By Heather McCall
If you don’t know anything about British music, then hopefully you will be educated and mildly entertained by the following interview. If you are a fan or follower, chances are you won’t learn much, but you’ll read anyway because thats what you do. So, without further ado, here is the latest installment in the ongoing serial called Elastica.
THE STORY SO FAR: Elastica formed a couple of years ago when Donna Matthews answered an ad for a guitarist. The ad was placed by bandmate-to-be Justine Frischman, who’d already gotten together with friend and bassist Annie Holland and drummer Justin Welch. They began playing music—a hybrid of punk and pop…minimalistic stuff that was well-crafted and catchy enough to earn them both fan and critical praise.
The band became most renowned, however, for their dealings with some other popular British stars. Bandleader Justine went out with Brett Anderson from Suede for a spell, and now she’s seeing Damon Albarn from Blur. These associations have been both a blessing and a curse, says Donna.
“It did give us a start, and we don’t put it down because of that, but in another way people can make assumptions about you…which can be sort of difficult. But then I enjoy changing their minds.”
Now, the latest association being made by the media is between Donna and Shed Seven-ite Rick Witter. But as is common in the world of British music coverage, the story’s bollocks, says Donna. After the interview it was discovered Donna does have some sort of past with Justin the drummer…but you can read all about that in last week’s New Musical Express.
TODAY’S EPISODE: It’s pretty amazing that a band which has only released a single in North America has built up enough of a fan-base to warrant its own tour. In fact, the band was originally scheduled to come over in the fall but had to cancel due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
“We were recording our album last year, and we planned our U.S. tour to coincide with the album, which would have been completed. Then the guy that was mixing our album became unable…to finish it, so we were frantically looking around for someone to do it and we couldn’t find anyone…so we were just stuck for a while, and we panicked,” Donna explains.
Eventually, they did find someone and the album is due out at the end of March. Along with the four singles, there are five B-sides and seven new tracks. One of the B-sides, “Blue,” has been sped up to complement Elastica’s fast-paced, two-minutes-then-on-to-the-next-song live set. Donna says the version found on the “Connection” single was a demo, just her and her 4-track making some noise.
“We could probably put out six albums of 4-track stuff,” she says, adding that Elastica writes almost all their music on 4-track, with Donna hacking away then passing the result to Justine for fine tuning. Donna says she hasn’t got the patience or the attention span for labouring over the songs.
“I can’t bear to sit there and arrange it all, and Justine’s good at arranging…Once she’s got it arranged I don’t mind playing it,” but I hate sittin’ and workin’ at it.”
With such a limited repertoire of recorded music, Elastica has earned most of its reputation on stage. Known for delivering a frantic live show, the band has developed a devoted legion of fans. Guys like ’em because they’re fast, and girls like ’em because they’re “jeans and T-shirt” types, as Donna says, and don’t project the girl-slut image popularized by other women in rock.
Elastica’s biggest enemy when it comes to winning over an audience has been—ironically enough—the British press.
“We’ve had one or two, not bad experiences, but people have come up to us and said ‘I really didn’t want to like your band, because I hate hype-bands…but you’ve really changed my mind tonight after I’ve seen you play.”
Elastica play the Opera House March 2nd.
Leave a Reply