Johnny Foreigner on Sparklehorse, corporate corruption & voodoo sacrifice

You've done this really lovely Sparklehorse cover - could you tell us a bit about your earliest memories of Sparklehorse and what they meant to you?

I probably first heard Sparklehorse at this amazing club night called Tokyo Lucky Hole - they'd play 'Happy Man' all the time, round about 2001. I brought the two albums they had out and absolutely fell in love.

The songs are perfectly simple, and the lyrical imagery is so uniquely mysterious it's probably as alien to his friends as it is to us! - But what I love most about Sparklehorse is the beautiful, organic production. It's like each song is a chunk of his soul, and each album is like a complete world you could dive into and swim around in.

When deciding which song to cover (there was a shortlist of fifteen), I went through and deconstructed the band - worked out what instrument was doing what where. It was fun but kinda ruined the magic a bit! I was constantly amazed at how sparse half the songs were, even though they sounded perfect and full and complete. My hero.



The band is releasing a mini-album in November. It's not an EP, it's not an album. What is the thinking behind this?

Ha! Yeah there's no such thing as an LC, is there? Style controversy. It's six songs, or seven, depending how you look at it. We're just calling it a record.

The band has teamed up with Alcopop to release this one - could you tell us a bit about the label?

We walked away from doing another term with our old label - we felt scarred dealing with Big Corporate Industry. Basically, everyone with a steady salaried job in the music business is shitting themselves, making panicky and morally suspect decisions because the internet's come and shown them the door.

Alcopop is the antithesis of that, they know they're never going to make millions, but just want to be known for making quality releases by bands they love. They're truly independent, they encourage all our impractical art ideas, and we totally feel at home. its like we've fancied each other for ages and the sex is great.

There's a alot of music out there JoFo. What is that makes your new mini-album golden delicious?

OGODSOUNDBITEQUESTION. The record's got the heaviest and loudest stuff we've ever made, as well as a ukulele song - and a song made out of harmonic loops. One song rips off The Dismemberment Plan, Lifter Puller, George Pringle and Uffie in about a minute. AMIDOINITRITE?

'Big in Japan' is a bit of a cliched catchphrase. And yet you are actually big in Japan. How does one become big in Japan?!

IDK. Imagine being in a band is like a video game, yep? Well being a UK band in Japan is like a computer game with all the cheats on. We seemed to get as much hype for hanging out with people as we did for playing. I guess a lot of bands see the language barrier as being a convenient excuse - just fuck the groupies and come home - but for us the hanging out's always been part of the fun; we want to be friends with the guys in the homemade Sonic Youth t-shirts... whatever country we're in!

You have toured with Dananananaykroyd, Los Campesinos!, The Futureheads, The Subways and Sky Larkin. What is the most entertaining piece of gossip you could tell us about these bands?

Dananananaykroyd and Los Campesinos! are actually the same band, they just use wigs and plan tours really carefully. They were originally called Mirror Image (you can see what they did there) but they realised they'd make more money having 2 seperate record deals.

The Futureheads insist on a doorstep, mat and brass knocker outside every dressing room, and only play when the stage manager guesses the secret knock.

Billy of Subways sacrifices a cat every day on tour as part of a demonic pact to keep his voice in good shape. He'll often spend hours looking around towns for a really old or evil cat. Nestor from Sky Larkin has a third arm, but Katie won't let him show it in public. He sometimes sneaks out though - you have to watch when he drums real fast.