Cut to the Chase: A close encounter with Young Knives

Though described by NME as “a geek rock band with charity shop tweed clothes and self-deprecating humour”, there’s no doubt that this up-and-coming trio has more to offer than just their outfits. Coming from different parts of the country, The Dartnalls brothers (Henry and Thomas) and Oliver Askew gathered at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire in the late 90s, then successfully broke it out from the Midland. After being nominated for the UK’s Mercury Prize in 2007 for Voices of Animals and Men, Young Knives followed with the equally successful Superabundance and are now working on a third LP, set for release later this year.

Before their show at MAO Livehouse on March 4, the band shared a few insights with tbj’s Wang Ge …

the Beijinger: You’re band name has changed from “Simple Pastoral Existence” to “Pony Club’ and now “Young Knives”. How did you come up with all these names?

Young Knives: We wrote long lists of words that we liked and picked them out of a hat. Then we made small changes to them to make them work. It’s funny though because all the names have some relevence to our lives at the time, which is the main reason we chose them. Like Simple Pastoral Existence worked because we were playing together in a farm house, and Ponyclub because we could see horses from our house. Young Knives sounded like a band of Robin hood type characters who were stealing avant guard music and making low-brow pop out of it.

tbj: Who are your biggest influences?

YN: We all have lots of different influences but there are a few that we all share like Adam and the Ants, Robert Wyatt, Led Zeppelin, Captain Beefheart and The Fall.

tbj: What does it take for you guys to be “indie”? Do you consider yourself as such?

YN: Indie always just meant indipendant from the mainstream music labels. Now most of the “indie” bands are fully signed up to the big labels. I don’t really care whether a band is indie or not, I only care if they are any good. So no, we are not indie, we are alternative maybe, but some people would probably disagree with that. Indie almost implies weak pop made by skinny white boys, and we aren’t skinny.

tbj: What brought you to China (apart from an airplane)?

YN: We recorded some tracks for Raybans which are covers of 1950’s pop. As part of that project we were asked to go to Beijing, so we thought lets do some more gigs while we are there. We are mainly coming because it will be an awesome trip.

tbj: What are you expecting from your first Beijing gig?

YN: Fun, mainly. We have played in Hong Kong before and had such a great time with the people there that we thought Mainland China must be even cooler and have even nicer people. Oh and the food, we are very excited about the food.

tbj: What have you heard about the Beijing/China music scene?

YN: Not a lot.

tbj: Who are 5 artists on your iPods (or equivalent players) right now?

YN: The Phantom band, Checkmate Savage; creepy epic stuff.
Johnny Flynn, A Larum; great folk pop.
Public Image Ltd, Flowers of romance; really getting into this music concrete style album.
Talking Heads, I have just bought all the stuff I didn’t have and I can’t get enough of it.
Love, Forever Changes; I have never owned this album so just bought it, blimey it’s good.

tbj: A question for the Croydon folks: Kate Moss: Love her or hate her, and why?

YN: I don’t know her so I couldn’t say. She seems like a nice enough person.

tbj: Lastly, something for our GREEN issue: If you could, what animal would you bring back from extinction and why? And what animal would you like to see extinct?

YN: I would like to bring back the Elephant bird from extinction purely because it is massive and ridiculous; I would like to see the Weaver fish extinct. I stood on one last summer while I was surfing and I never want to feel that pain again.

Young Knives will be performing at Mao Livehouse (6402 5080) on Mar 4, joined by local rockers Perdel and Bigger Bang. RMB 120. 9pm.