INTERVIEW WITH MOHAIR -THE WATER RATS-21ST JULY 2004

Sitting outside the Water Rats before their set seemed a good time as any to catch the thoughts of Watford’s Mohair on everything from festivals to Heather McCartney to bins…

Me: You’ve played a lot of festivals recently, Glastonbury, T in the Park, Oxegen in Ireland and the Guilfest. How was all that for you?

Tom: We had our favourite month…EVER. We’ve been together way over 5 years now, we’ve been through different names, different people, but never have we had a month that we’ve enjoyed as much as this one. We did a festival in Devon as well which was really cool.
Pete: It was all very much arts and crafts based, nannies with their hands over their kids ears, Morris dancing and that sort of thing
Tom: Morris men and Mohair - jiggery-pokery.

So in general with the festivals, what were your highlights, either what did you find good about them, or what other bands did you catch?

Tom: We played Glastonbury first, that was acoustically, and that was lovely to do, just to have the opportunity, but T in the Park was the first big “whooaaaaaa” (makes a faux-falsetto noise) sort of moment…A very Darkness moment then! Well yeah we went on to no one (laughs) about 12.30, the main doors only opened at twenty five past, so throughout our set people were flooding in, the Black Eyed Peas were on the main stage to no one, so all these people came running into the tent, by the end of our set we had at least about a thousand, people were digging it, it was great, hands above their heads, and clapping.
I’ve seen Muse twice in the last couple of weeks and they’ve blown me away both times, they went on before the Darkness at Oxegen festival in Dublin, and they were absolutely wicked.
Alex : And the Zutons (the band all agree)
Pete : My favourite band at Glastonbury, well, guy, was Damien Rice…he did a cover of Hallelujah, the Jeff Buckley track, it was just magical, I was really surprised by him actually.

What did you think of Paul McCartney?

Tom: Great, wicked, we’ve actually met Paul McCartney. We’ve done karaoke with him, last year… Explain! - OK, well we managed to blag backstage at his gig at Earls Court and push came to shove and we ended up getting really drunk with his band members, and getting up and singing karaoke, with Paul and Heather spinning around like nutcases in front of us.
Spinning around?
Pete: Yeah it was a sight to be seen, hahaha
Tom: Yeah it was brilliant, she was very er…
Pete: (deadpan)… Stable
Tom: The way she held herself, never seen anyone pivot on one leg before,
(everyone bursts out laughing), puts most dancers to shame, she was really good…
Pete: What sort of frustrates me about these incidents, when you meet people you’ve been looking up to for years and years and years its always a case of its somewhere special, but with a free BAR, and so by the time I meet them, I’m absolutely off my tits, and so we ‘re all like ‘great gig man’ and they’re sort of ‘God, be cooler man’, but 10 JDS later there’s no chance of it is there!

You’ve been continually gigging since the Spring as well as these last 6 weeks, any towns or venues that stick in your mind?

Unanimously: Doncaster.
Tom: It’s one of those rare occurrences where you have a ready made audience so the kids actually go to the venue regardless of who’s playing, and so then we come back and we’re bigger. Also, Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, and Hastings.
Pete: It actually tends to be the gigs where you turn up and think ‘oh God let’s leave now. The first time we went to Doncaster there was riot police outside, and so we thought ‘for fuck’s sake, but it was a good gig.
Tom: Generally you find that the towns of a certain size like Doncaster, Hastings, Bury St Edmunds, they create their own music scene by only having 1 or 2 venues…when you go to Leeds or something there’s 6 or 7 venues, a high street full of shows…
Alex: …And thousands of students…
Tom: …And you never really know what going to happen.
Pete : There’s musical snobbery as well ‘cos if you got so much to choose from then people can afford to be snobby about music, whereas with say, Bury St Edmunds, you’ve got us or the bingo… and what you gonna choose really…

So Watford needs a scene like that then.

Tom: Well Watford has bingo. We play the Horns (a small pub/venue in Watford), we do an acoustic show which is all the songs that we’ve written over the years and not put in our loud set, and we started that at the Horns and are still true to that…and where we come from there’s also the Rainbow festival which I don’t think they’re doing this year because there’s not enough bins. We’re going to start a ‘making bin’s’ club for next year, going to write to the council and say ‘come and help me make bins‘.
I reckon you’ll get a lot of support.
Tom: Yeah I do too. Bin workshops..
Tim: How would you go about making a bin though?
Tom: You just get an oil drum…and spray it.

A normal question now: how would you describe your live show to someone who’s never seen you?

Tom: Loud….fast, frantic and filthy.
Tim: All the Fs.
Tom: With slow bits…although that’s an S. Erm, its very hard, how about fast frantic filthy and fun. Oh…and frivolous…is that a word we can get in there somewhere?
Pete: I wouldn’t describe us as frivolous, that means a waste of time!
Tom: Oh… OK not that then…how about…forgettable (everyone laughs).

On the Xfm message boards, there’s a few postings about Mohair on there, criticising Xfm in general for not supporting new music such as Mohair as much as people think, whereas Janice Long and Radio 2 have been so good to you guys. How has that helped you?

Tom: Well for a start we listen to Radio 2 now and we don’t listen to Xfm!
Alex: It actually bumped us up to the Main stage at Guildford, that was the Radio 2 stage. We were originally meant to be playing in one of the tents, we did the Janice Long show on our last tour, and had the single coming out, it got played quite a lot, and bumped us up the bill.
Tom: They’ve been really good to us. I think once Xfm have something to get their teeth into then they jump on board.
Pete: I think the single that was supposed to come out would have done it, but, obviously, its not coming out now (Mohair have recently parted ways with their record company).
Tom: It’s fine - things are much better now we’re footloose and fancy free. Three F’s! We should move up the alphabet more really…

Last question, tell me something about the band that would surprise people.

Tom: Well the fact that Pete played with Rolf Harris, does that count? (At the Guilfest, Pete joined Rolf Harris on stage for a quick blast of unprecedented trumpet action).
Tim: You mean things about our past?
Tom: There isn’t much there.
Pete: We used to be in a Commitments covers band, there you go.