Interview The Whip

Manchester-based dance-rock types The Whip are due to release their debut album, ‘X Marks Destination’ on 24th March, with a re-worked version of ‘Trash’ out a week beforehand, on 17th March. The band have recently completed a UK tour with Simian Mobile Disco, and will head out this March for a string of tour dates, with all-ages shows following in May. Answering questions on behalf of the band is vocalist/guitarist Bruce Carter.

How is the tour going?
Yeah, we’re having a hoot! We had a couple of weeks off for Christmas and we didn’t know what to do, it was cool catching up with mates but after a couple of days I just wanted to get back out there on tour. We love playing live. We’ve played non-stop for two years.

You are supporting Simian Mobile Disco. What was it like to be asked by them to play?
Yeah they are nice guys, really down to earth. We get on with bands like that. There are more people like that now. There’s no need for a bunch of guys playing songs to act like tough guys. But yeah it’s a really fun tour so far, it’s nice to play to a big room every night full of people up for a party.

What plans do you have for SXSW this March?
We’re playing four gigs over there and are going there for a week. We’ve got some mates over there so it should be fun, and a few bands we know are over there, Does It Offend You, Yeah? are definitely game for some fun. We’ve got these week-long BBQ passes too so we’ll come home toasted and filled with meat. It should be a great time.

The video for your single ‘Sister Siam’ featured home-made-looking spacecraft. Are you all former devotees of Button Moon?
I saw Button Moon recently and was a bit gutted, I remember it being another world out there, but it was just a tin of beans and a Lenor bottle on string. Your mind works better when you are a kid. It was fun to sit in a cardboard spaceship for a day and press all the buttons and stuff, we had fun making it.

It was a re-release. Are you wary of following loads of bands in to just re-releasing tracks which have already been out before, like The Pigeon Detectives, or Editors?
Not really if you want something to see the light of day properly then that’s cool, doing something three times is a bit nuts but if something has only been out like ours as a limited 500-copy thing then it’s cool and people get to hear it. It’s good for us ‘cos we’ve got some cool remixes out of it, same with ‘Trash’ which is out next, the remixes are top dog.

Is it boring to always be compared to other bands from Manchester, rather than other bands who might sound more like you?
No, it’s fine with us whatever people think, it’s just nice to be thought about! There are some decent bands from Manchester’s past, but it’s good to look forward too.

Your forthcoming album is called ‘X Marks Destination’. Tell us about it.
Yeah, we’re dead happy with it, we were only in the studio for a few weeks as it was all written and ready to rumble, we worked with Jim Abbiss on it who tightened it all up. He was good at pushing us to make certain bits better, he made us do a remix of one of our songs, ‘Fire’, which we ended up being happy about. Danny and I got stuck in to it for a day and at the end of the day we had it done. It’s good working pretty intense like that.

Where is your ultimate destination?
Just to get on with the next album, this one’s out in March, but we’ll have another one out before next summer for sure. I’m writing at the moment and we’ll be doing new stuff live pretty soon. But for now a decent destination is just playing here, there and everywhere this year. Should be fun!