From The Archive: Art Brut in Interview

Tonight, for one night only - a special edition of Blind Date, starring Art Brut! Let’s talk to contestant number one, Eddie Argos. Eddie, what would be the best way for a girl to chat you up?

“I’m a very serious man! I need conversation! Wining and dining!”
“He’s not easy,” advises guitarist Jasper, “You have to put your ground work in with Eddie. Don’t make a move until the fourth or fifth date.”
And contestant number two, Jasper Future! How would a girl go about winning your heart?
“God I don’t know… that’s an awkward question!”
“They could compliment your guitar playing, maybe?” suggests Eddie. “Nobody ever does that!”
“Well, I think it would no doubt, be a lie.”
“But you might like that. You might like the lie!”
“Hmmm.”

Jasper and Eddie are slurping on their coffees outside the Premises Studios, East London, where they’ve just recorded a live session for www.artrocker.tv. The band recently got back from making their third album in the USA, with – as you probably know - Pixies guru Black Francis twiddling the knobs. Today then, has been a chance for them to reflect, play the record live, and remind themselves that “the songs really are quite good! I do like them!” as Eddie says, mopping his brow.

So what kind of record are we dealing with here folks?
“It’s all about pop music and girls again, I think. More so then the last one – the last one was about messy break ups mainly! This one’s happy again. And a bit grumpy. I’m a very grumpy man. The main themes are girls though… and pop songs. And being a man-child. It’s basically about me again.”

This isn’t much of a surprise; Art Brut have been making records about pop music and girls for over five years now, with Eddie drawing on his private life for lyrical inspiration. This intimate approach has resulted in some strange side-effects: many people who’ve listened to the band feel that they know the singer on a personal level.
“People come up to you after the shows. ‘Hey Eddie! How’s your brother doing?’ ‘Say Eddie, what’s going on with that ex girlfriend of yours?’ It’s crazy - like you’ve got loads of friends everywhere. Or enemies, depending on where I am!”

The idea of Eddie having enemies is amusingly unlikely: his style of owning up to his own inadequacies and sexual misfortunes isn’t just disarming – it’s hugely funny too. Looking around the room at the class of ’09, Art Brut seem to be one of the few bands who’re actually prepared to mock themselves, and invite their audience to do the same. Jasper nods his head.

“There’s no point in point in being in a band, sitting around in the studio and being all serious about it, thinking ‘this is my work – I don’t want anyone to mess with it’. That’s not fun! Surely the whole point of being in a band is to have fun? Surely! If you’re too serious about it you might as well stop! Just give up now!”
“You took that question very seriously,” says Eddie, stroking his chin.
So do Art Brut think there’s a place in music for comedy?
“Well Bob Dylan’s funny – he’s brilliantly funny,” suggests Eddie. “It’s an emotion too, you know? It’s more realistic to be funny now and then, rather than to be a band like the Manic Street Preachers. Although they’re unintentionally funny! Or U2… they’re not funny, they’re just a tragedy. Razorlight and U2 – their constant success depresses me. (Jasper laughs) That’s not a laughing matter Jasper!”
“That’s what we should call the new album: ‘Their Constant Success Depresses Me’”, cackles the guitarist.
“I’d be showing my true colours if we did that – the colours of a bitter man!”


The new album, Art Brut Vs Satan, was recorded in just ten days with Black Francis in Salem, Oregon. Anyone familiar with the Pixies might feel daunted at the prospect of dropping in on The Overlord of Alternative Rock to cut a record. For Art Brut though, it became quickly apparent that Francis was going to show them a good time… all the time.

“I thought I’d be really intimidated by him – because, you know, he’s Frank Black,” says Jasper, “but he’s such an amiable friendly man. He picked us up from the airport, hugged us – and every day he was driving us around. He’s a lovely man.”
How did the whole deal come about?
“I like telling it the way he tells it,” explains Eddie. “He heard us play in Cambridge, and he “knew that we were one of the good ones”. And wanted to work with us. That’s how he says it – and it’s probably the best way of putting it. I love the fact that he says that!” The singer bounces up and down on his chair.

“The way we recorded it –in ten days – I’ve always wanted to do that. And that’s how he made the first Catholics album, in one take. If you’re planning to record an album but not re-record it, I can’t think of a better person to work with than Black Francis – he’s the master of that. He’s the man for the job.”


Though Art Brut have emerged with a sharp and focused record, they may well be guilty of the odd night of “drunken and disorderly behaviour” in Salem. Only half joking that they should apologise to the locals in their album credits, Eddie and Jasper reveal horror stories of an open mic event, where their lead guitarist Ian performed a “half hour long stoner rock improvisation” while under the influence of powerful amounts of booze. They appear to be unconcerned that the performance will emerge as a bootleg though. “Luckily,” confides Jasper, “the venue was pretty empty.”

Because he’s written so many songs about ex girlfriends, it’s tempting to imagine that Eddie Argos might have more ex girlfriends than he knows what to do with. This isn’t quite true though – he knows exactly what to do with them. Earlier in the day, he’d mentioned something about an ‘Ex Girlfriend Garden’ – and when I bring this up in the interview, an entertaining look of panic sweeps across his face.

“I wasn’t really going to do that! Oh no… if I say this it’ll make me sound like a misogynist… Basically I had a plan to add all my ex-girlfriends on Facebook, and then just delete all my friends apart from those ex-girlfriends. I’d then have an Ex-Girlfriend Garden that I tend. Poke them all. Ha ha! I didn’t mean it in a rude way! Then I’d change the name of my profile from ‘Eddie Argos’ to ‘Eddie Argos Girlfriend Garden’. Ha ha! That’s my plan. Group email messages. ‘I miss all of you!’”

JASPER: They’d all be there in this group, bumping into each other and going ‘Hello, who are you?’ Then they’d get to know each other… and you could leave them all to it!
EDDIE: Yes - my work here is done!
JASPER: Let them run free!
EDDIE: Make them form a band!
JASPER: What was that idea Nick Cave had?
EDDIE: Oh yeah… when the Brighton Pier burnt he told the council they should let monkeys live on it. Like a social-scientific experiment to see what happens over a period of time. Are you suggesting my girlfriend garden would be like that?
JASPER: It’s a good comparison!
EDDIE: No, no… the Girlfriend Garden is… I would never do such a thing. You might need a disclaimer at the end of this article: ‘Eddie Argos is not a misogynist”. It would be a very small garden anyway - more of a rockery.

Comedy, ambition, invention – they’re all alive and kicking in the Art Brut camp. When asked about live possibilities for their forthcoming tour, a number of ideas switch on in the brains of our interviewees: on stage hang gliding, doo-wop backing singers and a spinning drum riser made out of bolser wood and string are all “on the cards”, they assure me. There’s one idea that gets Jasper and Eddie especially revved up though; a Greek Tragedy style male chorus.

“I’d like to have them on stage, commenting between the songs,” suggests Jasper. “The Art Brut
Greek Tragedy.”
“Yeah,” grins Eddie, “it’d be better than the conventional tragedy that it is at the moment!”