| Imperial Vipers written by Jaxxi D And Lizzie |
| NF/ So how you guys doing, and how’s your year been so far? Ash/ Very good, yeah just getting back out there and doing a few gigs, and seeing what the reaction is to the new stuff. NF/ Good reactions so far? Ash/ Yeah definitely. NF/ Cool, and for those people who don’t know your music or haven’t heard it before how would you describe it? Wevs/ Hmm difficult really, I mean we get put into so many different categories. Ash/ Um I’d describe it as really good (laughs) Wevs/ Apart from being really good, its kinda like bands we listen to like Led Zepplin, The Clash. Ash/ We try and come across as very British, like people are always comparing us to like bands from Seattle in the early 90’ s. Wevs/ So kinda like with regards to the 1st album, like to catch what we’ve done, but like what we are doing now its like give it more free reign, but its kinda Punky Rock, but with proper words and melodies, like anyone can string together 3 chords and hammer it but its how you string those 3 chords together you know what I mean. Ash/ Sophisticated Punk Rock. NF/ Cool, so, you’ve probably kinda answered this already but your influences musically are? Wevs/ At the minute a lot of Rancid, but its forever changing really. A lot of contemporary stuff like Kings Of Leon, stuff like that, Led Zepplin. Ash/ Yeah Zepplins probably the biggest influence and then the Clash. Wevs/ Yeah The Clash and some Sex Pistols maybe. Ash/ A bit of The Who. Wevs/ A bit of Guns N Roses (early stuff), but you know you wana be here and now, ya know. NF/ You don’t wana copy people you just wana do what you do. Ash/ You cant really, I mean all the bands your into will come out in your music and your influences and stuff but you cant get caught up on things, we just do what we do, like just do what we love doing. Wevs/ Yeah that’s been our Achilles heel and our strength, its that we’re doing something that’s different. Ash/ Yeah we can see round the edges and we don’t fall into 1 pigeonhole, to create the mould you have to make the mould. Wevs/ I mean last night we sold out The Metro Club. NF/ That’s great. Ash/ So whatever we’re doing we’re doing it something right and its really building in London and back on the local scene as well. Wevs/ Yeah back to our roots really. NF/ Cool, so where did you all meet initially? Ash/ We all met in school pretty much, Andrew and Wevs are brothers. Wevs/ Yeh we’re brothers. Ash/ We met Scott within a year, yeah we’re all local from like Dunstable/Luton area. NF/ Ah cool, and so the name from the band how did you come up with it? Ash/ We liked The Vipers and we were kinda intent on it just being called The Vipers, but there’s probably bands called The Vipers and we wanted to sound really British, like we wanted that in our name that we are British. Wevs/ So we needed something British and when we were rehearsing in Hackney we just happened to go past The Imperial hall so if you see that that’s where The Imperial comes from. NF/ Do you have initial thoughts before you go onstage? Ash/ Excitement, Adrenaline, Focus etc, I mean you just focus on the crowd and getting them involved and getting their energy going. NF/ Yeah you bounce off their energy. Ash/ Right. NF/ With April fools day just gone did any pranks happen you can tell us about? Ash/ Nah we weren’t together were we (to Wevs) Wevs/ Nah we’re not really that sorta band. Ash/ Nah we’re not pranksters are we. NF/ You don’t have like a prankster in the band? Ash/ Not really Lofty’s a bit of a, Lofty, Scott I mean he likes to be known as Scott Cowell now, yeah he’s a bit of a clown. NF/ Out of the venues you played so far, which 1’s the best and why? Wevs/ What this year or…. NF/ Yeah go on then. Ash/ I mean, this year, I’d say the 2 London 1’s have been really good, um The Embassy, although The Embassy was a good gig it was packed out sold out but um we found out the drinks were like £5 a beer so the fans weren’t to happy, but it The Metro was good last night. NF/ Do you get a good reception there? Ash/ Yeah, yeah definitely um it takes a long time to get that its kinda a thing people are suspicious they’ve seen so many shit bands that’s why, and it takes a while to break down those barriers and that what’s happening now. NF/ But your starting to get that now. Ash/ Yeah definitely Wevs/ We just gotta keep it up ya know, do what we gotta do, its always better to play to a packed out place. Ash/ Its all building up I mean, last year we did like the main support at Oceanfest down in Croyden well like this year they’ve put us on headlining one of the nights. NF/ Ah nice 1. Wevs/ That’s 10, 000 capacity. NF/ Wow well done! If you have a choice of band to play with live who would it be and why? Wevs/ Led Zepplin, or maybe the Pistols/Rancid, yeah we hooked up with Rancid they were really cool blokes actually. Who else I think maybe Greenday. Ash/ Maybe the Foo Fighters. NF/ Can you give us a random fact… Ash/ A random fact. Wevs/ Nice outfit you got on there, yeah I was looking at it earlier, I was looking at the buttons, that’s cool man, I think that’s cool. NF/ Ah thanks. Ash/ A random fact, I ve got a metal plate in my shoulder that’s a random fact. NF/ How did you do that? Ash/ I was doing snowboarding last year and I snapped the ligaments and had to have an operation, so got a nice big juicy scar on the shoulder and a big metal plate put in it. NF/ Oww painful, so you wont have any tattoos over that! Wevs/ It’s gone over his tattoo. Ash/ The scar goes right through it. NF/ Ah ok, So you’ve met some big names in music who was the most interesting person you met? Ash/ Er Wevs/ I had a real good laugh with a geezer called Chris who plays with the Living End, and Dropkick Murphy’s at Brixton. Wayne Kramer because he is 1 of our biggest influences. Ash/ It’s good to meet your heros and stuff but there just people. Wevs/ A lot of people are as interested with us as we are with them, we have a good laugh with The Backyard Babies. NF/ Ah I love them. Wevs/ Like drinking and partying had a good time with Ville Valo that was pretty sound, and the Mastodon boys. NF/ What was Download like for you? Ash/ Pretty messy I only slept 1 night there. Wevs/ I was on the piss with the boys from Mastodon, I got so fucked that I missed their set the next day our guitar tech said it was 1 of the highlights of Download. NF/ Ah cool. Wevs/ Yeah I’m interested in all that music in general ya know, it s like talking to Bruce Dickinson I mean he’s played our stuff on his radio show so.. Ash/ Yeah he’s been playing our new stuff aswell. Wevs/ So yeah we really appreciate that, its nice to go up to him and shake his hand and say cheers mate!! Ash/ Its all good but it’s just as interesting to meet people who come to see us aswell. NF/ That’s covered a lot of stories but have you got a particular tour story you can tell us about? Ash/ Unrecordable, um tour stories.. Wevs/ Well its nice you’ve come to do an interview rather than getting interviewed when your not… Ash/ Having a chat before a gig with someone who’s actually a journalist theres a guy who stitched us up recently we had a chat before a gig and he didn’t even say it was an interview and printed it as an interview its so twisted. Wevs/ Bit of a learning curve. NF/ Final question for the rest of the year what are we gonna be seeing from you and where will we see you play? Ash/ There’s a few more dates, we’re doing Bar Monsta, in Camden on 26th of April then Luton on 25th and then Oceanfest in Devon. NF/ Anything abroad? Ash/ Possibly nothings confirmed yet but also a new album and the single ‘Check This’ in June sometime. Wevs/ We’re just pushing for great things like we want it tomorrow but we wana build it up and build it up and build it up. Ash/ Till they cant ignore us we aint gona go away. NF/ Thanx very much for ya time!!! Ash and Wevs/ Thank you |
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