INTERVIEW: NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB
WORDS: CAMERON COOK
IMAGE: ABBEY BRADEN

Tahita Bulmer is kind of pissed — her cab driver took her on quite the wild goose chase while trying to find The White Room, a now-defunct Brooklyn venue located in the basement of an apartment complex. In a way, who can blame the poor guy, it’s like trying to locate a nuclear fallout bunker. However, one cup of raspberry tea later, Tahita is back to her (we assume) normal self: cheery, funny, displaying acerbic British wit and looking nothing short of fabulous with her caramel complexion and half-shaved hairdo.

Tahita has every reason to be grinning at the moment. Her band, New Young Pony Club, are infecting the dance world with their lava-smooth, ice-cool brand of pop-funk. A five-piece group of sonic troublemakers, NYPC seem bent on infusing the current dance scene with a well-needed spurt of feminine sexiness, and Tahita, pint-sized but big-voiced, makes mince-meat out of tracks like “Descend” and “Ice Cream” (think 20 Fingers gone clubbing with The Rapture). Her coy-yet-brazen pick up lines of “I can give you what you want/I can make your heartbeat short” are a whiff of sweet, fresh air.

We caught up with Tahita and guitarist Andy Spence at a café in Williamsburg, and talked at length about dance music, America vs. England, and what it takes to have a hit tune.

So, new rave—
Andy: Straight for the jugular!

I thought I’d get it out of the way. So, legitimate subgenre, or meaningless category blatantly invented by the NME?
Tahita: Well, it wasn’t invented by the NME. It was invented by Klaxons.
Andy: Well, it might as well have been invented by the NME. Klaxons said it as a joke, and NME just ran with it.
Tahita: It’s not a legitimate term.
Andy: It’s not even a scene really, they’re making it like a portrayal of a movement. It’s a lot of people making post-dance guitar music, which is exciting. There are a lot of really good bands doing that. In America, and New York especially, that’s already been happening with DFA and all that. It’s nothing that new, and it was happening even before that, with bands like the Happy Mondays.
Tahita: They just don’t want to call it disco-punk, because that term is “so 2003,” you know what I mean?

When I was listening to a few of your songs, I did hear a lot of early ’90s dance influences, even stuff like 20 Fingers, though not that novelty, obviously. But it did bring some of that minimalist, fun dance feel back.
Tahita: It’s been quite boring for a while, hasn’t it, dance music? Just a lot of German guys going like [adopts strong Teutonic accent] ‘Yes, I spent mooch time weez my keyboard…’ The main thing with all these bands is that they want to have fun. They enjoy the process of making and playing music. It’s really important to like what you do, as opposed to sitting there saying: ‘How can impress my friends?’

Why do you think that is? Why do bands feel that they need to have more fun?
Andy: It’s hard to say. There has been an era of quite serious indie bands recently.
Tahita: With endless fucking love songs about: ‘Oh my God, my girlfriend left me, I’m so depressed. But I’m still going to write a song with 85 chords that I don’t actually need.’ Just really bad English indie bands who think they’re Jeff Beck. People are up for having fun again, as a response to that. First, politically and socio-economically speaking, we’re entering a period of—not unrest, but uncertainty. The American economy is, well, a bit crazy at the moment, and the English economy could go at any time. Britain is massively in debt to itself, Blair’s been in office for about 2000 years, all those dreams have died, and everyone knows it’s as corrupt as the Conservatives…
Andy: Historically, music has been the reaction to what’s going on, around you. Things are getting a bit more serious, politically, so it’s time to party again!
Tahita: I think there’s a real sensation with all the warehouse parties going on in London. You’re not supposed to be doing this kind of stuff because of the Criminal Justice bill that happened ages ago, so if you have a party with more than 18 people or something and don’t ask the council first, the police will come in about 30 minutes and shut you down. That’s what happens, but people are still trying to have parties. It’s a bit of a ‘fuck you’ to what’s going on in our society. It’s the same thing over here, people getting off their bums and making records, releasing records and organizing parties and stuff.

“Ice Cream” was recently licensed for an Intel commercial, so obviously I would assume you don’t have any inhibitions about having your songs in an advert, or that it would threaten your integrity…
Andy: [Sighs] Well, it’s not a simple as that. We did have a dilemma with it, and almost had an argument with our management company about it. We did feel it was a bit early. It’s certainly not something we were looking for, it just really came out of the blue. We hadn’t even released it in England, and it was a bit like, ‘OK, how is this going to look?’ But at the end of the day, especially in America, it’s not really seen as such a big deal these days, as long as you’re not selling your songs to something that’s ethically wrong.
Tahita: ‘Join the army, go to Iraq and die!’
Andy: And quite honestly, we didn’t sign a big record deal. It was quite nice to have a bit of cash [laughs]! We certainly won’t be doing more of that, though. I’m not saying never again, but we just don’t want it to become overplayed, because that does destroy [a song].

