Last week, Larry had the opportunity to speak to Jim Webster, drummer of the up-and-coming UK band Baddies, who are in town next month to play Pyramid Rock Festival and Purple Sneakers NYE House Party in Sydney. What followed was an interesting insight into the lives of a band on the rise, excited by their upcoming tour of Australia, and all that “fame” has to offer.
Good Morning Jim, Thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
No worries at all, thanks for calling.
Getting straight down to business, you’re coming down to Australia for the very first time next month to play Pyramid Rock Festival and Purple Sneakers NYE House Party.
Certainly are, yeah.
Now aside from the fact that you’ll be enjoying 35 degree heat just days after Christmas, what are you looking forward to about your trip down here?
I just can’t wait to go and play those shows really. I’ve heard that the (Pyramid Rock) festival is really cool, and it’ll be nice to play outside in boiling hot weather when actually, it’s going to be pissing down with rain and freezing cold here in England. I’ve never been away over the December / Christmas period, so it’s going to be a bit of a weird mindset there… it’s going to be odd. I’ve heard that the NYE party is an amazing party as well. So yeah, we’re looking forward to getting out there, and meeting new people – seeing the reaction of you guys, and having a bit of a ball really.
So say you weren’t in Australia, performing on NYE, what would you otherwise be doing on that festive of evenings? Do you often do NYE shows?
This is a new one for us actually, we normally just spend the evening with friends and stuff, and just get plastered to celebrate the new
year in. I find, it’s generally one of those overrated nights a lot of the time
– it normally costs quite a bit to do something, or everywhere is ticketed,
like it is here in England, so you end up just having friends over, all getting
drunk together. So when we were asked to do this on New Years, it’s a really
exciting prospect to be going out and seeing the New Year in by playing to
people in Australia… it’s pretty unbelievable. But yeah, so other years we just
get plastered with friends, so this year will probably be no different.
Fantastic – just with a little more performance thrown in the middle.
That’s it, yeah.
What can Australia expect from your live show?
Well basically we just give it our all when we play live. I
don’t know if you’ve read any live reviews, or heard any rumours or anything,
but we really go balls out basically… it’s a really energetic show, there’s a
lot of crowd participation from Mike, he really gets the crowd involved, and
you know I would say it’s a good show to watch. It’s not like people just
standing still, looking out into the crowd – nothing like just listening to the
record, we all get right stuck in. We hope to get the crowd going and proper
hyped up for the other bands when we play!
Well that’s definitely how shows should be played.
Absolutely, even if there are just 10 people there, you’ve got to give it your best, you know what I mean? Because those 10 people might say to another 10 people, you’ve got to check this band out. So you’ve just got to give it your best every time.
Couldn’t agree more! Now in preparation for this interview, I was sent the “official Baddies biography”, which was fantastically tongue-and-cheek, something I love to see – is that something that’s become part of the “Baddies mantra”, so to speak?
Yeah I think, in a way, we’re quite serious in how the band
works, but you don’t wanna be seen as too much of a serious group – because
while you want to be seen a respected band, but it can take the fun out of it,
when people are so hell bent on being “cool” – or it’s all about being musical
or something like that – I think you’ve got to be able to have a laugh with it.
We love bands like DEVO, and they’re walking around with flower pots on their
heads, it’s that kind of thing – but they sound like the coolest band around,
when you listen to it, it’s what I would call a cool sound – but when you
actually look at them, they are the uncoolest people in the world. But they get
away with it, and it’s something that you remember them by. And Mike’s (the
lead singer and Jim’s twin brother) always liked to act up like an idiot
sometimes, and he admits himself it’s almost for the shock factor of “is this
guy for real?” sometimes… you know what I mean? It’s cool, and when the
biography was written by one of our friends, who I’ve grown up with for years
and years, he was in a band as well, and he’s a very eccentric person, and we
enjoyed writing it together. Yeah, it’s a good description and I think it grabs
your attention. You might think, what are they talking about? Or you might
think that that’s quite cool, actually. But it’s certainly better than the
regular “Baddies formed in 2007, they did this, they did that…” – it’s like,
who want to know?
It’s always great to see a band not taking themselves to seriously, definitely.
Yeah it’s all about bringing that fun element into it, making people want to dance, move, or do whatever.
Speaking of fun, I saw online a cover you guys recently did of Dizzee Rascal’s “Bonkers” – which was in a word, hilarious. Has that ever snuck its way into a setlist, or have you kept that to the viral world?
