The Beat Surrender

I got sent an email recently which had a press release telling me about a ‘new’ band that I needed to listen out for. Nothing unusual in that at all in this line of work of course, but what is more rare is that having had a quick listen to one track on MySpace I was straight on with arranging an interview with them.

The reason for that was that I was hooked on just that one quick listen, plenty of melody and an off kilter style of pop music drew me straight into this Peteborough duo’s World, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, for now though you can read an exclusive interview with both members of the group below.

You’ve signed to Alcopops Records, did you have other offers and what drew you to that label in particular?

Scott: Well we kind of knew straight away they were perfect for us, it was all done very quickly! I was a massive Midget fan growing up, and the label’s inspired by them, and then to have Andy Hawkins (Midget bass player) produce our record, it all just seem to fit. And they add this really cool personal touch to their records, like their compilation in a bottle with a little treasure map, we love that! In a world of downloading and what not it’s awesome to have physical cd’s done in different ways.

As a relatively new band joining the madness of the record industry are you nervous about the supposed crisis within the industry?

Glock: Awww not at all. We just count our blessings we’ve been given a chance to make a record and put it out. It’s probably not a cool thing to say but the industry side of it all doesn’t interest me in the slightest, I always thought a record deal was two cd’s for a tenner in HMV.

You have an interesting summer lined up playing in various gardens, tell us a bit more about your Garden tour.

Glock: Yeah it’s going to be great! We did a ‘Live In Your Living Room’ tour last summer which was just the best thing we’d ever done and wanted to put a little twist on it for this year. Plus Scott’s an avid gardener.

Scott: It’s true.

On top of that you play the magical Secret Garden Party Festival, anything special lined up for that show?

Scott: We’re so excited to be doing that! We definitely make an effort to make every show different and better than the last. There are loads of great bands playing too, I really want to go check out Phoenix from Paris.

Have you seen any particularly inspiring live gigs recently yourself?

Scott: We headed up to Nottingham to see Duke Special a couple of months back, we’re big fans. That was great, pretty inspiring. I’m looking forward to seeing Spiritualized next week too. Oh and Sigur Ros was amazing also.

Glock: Scott took me to see Eels last year. They played as a two-piece and I just thought ‘Wooooo we could really do this too.’ It certainly got me seriously inspired to get ourselves together and start playing. Thanks E.

You’re from Peterborough which isn’t renowned for it’s live scene, how much of a struggle has it been for you to develop as a band in a town like that?

Glock: It’s been unusually cool actually. We were both in other bands when we started The Candle Thieves and we weren’t really going out for any other reason than we wanted to enjoy ourselves. The obvious ‘build your fanbase’ route never really crossed our minds. We were able to just be more of our gawky selves. For me personally it was probably a self-dorky rebellian against taking everything so seriously up to then. The important thing for us is always that we have true, meaningful songs and however sad the subject matter might be for some of our tracks, we wanted people to go away from our gigs feeling happier and uplifted. I really hope that’s what brings people back to our gigs. I guess that didn’t answer your question but I feel a lot lighter now.

On the plus side the football team are staring to put it on the map, are you fans?

Scott: It’s great! I’m actually an Everton fan because my whole family was born there. But I always check on how Posh are doing.

Glock: I’m more of a netball man.

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