Despite having several Melbourne boys in the band,
Clubfeet are touching down for live shows around the country for the first time this month. They’ve been championed by all the right blogs and tastemakers, getting widespread praise for their debut record
Gold On Gold. You might be familiar with their collaborative project with videographer Alex Goddard, which garnered quite a bit of attention at the end of last year. We had a quick chat with the guys and then got them to name their top five novels, TV shows and cities to live. They’re the kind of funny dudes that either have you wishing they were your best friends or at least featuring in your sexy dreams. Totes crushin'.
Anna Horan: Hey guys. Though you’re pretty successful internationally, you’re fairly unknown in Oz. Is that weird to you?
Clubfeet: Not at all – it just seems we’re a very small number of people’s favourite band in the whole world, and for everyone else we’re a complete and utter blank. We get really long emotional love messages from people in places like Antibes and Quito and the Maldives who have found our music through
Pitchfork, or a blog, and want to get their hands on every remix and B-side we’ve got. Then there’ll be big music fans, who we’ve known for years, who either didn’t know we existed or didn’t know we were living in Australia.
AH: What led you to team up with
Alex Goddard? What did you want to achieve?
CF: Alex is one of our oldest friends and he actually insisted on doing the videos before we’d even planned to do one. He does a lot of work in the fashion world and we always like his vibe so we pretty much gave him
carte blanche to make the videos however he wanted. He did 90% of them on a zero-budget and just flew by the seat of his pants. When one lot of super-8 film got over exposed in processing he just took the print and painted on it. The vibe was very French ‘60s/’80s, and Alex is amazing at directing models. Tiah who starred in ‘Count Your Lovers’ has done lots of performance art in the past and we all knocked around together years ago.
AH: What’s on the cards for your new album?
CF: We are really excited for it to come out. We’re finishing mixing with
Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, Clare Bowditch, PJ Harvey, Beth Orton) in New York at the moment – if you need a visual he is basically
Michael Fassbender from Shame. There’s a few really great guests on it, and it’s a different kind of record – some of it is more indie and garagey, and some of it is deeper and more electronic. There’s plenty of Disney on it too, which is good for the younger kids.
AH: You guys are literature buffs, what are your t
op five novels and why:
CF: A top five is simply impossible unless we can take the next three years off touring, and even then it’s likely to break up the band, but here’s a selection:
1. The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick:
“You must put your slippers on to walk towards the dawn.” It’s the ravings and genius of the journals of Philip K. Dick, a man who can ring you up at 4:30am and make you come over because he’s decoded the secrets of the universe, and when you get there at 5am he’ll try and shoot you and will have forgotten your name.
2. Slouching Towards Bethlehem – Joan Didion:
Joan’s second novel Play It As It Lays was the book that Brett Easton Ellis ripped off for Less Than Zero, but the spare, razor sharp eye of Joan Didion being applied to ‘60s counter culture makes Slouching Towards Bethlehem hard to beat if you’re a young girl looking for an idol, which we’ve all been at one stage or another.
3. American Tabloid – James Ellroy:
JFK, the Mob, Cubans, Marilyn… it’s a long form version of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ but it doesn’t make you nauseous.
4. Poolside with Slim Aarons:
This is a just frothy pictures of euro trash and the American aristocracy lying by private pools nestled into clifftops in Acapulco or Monte carol. It’s the book we consult when we have to make any big life decisions.
5. HHhH by Laurent Binet:
Well this is a very current one, but it’s incredible. The whole book is a tug of war between documenting the assassination of Himmler’s right hand man Heidrich, one of history’s worst assholes, and documenting the author’s struggle with writing a ‘true’ account of a very harrowing historical period. In a funny way the book reminded us of William Styron’s
Sophie’s Choice (not to be confused with the new-age psychology book
Sophie’s World) because both oscillate between the narrator’s very accessible present day voice (both of which are pretty hip and don’t seem heavy or ‘serious’) and the horrors of a period that was in our very recent past.
AH: Your Clubfeet aliases are all from
The OC. What are your
top five TV shows/favourite TV moments and why:
CF: That’s a rumour that’s gone out of control. By chance we are a collection of guys with pretty pretentious names, but that’s something for us to address with our parents (and occasionally our therapists).
The OC rumour came from an interview Monty gave when
Gold On Gold came out and he made up a bunch of stories about the who/what/why of Clubfeet. If you believe that then you also must visit the Sebastian Cohen Library at Princeton that Seb’s dad donated, and come and have a drink in the horse floats backstage after our next show (we don’t have horses on stage yet but that is going to be a feature of our next tour). Nevertheless…
Top Five TV Shows:
1. Alan Partidge:
"How many people were killed in the Irish famine?" "Um two million" “If it was just the potatoes that were affected, at the end of the day, you will pay the price if you're a fussy eater."
2. Carnivale:
If you go to Wikipedia you can lose a month trying to work out what the hell went on.
3. Game of Thrones:
Babes, swords and midgets. It’s like playing
Risk but about 20 hours shorter.
4. Chips:
Sebastian rides oen of those big motorbikes and makes us watch it between rehearsals.
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Because we are a band of three Larry Davids and two Cheryls.
AH: Some of you are from Cape Town - what are your
top five cities to live in and why:
1. Cape Town:
Because it is the most beautiful city in the world. There are lots of social issues and it’s dangerous, but the people are welcoming and there’s an electricity in the air… and because we once went to a house with a funicular for a NYE party.
2. Marrakesh:
Yves once smoked opium on a rooftop in a white jacket and now thinks that makes him Yves Saint Laurent.
3. Seville:
Because you can live there for three years and still get very lost (ahem, le Bruce).
4. New York:
Sleep is for losers.
5. Wellington:
Because if you have been living in an apartment for a long time you’ve been ‘missively flitting’.
We’ve got double passes to give away for each of Clubfeet's upcoming Australian shows. Just email win@everguide.com.au with the subject line ‘Clubfeet Tickets’, and include your postcode and full name.
CLUBFEET TOUR DATES:
Thursday 5 July – The Toff in Town, Melbourne w/ I’lls
Friday 6 July – Rocket Bar, Adelaide w/ I’lls
Wednesday 11 July – Goodgod Small Club, Sydney w/ I’lls
Friday 13 July – Barsoma, Brisbane w/ Outerwaves
Friday 27 July – Speakeasy @ Villa, Perth w/ Special Guest (tickets on the door)
WORDS: Anna Horan