Have you ever initiated a style among your friends and social group? For example, did you get an undercut five years ago, before it was legit to look like a lesbian?
Have you ever initiated a style among your friends and social group? For example, did you get an undercut five years ago, before it was legit to look like a lesbian? Well, New York eight-piece live dance music act !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk – or any other three-syllable percussive sound) started playing their unique brand of disco fourteen years ago, well before the disco revival had made cheesy vocals and four to the floor beats cooler than cool.
“I just remember when we were first making records and we would first talk about it putting down a four-on-the-floor beat, like a disco record, we felt at the time you had to say it [disco] under your breath, because it was still such a bad word at that time… and now it is an absolutely different climate.” So says !!! frontman Nic Offer discussing his band’s sound.
The current line up of !!! is Offer, Allan Wilson, Mario Andreoni, Tyler Pope, Dan Gorman, Sean McGahan, Shannon Funchess and Paul Quattrone. Offer is talking to Beat as he walks back from food shopping on a freezing New York afternoon; he’s bought “groceries, stuff for salad,” and feels compelled to add, “You know what, I’m not actually [vegetrarian] but I went on a trek to the health food store… so I just got kind of healthy stuff there.” Offer’s live performance at the front of !!! is highly energetic as he dances and wobbles to the band’s infectious rhythms, but more on his fitness regime later. For the moment he’s content discussing the disco revival that many view !!! as the main instigators of.
“I think we were just kind of first to catch the wave and I think it was just one of those things that was bound to happen,” he muses. “When we started I had very high art, artistic ideals, and I was definitely thinking ‘this is going to be the sound of the future, this is going to be what happens’ and you know in a lot of ways it did.” He then adds modestly, “I think what we can get credit for… well I’m not really sure,” he chuckles, “and I can’t really puff out my own ego and figure it out. I just kinda leave it be. Definitely when you check the dates on the records, I guess ours were first,” he shrugs.
!!!’s debut album came out in 2001 and received much critical acclaim but little commercial success; once major aspect of the release, however, was that it saw the band sign to transcontinental label Warp Records – the label that’s globally regarded as a tastemaker in all types and styles of music, and particularly in dance music. Their first release for Warp was called Louden Up Now and it featured a swag of hits with Me And Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story), Pardon My Freedom and Hello? Is This Thing On?
Many who got switched on to !!! through this album became aware of an associated act to !!! called Out Hud. Out Hud feature the same disco sensibilities as !!!, but have female vocals and don’t feature the flecks of punk-rock that !!! do. Offer discusses Out Hud, “Out Hud was me, two of the other members of !!! – Justin and Tyler – and then there were friends of ours, Molly and Phyliss. It started within a few months of !!! so we were always like brother sister bands, that was the connection.”
Offer expands on the relationship of !!! and Out Hud, discussing Warp Records and the other global tastemaking label D.F.A – that’s owned by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy. “I think everyone views it as a family – a bit like !!! and Out Hud. But if they were brother and sister, then DFA and Warp are like cousins.”
!!!’s latest album came out on Warp (locally through Inertia) in August 2010, and was given the brilliant title of Strange Weather, Isn’t It? The first single from this album was the brooding and down-tempo AM/FM that harked back to the experimental groove of Isaac Hayes, circa 1972. Offer is playfully coy when talking about the change of pace of AM/FM and the oddness embodied in the idea that this was the lead single for a band now known for packing dance floors. “It was the record company’s choice and I think that maybe because they’re English and it feels a bit ‘baggy’ you know, a bit more like a Happy Mondays track and I think people there like that kinda thing,” he chuckles. “I choose the single by whatever people tell me is the single; I choose the single for everyone to get down to. I think the other songs have been bigger hits.”
Offer explains that, with AM/FM, the band are holding their feet to the fire and opening their sets with it. “Well it is interesting because we often open with AM/FM and it is a slow burner… so it is kinda interesting, because other songs we open with just kinda ‘sock-em’… but that one sets this mood and then we take it up from there,” he says joyfully then adding. “It’s kinda fun to do it that way.”
One of the songs from Strange Weather, Isn’t It? that hark back to the dancefloor hits of previous !!! records is Jamie My Intentions Are Bass. That track features a particularly boss film clip that was directed by New York-based film clip director Saman Keshavarz. The film clip is shot as P.O.V (Point of view) as Offer and other members of the band parade around what seems to be a porn set.
“It was pretty much his vision. I made my suggestions, but the thing I’ve found with videos is that they’re just going to tell different stories then you would tell so it’s best to just kinda get out of the way. But he was open [to ideas] and that’s why we kinda went with him, because he had a lot of ideas but was free and open to other ideas,” contends Offer in his assessment of the clip.
As alluded to earlier – and as would have be acknowledged by anyone who’s experienced the !!! live show before – Offer’s energy on stage is well and truly off the chart, as he continually dances and shimmies to each and every track played by the eight-piece. This begs the question – with his haul of health food and salad currently in his shopping bag – what does Offer eat before a set? This question gives way to a very honest response. “I learnt that the hard way; there’s definitely been some times where they give you a great meal – you know some venues you play they hook you up great – but then you have to go up on stage after that and, yes, that’s a disaster,” Offer laughs. “I try to keep it light before the show.”
And what about his personal fitness regime? “I just run,” he replies. “I honestly don’t know how far. I keep meaning to check,” he laughs.
After some further enquiries, it’s decided that if Offer runs, on average, for 30 minutes at a fairly leisurely pace, then he probably runs 6km. This answer satisfies everyone, and give Beat a standing start on its long-awaited Rock And Disco Stars Fitness Tips special edition. Suffice to say, Lemmy’s patented ‘Drink a bottle of Jack and don’t be a pussy’ is at #1. (Whatever’s Dino Cazares’ tip is will probably come in last on the ‘effective’ scale.)
Finally, !!!’s mooted set for their upcoming headline spot at Laneway Festival is discussed and while Offer doubts that they will be including their cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax that !!! performed on Halloween. That’s because, “The reason we did that was that we were in Liverpool and they were a Liverpool band,” Offer grins at the memory. However, they might very well do a cover of their favourite Australian song , which is, “Jive Talkin’ by The Bee Gees,” explains an excited Offer.
Now that’s something to get excited enough about to use three exclamation marks!!!
!!! headline the 2011 LANEWAY FESTIVAL as part of their freakin’ massive lineup, including Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Beach House, Bear In Heaven, Blonde Redhead, Cloud Control, Cut Copy, Deerhunter, Foals, Gotye, Holy Fuck, Jenny And Johnny, Les Savy Fav, Local Natives, Menomena, Pvt, Rat Vs Possum, Stornoway, The Antlers, The Holidays, Two Door Cinema Club, Violent Soho, Warpaint, World’s End Press And Yeasayer. It’s at the Footscray Community Arts Centre on Saturday February 5 – and it’s sold out.
!!! also play a sideshow at The Prince Bandroom on Thursday February 10 – with guests World’s End Press and Super Melody. Tickets from Polyester Records City and Fitzroy, Greville Records, Prince Of Wales Pub, (03) 9536-1168, princebandroom.com.au and in person at all Moshtix outlets.
!!!’s kickarse new album, Strange Weather, Isn’t It? is out now through Inertia.
