The last time I spoke to The Lovely Eggs in May, their single Fuck It was on course to enter the pop charts and secure the number one spot for a record-breaking number of weeks. Well that was the plan anyway. Unfortunately the content of the song (unplayable on most radio stations) and the fact that it was released as a limited edition 7″ on a bank holiday monday only succeeded in ensuring that sales were somewhat sluggish. This is typical however of a band who describe themselves as holding ‘a fierce punk rock ethos that music should have no rules’.
Following a summer jaunt around Europe supporting indie-rock band Art Brut, The Lovely Eggs are back and set to embark on a new tour of the UK showcasing their inimitable brand of humour and existentialist observation, mixed up good with some pretty impressive pop-punk tunes. On the eve of the release of new single Panic Plants, I dropped front-woman Holly a line and ended up with some insightful and honest opinions on the matters of making it big, mental health, and medieval houses… pretty standard interview, yes?
Hey Holly, how did your tour with Art Brut go?
It went great. They tried to kill us with drink and fun. We’re still here.
Previously you mentioned that you’re stuck in an existential crisis – what form does this take? Do you try to resolve life’s many mysteries through the magic of music such as in the ‘olive in the sandwich and the infinite universe’ song?
I am pretty obsessed with death. I used to be a lot worse, I just try not to think about it now too much. I don’t really like change which is part of it, I think I just want things to last forever. Like I get depressed when shops shut down in Lancaster that have been there since the 1950s. I just think WHY!!! Why would you do that, it was a nice shop. People like to change things but they are not making them better, that is why you have hardly any medieval houses left and who wouldn’t want a medieval house nowadays? I also get down about things being forgotten; like say there was a Victorian couple who were really really in love and they were so so happy together and the feelings they had for each other were so strong but no one even knows about them today. They are just lost in time, all those feelings and energy just gone.
Really big things and really small things also scare me like the universe, black holes, stars, the height of the sky, how many people are in the world, nothingness, what came before nothing and what made nothing and time. We wrote Oh The Stars about that when an olive fell out of a sandwich onto the table. It made me think about how many olives are in the world and that one right there on the table right then. I suppose music can be a good way to confront certain thoughts that scare you but then we wrote Fuck It because I really did begin to dwell on it a bit too much and I wasn’t sleeping and I was going a bit mental. Sometimes it is just good to say fuck it and not think about it.
I know Panic Plants is about the trials of obsessive-compulsive disorder – do you see mental illness as something to be celebrated rather than hushed up?
Yeah I think it’s really good to get things out in the open, then people start not to worry about themselves. We wrote Panic Plants about David’s OCD. He doesn’t have it really bad that much anymore but he still has an obsession with checking everything and making sure stuff is turned off and locked. When we recorded the song we got some people to come and sing on the record – The Lancaster Music Co-op Panic Plants Choir – and while they were there we realised that nearly everyone has some sort of OCD. Our friend Darren Andrews (who does all our photos and films all our videos) can’t stand odd numbers and he won’t have the stereo volume on any odd number. Our other friend Kriss Foster told us he has worn a hole in his wall cos he has to tap the plug of his lamp every time he goes out so he remembers he’s turned it off. To know that everyone is a bit mental can sometimes be quite comforting.
How does making music affect your outlook on life and yourselves?
I think our outlook on life and us more affects our music rather than the other way round. But I suppose to a certain extent the music does affect our outlook on life. Our music has allowed us to travel and meet new people and have a laugh and a party almost every single night so it’s allowed us to have fun and feel free. I think that’s the biggest feeling we get from our music – just total freedom.
As a decidedly un-mainstream band, how do you judge ‘success’ and ‘making it big’ and all that? Is it all about doing something you love and actually getting paid for it?
Compared to most bands our idea of ‘success’ is probably quite modest. For us we just want to play out as much as we can to as many people as we can and make some great records. We don’t really know what ‘making it big is’. I know what it is for other bands (like being in the NME and touring with big bands and getting ‘signed’) but it’s not in our world really, for us it is not important. Of course we want loads of people to come to our gigs and get our records out to as many people as want to listen to them but the most important thing for us is being able to play music all the time and not have a shit job so I suppose that’s our definition of ‘success’. I have had so many shit jobs I feel so joyous about being able to do music all of the time now. It’s pretty incredible. We feel so lucky.
What contemporary bands do you really like and who would be in your dream festival line-up?
We’ve been listening to a lot of Welsh bands of late; Gruff Rhys has produced a record we are releasing in December [over at Too Pure] and his stuff is amazing. Then we’ve also really been getting into Y Niwl and Eilir Pierce and H Hawkline and Mr Huw. Re festival, if we’re talking about living bands it might be something like: Sonic Youth/Jonathan Richman/Jeffrey Lewis/Half Japanese/Gruff Rhys/Hotpants Romance/Paddy Steer/Art Brut/Scout Niblett/Agent Ribbons. This list will probably change tomorrow.
I noticed you are on an album called Any Love is Good Love due to be released on Cherryade – is this campaign one that is close to your heart? Would you say you were an ‘outsiders’ band?
Well yes of course we believe that people should be free to love/go out with whoever the fuck they want and they should be allowed to dress and be who they want to be – that’s just basic common sense is that. Are we an outsider’s band? Err well we welcome absolutely everyone to our gigs, we don’t give a shit about what they wear, or how old they are or who they know or who they are having sex with. In that sense, I suppose we are but I haven’t been to many gigs where it isn’t like that. I like to think people feel welcome at our gigs though.
The Lovely Eggs are playing Leeds at The Fox and Newt this Friday, 28th October. Tickets are £5 on the door.