“Ice Cream” has become quite a big hit hasn’t it?
Andy: Well, not yet!
Tahita: It’s an underground hit!

Well, those are the best kind! Take a band like Hot Chip, with “Over and Over”—
Andy: I was just thinking about that!

It kind of correlates in my mind with “Ice Cream”.
Andy: It does with me as well. I think because the track was underground, and a lot of people wanted it to be like that, but it can break through. They’ve released it a couple of times, and honestly I think that may happen with “Ice Cream”. It’s the track that everyone remembers.

I think that for the right song, re-releasing singles is OK. It really annoys me when labels do it just because no one really bought it the first time around.
Andy: The only reason to do that is if the song is more of an obvious hit. In England, we’ve only got one national radio station. If they don’t back your single, you’re fucked. And they won’t back it without a certain amount of hype around it. That’s what happened to “Over and Over”. It came out, and Radio 1 wouldn’t play it. It’s a great track, we’re all playing it, get with the fucking program, you know? It took loads of hype before Radio 1 would get behind it. In America it might be the same.
Tahita: They’ve got all the power. What people forget, when indie labels release singles from bands over and over again is, with an indie, you have a group of people that feel very strongly about a particular song or artist. They want to see the band do well. They want to see them be allowed to get to the next level of success. Which means you have to have a hit single, because the great public and the powers that be won’t take you seriously.
Andy: It’s not so much like that over here, is it?

Single sales actually don’t drive releases here at all. In order to get a #1 single, you only have to sell like 6,000 copies. No one releases singles almost.
Tahita: We should just get on myspace and tell everyone to buy our single in America! We’d have a #1!
Andy: Yeah, we have like 20,000 fucking friends, might as well use them!

Since America is so big, and you can’t really broadcast anything nationally, every region has its own radio station with completely different taste. Which is good in a way, but radio can’t really break a band. It’s almost negligible, unless you’re Beyoncé and can get on every station at once. It’s like, New York barely has a non-commerical, alternative format radio station. It’s either one of the two big pop stations, hip-hop or NPR-type stuff.
Andy: So how do people find their music?

The Internet, word-of-mouth. Not really through the radio. It’s different on the West Coast because people drive a lot. But I haven’t listened to the radio once since I moved here.
Tahita: Radio’s totally dying.
Andy: Well, if it gets people into digital radios and digital music, I see that as a good thing.
Tahita: You can get a slow build over here, can’t you? I’d much rather be in a band over here, where you have that slow build mentality. You can have a proper fanbase in every state, and they’re there, and the support you. Whereas in England, if you’re lucky, or unlucky, enough to have one hit single on your album, it means everyone will talk about you for about a week, and no one will ever hear from you ever again.
Andy: Lily Allen is very much going through that. She’s had a couple of hits, and they’re good tracks, packed shows when we opened for her… it’ll be hard for her to make a slightly more challenging record the next time around.
Tahita: She’ll probably become like our J.Lo. She’ll be like: [adopts posh British accent] ‘I wanna act next,’ and be on EastEnders or something. Or she’ll release a perfume. ‘Chav, by Lily Allen. The Smell of the Streets.’

Uh, that’s totally going in the interview.
Tahita: She’s a good friend, she’ll appreciate it.

Yeah, the big industry story right now is how Tower Records closed, because no one is buying record any more.
Andy: The thing is, this is a myth perpetrated by the record industry to try and intimidate people. Yeah, people aren’t buying CDs, but they’re still buying music. If you look at the facts, the same amount that CD sales have gone down, digital sales have gone up. They’re making the same amount of money. So they’re all: ‘Boo hoo, no one’s buying our records’ — bullshit! They’re just buying downloads. Which [record companies] makes 10 times as much on! They charge the same overheads, but they don’t have to make the physical CD.

But actual retailers are really feeling the drop.
Tahita: But I think independent retailers will have a resurgence, If you want to find a Mariah Carey record, you can get it on iTunes, but if you want to find a fucking Residents record, you won’t be able to find it online. Music fans are going to always shop at independent stores.

I hope so. You’ll always have the need to rummage through the dollar bin. So, the album! Is it recorded, when is it coming out, what’s the deal?

Andy: We were just asking Gina [NYPC’s publicist] the same thing! In the UK it’s coming out in May, possibly same in the US It depends how quickly it goes. Our first single is only out in January…
Tahita: We’ve been living with this stuff for ages, and it’s coming out in dribs and drabs. It’s like: ‘I want to release the album! I’m bored!’

Website: wearepony.com