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Jon of Plastic Toys - Email Interview
January 2nd 2008
AmpedReviews.net is now based in Southampton and we are working to include more Southampton based bands in our WebPages. On your website you describe yourselves as a Southampton phenomenon; what do you think you guys bring to the South?
We play music that no-one else around here plays. Everything tends to be quit indie orientated, but we’re aiming for a bigger sound, a bigger show and production but doing it in a INDIEpendant way if that makes sense. Indie attitude, major ambition.
What other local bands are you guys fans of?
I’ll confess I haven’t been out often enough recently, I’m just too broke but bands that have got my foot tapping in the last year are Stout, Dead!Dead!Dead!, Scarlet Soho, BabyDriver and My Passion (who aren’t local, but one of the best unsingeds out there).
We were first introduced to you guys when you played a supporting slot at a Mindless Self Indulgence show back in October. How did this opportunity come around and how do you think you went down with the crowd?
We have a great relationship with the promoter for the Joiners as we have made them plenty of money in the past by selling lots of tickets! (how about a pay rise guys?!). They deal with the Brook now and thought we’d go really well with MSI style wise. A lot of the crowd were fans of ours already so we went down well with them, but I think we won over some new people too despite having the sound cut 30 secs from the end of the show!
You’re touring with My Ruin in January, how are you going to wow the crowds with your live shows?
Well we’re on 1st so that means 30 mins max and NO onstage lighting or production extras so it’s going to be all about the music. So basically we’ll go out there, play as many songs as we can in the time we have and play them with some fire. No-one wants to hear a record perfect rendition, they want some noise and some sweat and that’s what we’ll deliver.
You’ve set up your own record label ‘Hill Valley Records,’ what are some of the upsides and downsides of being on and running an independent label?
The upside is creative control, basically if there is something we wanna do it then we do it. The downside is being held back by lack of funds. So we had great ideas for CD packaging for example but had to cut back as we can’t afford the up-front costs of getting them printed…it was a choice of fancy CD’s or gear that worked for the tour. The gear is a necessity so won out. I recommend doing your own label to people all the time but only if you’re willing to work hard at it. It has become a full time unpaid job for me at the moment but it’s a vehicle for releasing the music I love so I’m happy.
You’ve received a lot of positive reviews for your music, if you were to review one of your tracks, which one would you pick and what would you say about it?
Wow, so much room for self deprecation or total ego mania here! My favourite song on the album we have coming out in Feb (4th) is probably The Tragedy so I’ll pick that one. I wanted to do a song that was a story of 2 starlets killing eachother for fame and losing sight of why they began performing in the first place. I have no idea if people get that from it, but I’m proud of the lyrics and the music that I feel really captures the vibe of the song just how I intended. So I’d say “piano meets synth meets fuzz guitar in this Chicago like story. Played and recorded satisfactorily”. That ok?
Your eagerly awaited debut album ‘For Tonight Only’ is being released in February 2008; can you tell us what the fans can expect from this debut?
Well it’s the songs people have heard many times at shows as well as a handful of new ones. Its more diverse than our live show as we tend to only get 30 minute slots and can’t be as expansive as we’d like. So there’s a couple of slower tracks here and some deeper music and lyrics as well as the usual all out rock stuff. We aimed to create an album that would run like the perfect live set, hence the name ‘For Tonight Only’ and I think we did ok. We’re idealists though and what I hope people get most from the album is a general vibe of seeing the dark humour in life when everything seems bleak, of creating your own little fantasy world to cope with day to day life because that’s lyrically what the whole thing is about to some extent.
Oh, and the 1st 500 copies have 3 bonus tracks which we just finished up recording. Let me just say they are pretty different from the album and will interest any hardcore PT fan, I don’t want to give away more than that!
What is to come in the future from Plastic Toys?
Well the next year looks like a tour-a-thon which is great. We have spent so long wanting to just get out there supporting bigger bands and play to people every night. We have paid our dues I feel and we’re ready to take it all up a notch. I’m writing a lot of new material now and over xmas too, in fact album number 2 is pretty much half written already.
I just want to say again that we are 100% independent, this is our own money going into the recordings, into the live shows and videos so if anyone digs what we do, believes independent music is the way forward and wants to help us out by street teaming or posting myspace bulletins, whatever, please drop us a line. jon@plastictoys.co.uk Our fans have been exceptional in this regard and our main goal is to please them with everything we do.
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