Saturday, 28 July 2012
Mowbird, Daily Post July 27
Have I ever told you how good Mowbird are? There's an interview with Ben Sawin below. It was in the Daily Post on Friday July 27.
The foursome are playing Swn Festival in October and Green Man Festival before that. There is also mooted a split seven inch single with their kindred spirits Sex Hands on the Popty Ping label -- fancy that.
Listen to them:
Read about them:
IN October of last year, Mowbird were recording a radio session at the BBC’s famous Maida Vale studios. A picture of the White Stripes gazed down on them as they prepared to play on what singer Ben Sawin describes as ‘the world’s smallest drum kit’.
It was, perhaps, a fitting scenario for a band that walks the line between brilliant and shambolic with such aplomb – and despite appearances, that is a compliment.
“Maida Vale was a great experience,” says Sawin. “It was a case of just thinking ‘how on earth did we get here when so many of our peers haven’t?’
“We weren’t thinking we had made it or anything. The picture of the White Stripes looking down on us – playing in exactly the same space we were – kind gave you a bit of perspective.”
Since their inception as a bratty and abrasive punk band, Wrexham’s Mowbird have developed through line up changes, a clutch of excellent EPs and shows at the likes of Swn and Camden Crawl. The essentials are the same, jittering wedges of off-kilter surf pop are all present and correct. They are, though, more toned and glossy, like some pulp fiction magazine. But progressing and leaving the past behind leaves Mowbird little room for sentimentality.
Sawin continues: “We have a low tolerance and get bored easily. First off, we always aim to make it interesting for us. Once songs stop meaning something we stop playing them. We don’t want to carry on in the same furrow.
“It’s hard to let go sometimes, every song has a meaning but some get stagnant. It’s like re-reading the same book. One week you might read the first chapter and it doesn’t really work. You might then pick it up a week later and it’s different.”
An interesting footnote, around the time of the BBC session, found the band playing to bemused diners in a Harvester Pub. An experience, like all the others, that Sawin says added to the band's dynamic.
“Some of us have played gigs to 10,000 people, well, just one of us [drummer Ben with his other band Camera]. Some had never played a gig before being in Mowbird. We’re all different.
“Our gig at Telford’s in Chester was definitely a highlight. Any gig where it’s been tiny and worked. The big moments are just important as the little ones.
“I feel we’re becoming a singular unit. The important thing is that we hang out outside of the band. That means a lot.”
He adds the past year caught the four piece of Sawin, Mike Smith, Sue Dempsey and Ben Trow standing off guard.
“It’s been a little, well, it’s been a huge surprise. I suppose being from Wrexham it’s ingrained in us not to expect too much. Maida Vale and Swn Festival kind of came out on nowhere. We got caught up in that but there was a little bit of disbelief that people were genuinely interested.
"It still does surprise me. We’re playing Swn again this year and before that Green Man Festival. All that’s based on a band that’s recorded in basements.”
Mowbird play Green Man Festival in Brecon on the weekend of August 17. To listen visit mowbird.bandcamp.com.
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Mowbird
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