Talkboy

Time flies! It’s almost been a year since my last time in Leeds to join Fizzy Blood for their first headline tour. And I decided to come back. To see my friends again, spend time at the Brudenell and to have an interview with Talkboy. The idea was to play bowling, take some pictures, but eventually everything turned out a different way:
Of course we threw some pins and we also drowned many pints. And Jake also convinced me to do some shots of Sambuca with him. So yes, we had a lot of fun. Need some proof? Have a look at this blurry image above (everyone is there, just Charlotte is missing).
Sometimes a picture says more than a thousand words. But who is this band? Put on your bowling shoes and get to know Talkboy.

Could there be another name for your band?
Pierce: Fontanelle (everyones laughing).
Jake: The worst band name of all time!
Pierce: Do you know, what it means? It’s a baby’s head, before the skull is fully grown.
Katie: What else did we come up with?
Tim: Weird Girls, Weird Boys …, naming a band is so hard. ‘Cause anything you come up with is so stupid. And then Katie was like: Talkboy.

And so you chose Talkboy. But why?
Katie: We’ve gone through so many shit names. And then, I don’t know why, I started to think about toys I used to play with when I was a kid. I had a Talkgirl and my brother had a Talkboy and there is a lot of bands with girl in the name.
Tim:  We could have been Talkgirl …
Katie: No. There’s a lot of bands with girl in the name. It didn’t really bother me, I like Talkboy.
Tim: I think as soon as you said it, we were just like, yeah, thats the name!
Pierce: A lot of it came off the back of studio. When we came up with the name we were recording our first couple of singles.
Katie: While we were recording Mother, and Mother is a very kind of nostalgic song, so then I started thinking about nostalgic figures.
Tim: Yeah, Katie said it and we were just like, yeah, thats the name of the band, nothing deeper than that really.
Katie: A lot of our current songs, not necessarily in the future, but a lot of our current songs have to do with growing up, coming to terms with being an adult. It kind of makes sense to go for something that was like a childhood icon.

We were playing bowling this evening. Do you often spend time together as friends like to see in the video for Over & Under?
Katie: Yeah, of course we do.
Tom: We do spend a lot of time together. Spending time together at rehearsing, doing gigs, lot of stuff in that way. It’s quite intense. And because it’s such a large band, it’s difficult to just say, we want to go to a pub and everyone says: ‘Yeah, we can do it.’ But we all meet on such a regular base and it’s great!

Source: YouTube, Talkboy

I really like that part of the lyrics in Over & Under:

Makes me think that
Maybe
It doesn’t really matter if you haven’t got the answer
Cos lately I’ve been feeling so down that I don’t really care how this turns out
So pick me up and spin me round so fast that I don’t know
If love is
Over rated underrated over rated underrated

Jake, do you think that we think too much, when love is about to happen?
Katie: It’s not my question, but yes!
Tim: Yeah, 100 percent!
Jake: Do we overthink being in love? Is that the question you are asking me?
Yeah!
Jake: Yeah, I think so man. You know, romanticism is a big part of western culture, isn’t it? I think people generally think they need to have that to be a normal person, you know?
Pierce: I’m not the songwriter. I say love in general as friendship. I don’t see it as a boyfriend girlfriend, girlfriend girlfriend, boyfriend boyfriend, whatever you like thing. It’s not a love song.
Tim: It’s more saying just like, you know, when you like somebody. Whether thats like a girlfriend or just a friend, you don’t explicitly have to say it. You don’t overcomplicate it by having to make all these ridiculous statements.
Katie: We have a very idealistic view of loving someone. Rather being it loving someone or loving someone as your best friend or your family member. There are times when you will hate that person and it doesn’t take away the fact that you love them. And I think that’s kind of what the song is saying. You don’t have to stick to this societal view of love where it’s like constantly perfect.
Pierce: To me it’s more about the expression of love. You don’t need to say it all the time.
Tim: That’s it!
Pierce: That’s what the song is for me.
It’s not what you are saying, it’s what you’re doing.
Pierce: Yeah! It’s what you feel. You don’t need to say that you love someone all the time to know that. You love them and you are loved by them as well.
Katie: If someone keeps saying ‘I love you’ all the time, you will be like: ‘Fuck off!’
Everyones laughing.
Pierce: If you need to say it, maybe it’s not really true.
Tim: The idea for this song started when I went back to where I grew up and it felt really weird. Because I’ve known all these people for my entire life. But at the same time, I didn’t really have that much to say to these people. I came away from it feeling really sad, ’cause I was like: ‘Thats kind of shit’, you know? I’ve known these people all my life. But then, when I actually thought about it, I was like: That’s fine. Because I’ve got other good people. And a lot of these relationships are so fine as well. And that’s the important thing.
That is growing up.
Tim: Yeah, it is. It was a proper realization. Like: Shit, I’m not that close to that people like I was close to them when I was 12.
Katie: It’s weird actually that we don’t really asked you the exact meaning. I quite like it.
Jake: Lyrics become more important to people. If you know exactly what’s a song about, you can still enjoy the song. But you can’t put your own story to it.

