The Miserable Rich // Interview
The Miserable Rich are ones to watch in 2010. Here, NEN chattered to frontman James de Malplaquet in the noisiest pub corridor ever for an interview about their past, present and future…
NEN: How did you guys meet?
James: Mostly through a band called Shoreline. Actually, that’s not true. I started doing a solo project called James Grape which was an electronic thing. Someone wanted to release it on a Brighton record label called Skint, and then I was asked to form a live band. I knew about Will (the cellist), went and got him and formed rock band around it, I realised that it’s quite boring having a rock band. I then started playing with Will in Shoreline, a 10-piece alt-folk band and we met Mike there, and I finally prescribed to the idea of doing something string-based. Then, we decided we’d have just strings, no drums and make modern rock covers. Jim played in another band on same bill and we liked him. Everyone’s in lots of different bands. And Rhys…I typed into Google, ‘Brighton double-bass player.
NEN: We’ve heard that touring with you guys is a bit of a laugh. What happened on your recent trip to France?
We do have some strange experiences on tour actually! This one particularly. I remember waking up, we had to pick up the band at 8.30am, and it was 8am, and I had to wait 40 minutes to use the shower as my flatmate’s girlfriend was in there. So I was really in a rush, got to the van hire place, massive queue of people and already an hour late. Sped, got the ferry, got people calling us asking where we are. We only had Google Maps as there was no GPS at the van hire, so we’re Mapping our way having never driven in France before.
Finally got to the city, people still calling us, we’re lost. The people came to find us, picked us up and drove us to this place. It looked like a child’s school – so we thought, ‘cool, the showcase is in a school’. There were all these magazine journos from Paris and two film crews, it was really serious. Lots of people there. The promoter comes over to me (we were also playing a festival that night)…and he goes *French accent*: ‘okay, so you will be playing between 18 months and 3 year-old children…” We were looking around for a Candid Camera, but there were all these really cool French rock journalists with perfect hair, you know. We just walked in and played to a nursery!
NEN: And what did the nursery think?
They loved it; they had lots of parents there too. They were silent, it was really lovely. I teach kids anyway so am used to being around them but it was one of our more bizarre experiences. After, they made us loads of cakes and stuff, then we went to the festival to do the ‘proper’ show.
NEN: Hmmm, I wonder how ‘Pisshead’ went down at the school! Do you have any claims to fame?
Quite a lot actually! Mike was in Hope Of The States, quite big, signed by Sony for millions, toured all over America…My father was professional journalist, played music with the BBC, and was in Dusty Springfield’s band. Loads!
NEN: Wow, you don’t even look fazed!
I couldn’t say anything when I met Prince!
NEN: How did you meet Prince?
I delivered a piano to his hotel room. Which had gold and drapes from the ceiling and giant fans everywhere.
NEN: So you guys and all these bands are like a huge family tree.
Oh yeah, Mike was in Black Country Youth Games too. We’re also in The Wilkommen Collective.
NEN: Why did you choose to cover those particular tracks; does Golden Brown have any significance?
We try to not be too soft and deal with issues, but Golden Brown reminded me of the Portait Gallery in London, and its very rare that you get a song that reminds you of this particular place. It also sounds good with strings.
Gigantic – we did this because originally we did cover of Hot Chip’s ‘Over And Over’ which went down quite well, so we were looking for something else that people wouldn’t expect. So having gone from dance music, we wanted to do a bit of punk funk indie dance thing. And of course because it’s done by woman singing about a big black cock, we thought it would be quite interesting for a white male to sing!
Shades – we thought we’d cover something that nobody really knows, bring it out into the light, and that one of Iggy Pop’s songs is really not known. I really like the idea of this really big tough guy being given a pair of shades.
Finally, Sweet Dreams, we really liked what we could do with the strings.
NEN: NME has described you as : heartbreakingly beautiful, anyone who listens to it will be reduced to a weeping mess. It didn’t make me weep – should I have?
We didn’t really want to be like that. The idea was to really make the second album not so ‘self-pitying’; the first one is with songs about falling in love with barmaids and drunkenness. There’s a bit more ‘up’ on there, more hopefulness.
NEN: What does 2010 hold for The Miserable Rich?
Just getting back onto the business really. We recently finishing off mixing our second album which we’re very proud about – it’s called ‘Of Flight And Fury.’ We’re also planning to play a lot more of Britain.
The Miserable Rich are currently embarking on a UK tour, of which tomorrow’s London date (Borderline) is sold out.
Facebook comments: