iForward Russia! on the Camden Crawl

VF: So, Katie and Tom, how are you both?
Katie: Alright, thank you. I just lost a game of pool.
Tom: I'd like to point out that I did not lose anything.
Katie: Well, I was very close, I was only playing half the game and I managed to whoop his ass for that bit!

VF: We were distracting you, oops. You just played SXSW, it sounded like it was a bit hectic; Tell us about it...
Tom: It was very hectic. The thing about SXSW is there are lots of gigs on, and anywhere will put a gig on, and won't think about the fact that they need a decent PA, decent equipment, stuff like that.
Katie: And any band will turn up and won't think you need decent equipment...
Tom: So basically you turn up, and all your stuff breaks because you haven't thought to bring any transformers and stuff to change the power round, and all their stuff breaks because they spend about £12 hiring the PA, but it's great fun.
Katie: I couldn't get in a lot of the venues because I'm only 19. So me and my friends had to watch a few bands out of windows, and we were drinking wine on street corners.
Tom: Basically tramps for the week, it was quite good!
Katie: But it was weird, talking about tramps... all the tramps, I noticed, we left the day after SXSW, and during SXSW all the tramps had guitars and they were busking, but as soon as SXSW had finished they just went back to being tramps! I thought it was quite funny.
Tom: It's definitely interesting, I don't know if the plight of these homeless people is necessarily funny though!

VF: Your debut album is coming out next month. Could you tell us a bit about that?
Tom: It's called 'Give Me A Wall', it's got eleven tracks, we recorded at the beginning of the year in one of our brief breaks from touring which happens once every two and a half years or something, and all the songs on it are written by us.

VF: You've just started your own tour, haven't you?
Katie: Yeah, we're just doing a few gigs in cities that, because we did the We Are Scientists tour, we're just doing cities that are a bit more out of the way.

VF: So what about the NME New Music Tour? That sounds pretty good.
Tom: It seems like it's going to be really good, four or five of them have sold out already. Doing the We Are Scientists tour which I think was to an NME-type crowd, we got such a good reaction every night that it's really got us pumped up for the NME tour.

VF: What's it like being in a band with your brother anyway, Katie, now that Whiskas isn't here?
Tom: You can give an honest answer.
Katie: It's a bit weird; it's not too bad. I go off on one nearly every day, don't I?
Tom: You've not been too bad in the last week.
Katie: Yeah, I've been quite good. But he'll ignore me sometimes, and say 'I've already told you this!' and he won't have told me.
Tom: Basically it's like being in a band with your brother or sister, just how you imagine it.
Katie: I can't share a room with him in a Travelodge 'cos he snores and grunts and stuff.

VF: Is he overprotective of you?
Katie: Sometimes he is.
Tom: He used to be a lot more than he is now.
Katie: If I was trying to chase boys or something, there was one gig where somebody was like 'Oh, your drummer's fit!', or something, and Whiskas was like, 'You fucking shut up! That's my sister you're on about!'
Tom: He used to be a lot more protective when we first started the band than he is now; I think he's given up the ghost of that now.

VF: The whole New Yorkshire thing. Do you like it?  Do you like being lumped in that group?
Katie: Do you know, it's just something that people at the NME made up 'cos they were bored! That is all it is.
Tom: I think the actual phrase 'New Yorkshire' itself is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life. And Leeds and Sheffield aren't really connected musically...
Katie: ...apart from the M1 motorway.
Tom: Well, the M1 does its job in that respect. They're two completely different things really, they just happened to happen at the same time. But all the music in Leeds and stuff is great, so that's a bonus that people are focusing on it. And the fact it's called 'New Yorkshire', and nearly everyone knows that phrase as well. I was thinking 'This'll never catch on', but it seems to have done.
Katie: Yeah, we get requests from people in foreign countries saying 'Yeah, I've heard of ¡Forward Russia!, they're from New Yorkshire, aren't they?'
Tom: This guy from Finland wanted us to play a gig, and he's like, 'I know that the band are from New Yorkshire, so it might be better to go from Leeds/Bradford or something like that'.
Katie: They actually think that New Yorkshire is a place!

VF: Why do you call all your songs numbers?
Tom: We're kind of lazy. When we first started we had four songs, and the best way to refer to songs was to refer to them as numbers. Especially for the first songs I didn't get round to writing lyrics for them for ages, and it just stuck. We couldn't really call our first songs 'One' 'Two' 'Three' and 'Four' and then just suddenly start giving them other names. But after this album we're gonna resort to more traditional means, 'cos it could get stupid.

VF: Who are you planning to check out tonight?
Tom: 65 Days of Static. All the bands we want to see are on at the same time, 'cos we'd like to see The Automatic and Larrikin Love, but they're both on at the same time as 65 Days.
Katie: There's just so many bands on, I think I'm just gonna wander round.

VF: Your plans for the rest of the year - is that just releasing the album and touring?
Tom: We're doing another headline tour in June/July, as many festivals as we can, go over to the States...

VF: Festival plans?
Katie: As many as we can! Poppers!
Tom: Yeah, Katie just wants to take poppers.

VF: But they give you such a headache! [We've heard]
Tom: Only the week after, because if you're taking them all week!...
Katie: I'll be taking them all summer at every festival! I didn't say that, by the way! I don't like poppers.
Tom: I think we're semi-confirmed for two of the main festivals... we're doing Reading and Leeds, and T.

VF: Seeing as Glastonbury's not happening this year, what would you say is your essential festival to go to?
Katie: Truck! It's amazing. It's a festival you can take your mum to.
Tom: It's small, and has a really nice vibe. That and Leeds, 'cos it's Leeds.

VF: Quickfire questions... Noel Edmonds or Michael Barrymore?
Both: Noel Edmonds.

VF: Babyshambles or Dirty Pretty Things?
Katie: Dirty Pretty Things
Tom: Babyshambles.

VF: Jack Daniels or Jim Beam?
Katie: I'm allergic to whisky!
Tom: Jack Daniels.

VF: Interviews or photoshoots?
Katie: Photo shoots!
Tom: Interviews! Fuck off, I hate photo shoots!

VF: Fruit Pastilles or Opal Fruits?
Katie: Opal Fruits.
Tom: I prefer Fruit Pastilles, I think. We're not very good at this, are we?!

iForward Russia!'s single 'Nine' was released on 1st May. Album 'Give Me a Wall' comes out on 15th May.

Click here to download iForward Russia Tracks.