PRP: Well, let's just start with the usual
question, how was
Lostprophets formed and what changes have come about up to this point?
The name change for example.
Lostprophets: We formed late 1997 just as a group of
friends, just messing around. All these bands were coming out but we weren't
hearing what we wanted to hear. Some bands had cool bits but there were always
crap bits so we thought we would do it ourselves but never took it seriously. We
did a demo and naively sent it to Metal Hammer and they gave it a ten out of ten
and we were like "right, that us sorted" - sat back and waited for a
deal. We didn't really send it out to any labels, we just did it for our friends
and then we did another demo in 1998 which had rappy stuff and singing but we were
just messing around and really didn't know what we wanted to do and where we
wanted to go. I was in college so we had other stuff going on, we played here
and there. We called ourselves LoztProphetz, we put Z's in it just for a laugh
because we thought it looked cool and we got so much shit for it. A lot of things
then we did was over the top, tongue and cheek. Our demo covers were all over
the top and we had false names and fake accents. Just having a laugh but it
didn't translate, it went over everyone's heads and they all took it seriously
and a lot of people said, "well the music is good but they think they are from
south central." Then in the summer of 1999 we all came back together,
sat down and started writing, we chucked them on a 4 track tape and the only address we had
was Visible Noise Records. Because we lived in such a small town in Wales
we had no contact with
labels. We sent it off and like the next day she said she wanted to work with us
and offered to sign us off the strength of the demo, she hadn't even seen us
live. A lot of people were saying we were nuts going with the the first deal but
we were ready and if we didn't sign then all the songs would be scrapped. We knew
if we didn't sign we would have to start gigging in London and kissing ass and
these songs would fall by the wayside. Basically we wanted to get our stuff out.
What's happened in the last three months since the album came out has been amazing.
PRP: You mention
the fact that you would write new songs and scrap old songs. In hindsight are
you still happy with the songs on "fakesoundofprogress".
Lostprophets:
The second album I think will be a lot more consistent, its a mixture of songs
that were written within a year, some are more metal, some are more mellow and
you can tell what is older.
PRP: Any Particular
message behind the album name "fakesoundofprogress"?
Lostprophets: Two things, basically its kind of preemptive in that we
knew that when we released it, we would be seen as another
nu-metal band. A lot of people say "oh I thought you would be another
shitty nu-metal band" and then they have listened to it and they say well
you weren't. The other thing is when we were writing the album, we would be
reading Kerrang! and read about a hot new band coming out. We would run
out and buy the CD and we would be like this is shit and get so angry we would
snap the CD. We just got really pissed off with it, bands thinking they have
gone really far, hence "fakesoundofprogress".
PRP:
Why no gaps between the words of song titles?
Lostprophets: That's Just me being a crap designer.
We say it like they are more than one word. Whenever I get e-mails people say it
how we wrote it on the album which is cool as they are paying attention I guess.
People still spell our name with two words. As one word I think it looks really
cool, its meant to be like Snapcase in that you wouldn't write it "Snap
Case".
PRP: What
bands are you influenced by and do the band share similar tastes?
Lostprophets: We all came from the same point but
along the way we all branched off into listening to different things. We aren't
scared of looking back. I (Ian) grew up with stuff like Faith No More, The
Police, Duran Duran, Megadeth. I would have my walkman on and
have Duran Duran on one side and Annihilator on the other. When
you are young you don't see the divide between the genre's, you just like music
as music. Its cool to make music that is timeless, an album that you will listen
to in ten years time and still think is cool. At the end of the day I think
melody and tune is timeless, it will never go out of fashion. Listen to "Angel
Dust" by Faith No More now and it still sounds fresh. A lot of
this rap metal stuff in a few years is going to be so lame. If you want to make
a quick buck in a short amount of time then its fine but we want to be going for
ages. We want a career with music that's going to last.
PRP: With six members in the band, how do you go about
writing songs?
Lostprophets: Basically Lee goes home and
churns our riff after riff after riff and he will come to practice and tell us
all his ideas and we would jam around that idea.
PRP:
Ian, What do you tend to write about in your songs?
Lostprophets: Nothing really in particular, just
stuff that's on my mind. I start writing a song about one thing and half way
through I start thinking about something else and by the end of the song I'm
singing about something completely different. There's no real structure to it. They mean stuff to me but they are also kind of ambiguous and people can
interpret them in their own way.
PRP: Ian, you maintain the official Lostprophets
website, do you like that hands on approach?
Lostprophets: I Love doing it. I work for a web
design company as it is. Its cool, I get all these emails and I want to answer
them all, but I cant always do that because I'm supposed to be working on all
these corporate websites. I do it after work after everyone goes home answering
emails and updating news till 11pm. The amount of e-mails I have been receiving
has gone from 2/3 a week up to 20 or 30 a day. They are worldwide too.
PRP: So how do you feel about internet promotion?
Lostprophets: Its awesome, big corporations still don't
understand it and its still in the hands of the people in the way that anyone
can make a website. If you think about it, without the internet, Marcie (Farmclub A&R who flew in from
New York City to see the bands show)
wouldn't be here today. The doors that are opened for a small band in Wales
actually getting somewhere in the states is awesome. Fuckin download our stuff
from Napster. I don't care if people steal our music or buy it, as long
as they listen to it. Without the internet you would need a massive label to get
heard form places so far a field.
PRP: With bands like Linkin Park, Papa
Roach and Limp Bizkit getting daytime airplay on Radio 1, is this healthy for the
U.K. homegrown scene?
Lostprophets: Definitely, it pisses me off the fact
that Radio 1 (Major U.K. Radio Station) play Linkin Park and Limp
Bizkit, when there's U.K. bands that do it just as well. The only
reason they are playing them is because they are big in America. It's
still opening metal and alternative music into the more mainstream eyes so it
has to be a good thing. Having Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit at
number 1 is much better than Steps at number 1.
PRP: Is there a sense of unity amongst U.K.
bands? I know that Earthtone9 speak highly of you.
Lostprophets: I think there definitely is. Earthtone9
have been awesome, we owe them quite a lot. We need to stick together, there's
no point being jealous. The U.K. is so small, everybody's in the same
boat. Everyday I read on The PRP about American bands that our recording their
major label debuts and just 3 or 4 U.K. bands in this scene on major labels. You
can't say that bands like us, Earthtone 9 and Hundred Reasons are not as good as
some bands that get signed to majors in the U.S.
PRP: In the shower with the sudden urge to urinate,
do you hop out and pee or just go in the shower?
Lostprophets: Shower (all in unison)
PRP: What should fans expect of your live show?
Lostprophets: Energy, emotion, intelligence,
aggression and a good laugh. Having a release.
PRP: Any last words?
Lostprophets: check our album out please, we work
hard. lostprophets.com or Napster.
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