of the sound you’d like to be known for?

Which of your children do you love most? That’s tough. I’m not sure that the two songs are that dissimilar really, they’re both weird three minute pop songs; the sweet one, then the evil one. A spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down! I think the main difference is that one song’s quite a lot louder sounding than the other one. I certainly wouldn’t complain if we became known for being ‘quite loud’.

What made you want to eulogise the 1990s? Why is that decade special to you? Are there any references you wish you could have made that you weren’t able to?

 I’d love us to have done I Miss the 2000s ‘cause then people might think I’m younger than I really am, or I Miss the 1980s so that we could have a massive eighties revival hit, but the eighties weren’t really that great the first time.

The song had to be about the 90’s because it’s a true story. I know on the surface it’s just a list song, but it’s also a little love letter to a couple of friends I used to have in the 1990s. Most of the famous names in the song are just there as a bit of context. Sure we loved T2, Crooked Rain Crooked Rain and the X-Files, and we really did stop up when the tamagotchi died, but that wasn’t actually the important part of the night. The people the song is really about most folk haven’t heard of, but they’re the ones I really miss.

That sounds pretty pretentious doesn’t it? Which is why, if people prefer, the song also doubles as a dead-straight list of amazing 90s stuff (the Megadrive was cool, Nevermind is still brilliant) and there are loads of things that I’d like to shoehorn into the song now I think about it.

We recently played a gig by the Arsenal football ground – it seemed only right to swap Eric Cantona for Emmanuel Petit in the first chorus. My actual favourite nineties footballer was Gaizka Mendieta of Valencia, Lazio and latterly Middlesbrough. He was never going to fit in, the song though. Similarly, have you ever heard of a band called Fretblanket? I would love to have had them in there but they just didn’t rhyme with anything helpful. The same goes for Butthead out of Beavis and Butthead.

What can we expect from a Winter Olympics album? When is it likely to drop?

Profit and Loss is due in September. It will feature twelve happy/sad songs about girls played quite loudly. We hope you like it.

Thanks for taking the time to read down this far. Really appreciate it. If anyone has any questions about the record, the band (or anything really) drop me an email at thewinterolympicsband@gmail.com and we’ll get back to you in a flash. It’s good to talk.

Cheers

AWOx

ps. less words tomorrow, I promise. Think I’ll just post a funny picture of a cat wearing a pirate eye patch. Kids’ll love it…