Young Knives interview

Artrocker: What do you think of the whole press junket thing?

House: I don’t mind interviews but I really don’t like TV stuff very much, it’s all just very false. You go on TV to play in front of an audience and you end up playing the song four times, and they all just stand there looking really bored. Afterwards they go, “Oh, we didn’t know it was going to be really crap!” Being on TV is fine but it feels a bit silly, like you’re showing off in front of your mum and her friends.

Artrocker: What made you choose Glasgow for your recording?

House: When we were looking at producers, a lot were American and we didn’t want to go out and record in LA, we wanted to stick with our home buddies. We liked Dave Fridmann whose done stuff with the Flaming Lips, Mogwai and the Super Furries that was quite experimental, he’s done a lot of weird and interesting stuff, so we thought he’d be a good choice. He lives in Glasgow and his studio’s in Glasgow, so we thought, OK, we’ll go there.

Artrocker: You’ve got quite an intense period of touring coming up, do you enjoy touring?

House: I do. We’re doing smaller venues at the moment to play the new stuff just for fans who really, really want to be there. We’re not doing it on a big bus, we’re going to be driving home every day, which is a bit annoying, but apart from that it’s really good fun… I don’t think I’d get sick of being in the band but I can get sick of being with the same people for hours and hours on end and you wake up next to each other in a Travelodge.

Artrocker: How much did you pay for the new Radiohead album?

House: Oh I bought the boxset for my girlfriend and then got the free download with that. I love boxsets, you get all the big pictures! I’m very excited about all the packaging and stuff. I like the album – it took me a while, but there’s some stuff on there that’s interesting.

Artrocker: Your music can seem quite jaunty on first impression, but your lyrics can be pretty bleak, particularly ‘Loughborough Suicide.’ Most people don’t even know where Loughborough is - why did you choose to write about it?

House: It depresses the hell out of me, whenever I go back you associate every corner there of stuff that’s happened, mainly walking around in the rain waiting for buses. The reason we came up the title is that people used to throw themselves off the tower block of halls there when I was a kid. We didn’t write about that, that’d be a bit wrong, but that’s where the title comes from. The song is more about its lack of character. It was good to go back to the Union to play live there though. My dad works there now, so he came down and all these students were like, “Alright Mr Dartnall!” He was famous for about half an hour.

Artrocker: Whenever you’re described in the press, the Gang of Four comparison seems to be brought out, especially with their guitarist having produced your first album – what do you think of that?

House: I think that’s just journalists trying to find a reference point. When you actually listen to their albums, they’re like an industrial act, they’re not poppy-punk, they’re more like prog-punk if anything. They always reference Gang of Four with Franz Ferdinand but Franz are nothing like them, they’re a pop band.

Artrocker: And lastly, perhaps an obvious question, but for those of us who don’t already know – why are you called The House of Lords?

House: It’s just because the rest of the band thought that I vetoed all the good ideas, like the House of Lords. It’s quite derogatory and pretty ridiculous, but I don’t mind!