No not yet – it’s been kept to the viral world as we stand – but quite commonly, when we play a show now, people ask for it. The only reason that we did it, was that we did a session for The Sun, and their rules are that you have to do two of your own, and one recent cover. So we didn’t know what song to do… we would probably normally have picked something like The Clash, but it had to be recent (to cater for The Sun readers)… so the night before, we had to think of something quick – so we came up with that idea as it’s quite simple to do. And we did it in our own way, and Mike sung it in his own way – and we came up with some little backing vocal bits and things, it was just one of those last minute things. But I think it could work quite well in a festival setting.
Within the bio I mentioned before, there were references to your sound being similar to, and influenced by, bands such as Talking Heads & QOTSA, but on a personal level, who are the bands or drummers who’ve influenced your style, who you look up to?
Drumming wise, the legendary Dave Grohl, to be honest with you. He’s the reason I got into wanting to play drums in the first place. When I heard ‘Breed’ by Nirvana, on Nevermind when I was a lot younger – straight away I thought “oh my god, this sounds like a machine gun, I wanna do that!”
And he’s always been a big influence on me… the way he hits the drums hard, not overplaying, but you’ve always got the knowledge you can overplay if you want… Do something really special, if you want to. But you don’t need to overplay, you’ve got to play for the song. And that’s what Dave Grohl’s really good at doing, and why he’s my biggest influence.
In terms of the band’s, ones that I’ve mentioned before – Devo, The Clash … QOTSA have too, as they’re a common ground, a band that we all really like. And I like stuff like New Order, that kind of thing as well – Joy Division, people like Kraftwerk, really there are so many influences that all get brought in, that we end up mashing it all up into our own kind of Baddies sound.
But some people have said that the album has been too eclectic, in reviews, and some people think that’s too one dimensional – everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and I’m quite happy with that, because people can’t seem to put their finger on it.
Congratulations, by the way on the release of your debut album in September/October. In the shows that you’ve played since the release, have crowds been more receptive to your songs?
I think it’s absolutely made a difference. What we’ve found with the album is, people don’t always have the same standout tracks – everyone has their own favourites, it’s quite varied, I think every track on the album has been mentioned as a standout in a review by somebody … so there (seems to be) something for everybody. It’s really cool, and you notice that when you play live, when you start to play the start of a new track, you can see people tapping their mates on the shoulder “oh, it’s gonna be that one now!” and then as soon as it kicks in they all start jumpin around.
And then you’ve got fans coming up to you after the show, almost star-struck – and I know that sounds stupid because we’re not a big band at all, and we’re very grounded – but they’re like “oh can I have a photo with you, and an autograph too” – and it’s a really amazing feeling when you think, “you know, is this really happening?”
On a similar note, have you had any moments when you’ve been on a festival going “Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re on the same bill as so and so!”
Yeah man. We played at a festival called Gurten Festival in Switzerland, and it’s beautiful. It’s in Bern, and it’s right up a mountain. And on the poster it’s like KINGS OF LEON, FRANZ FERDINAND … BADDIES underneath, and you sort of think to yourself… “oh my god, we’re playing these same things, and we’re nothing like the size of any of those bands…” – and there’s only two stages at the Festival, so we’re on about 2 hours before Kings of Leon… playing 7 – 8,000 in a tent, pretty amazing. But for me, where I realised that festivals were going to be amazing, we played at Roskilde Festival in Denmark, and the whole tent was packed, about 3,000 in there, and they went absolutely mental, chanting the band name “BADDIES! BADDIES!” in between songs. And you just have one of those moments, where you’re looking to one and other on the stage, just laughing, thinking to yourself “this isn’t happening!” And I think that’s one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever witnessed as (part of) Baddies.
Yeah, I’ve always been keen to attend the festival. I hear it’s amazing.
Yeah it is, they had this thing there called the ‘human car wash’ – what happens is, they have these buxom women in their bikinis, and some muscly blokes as well – and people can walk through and get washed, you choose by either a women or a man. And there’s rows of seats, it’s like a see-through washing station, and there’s blokes with beers just ogling all these women getting washing by other women. It’s just like… ha, fucking hell, only in Scandinavia!
Well I’ll leave you with one final question, and it’s definitely the most important one of the evening – as a man of percussion, do you choose between the Bongo, the Cowbell or the Triangle?
Absolutely the cowbell!
I do believe that’s the right answer. If there had to be one, that would be it!
Yeah it’s gotta be the cowbell – if it’s good enough for Queens of the Stone Age it’s good enough for me!
Alright mate, well thanks so much for your time and for speaking with us at the AU review, and we’ll see you down here in December.
Hopefully see you at the show! Take care.
Don’t miss Baddies when they appear in Sydney on New Years Eve at the Purple Sneakers House Party! Find out more about the event HERE in our festival guide! They’re also playing Pyramid Rock Festival, which you can find out about in our festival guide HERE, too!