So who is responsible for the lyrics? 
Katie: The current singles that are out, are completely Tim. We all worked on Mother, but it was Tim’s concept. But on our EP, one of the songs, Dragonflies, you can tell it’s written by someone else. And I think that’s quite nice. It’s still very Talkboy, we still made it very much our song. But you can tell it’s different.
Pierce: This is it. By the time it’s finished, whatever song we’ve done is a million miles away from where started writing it.
Tim: I think that’s just how it should be. If you’re in a band, that is what you’re commit to. I’m in this band to put my own stamp on it. If you are not gonna do that, then just don’t be in a band.
Jake: Join a cover band!
Katie: You could do your own solo project, if you don’t want other people to collab’ with your songs.

Tim, the story you are telling in Someone Else For You, it’s really personal, even if it’s made up, I don’t know.
Tim: No, it’s not made up.
Isn’t it kind of strange to share it with other people?
Tim: I think the person who it is about will never hear it so I don’t really give a fuck.
Katie: I thought it was about me. Not about me and Tim. At the time I was having a very similiar relationship of me trying to be someone else for another person. When he sent me I was like: ‘Do you have fucking written a song about me?’ And he was like: ‘No no, it’s a post experience.’ And I was like: ‘It’s really applicable.’
Tim: For me, it’s very, very cliche.
Katie: No, but I don’t think it is cliche. The fact that I heard the lyrics and thought you had written about me shows that it is a very personal song.
Tim: All the words for that song are stuff that actually generally happened to me. Even the first line is how I remember it happening. I think it is kind of hard to write stuff like that. But at the same time I think if you’re just honest about the stuff you realize that a lot of other people are dealing with the same shit.
Pierce: I guess we are all the same. (everyones laughing)
Katie: Calum does a really good version of it as if it was a Bruce Springsteen song. Would you like to hear it?
Pierce starts singing Someone Else For You in the style of The Boss and everyone is beginning to laugh again.

Jake, you and Tim are playing in Fizzy Blood as well.
What’s the difference between playing with them and playing in Talkboy?
Jake: Oh god …
Tim: It’s the people, it’s like …
Jake: He asked me actually! Fuck, Jesus Christ! What’s the difference?
It takes some time, but then: It’s the people (everyones laughing)!
We all play music for the same reason, the feeling doesn’t change.

You did release your fourth single today, Wasting Time.
What’s up next ? Dropping single after single?
Or releasing an whole EP or even an album finally?
Tim: Well, that is the dream.
What is the dream?
Jake: The dream is that one day I want to have one of those fucking toilets that clean my arse and I can see the sea from my fucking window. I’ll get off from the toilet and I’ll see the sea. And I go to bed and I wake up happy. Maybe I’ll have a dog and that’s the fucking dream!
We are all bursting into loud laughter!
Pierce: Finally we found some meaning!
Tim: We have been doing single after single. That is the thing we want to change really. It is fun, it is nice to see the reception from it, but when you join a band you want to make an album. 
Katie: As Tim said. Everyone dreams to release an album. Especially in these day and age, where everyone is very single obsessed. And Yeah, we’d love to get to the point where we could release an album. People would know us well enough so they want to listen to it. But at the moment we just need to wait and see. You don’t want to release an album and be really proud of it and it get wasted. Because that is such a waste of your hard work and the songs that you believe in.

Finally, is David Bowie as good as The Beatles?
Tom: Bowie for me. Beatles, personally I have one album.
Pierce: I have to say there would not be a Bowie without The Beatles!
Katie: No, no, he is not asking which you prefer. He is saying is Bowie as good as The Beatles?
Tom: Oh, of course yes!

Hey Jake, Katie, Tim, Pierce and Tom!
Thank you for a great night out, see you next time!

As we spoke about the song, enjoy this live recording of Mother:

Source: YouTube, Talkboy

Text & interview: René Biernath
Instant Film: Mickey Mouse 90th Anniversay Edition, For Use With 600