david edwards
aka minotaur shock, drummer with bronze age fox explains all, in the meantime good luck finding their recent vinyl singles ..
"brotherly love : oasis vs proclaimers"
with the presence of will on bass guitar did your parents promote musical talent or is this just your brother being determined to prove "anything you can do .." ?
our parents didn’t actively encourage musical development, although they did little to curb our musical wars when we lived at home. we both tried to drown each others’ stereos out. but then he realized that i was always right and that the music i was playing was better than his.
future tabloid shenanigans to be expected to raise bands profile or do you get your way all the time so will knows not to even bother?
the rest of the band are slowly beginning to realize that i am always right. although will is a harsh critic and a bit of a tyrant. we’re all brothers in bronze age fox though, and our mother is rock. our dad is irony, but he left us when we were small so we don’t talk about him.
"bootlegs : baf vs mino shock"
are there weird bootleg type tracks out there which combines the serene pop beauty of baf and the twisted electronica of mino shock?
not really, although some of our earlier, unreleased bronze age fox tracks hint at the more electronic side. we got a bit bored though and decided that instead of trying to impress geeks with nifty programming, we would set ourselves the task of creating pop songs, which is tricky, but more rewarding.
"format : cd vs vinyl"
why the passion for the groove .. apart from one track on melodic comp baf have been soley vinyl based so far .. are you, or any of the band avid vinyl collectors?
not really, we just found that there were more options for releasing weird shapes and colours if we used vinyl. after these 3 shaped singles, i think we’ll switch to cds. our first couple of releases were pretty limited too, and no-one really likes limited cds. anyone can make a limited-run cd, but you need proper machinery to make vinyl. we get off on the exclusivity of it, and our favourite game at the moment is watching people sell them on ebay. we make music for the ebay generation (who never listen to it).
"shape : triangle vs square"
were you aware that play away program of 70's would have such a profound impact upon your future life?
before our time – we’re old, but not quite that old…
why the shapes. all that pain and torment for 200 fans - was it worth it?
see the vinyl question above. it was definitely worth it, as we did get a smattering of press. we’ll resort to any gimmickry to weasel our way into people’s consciousness. at one point during the lengthy production process we did toy with not actually getting the records pressed (reviews had been printed, and that was the aim). we figured that we could say that they were so limited that they sold out in a jiff. but we went through with it, for the kids.
"the future is bright, the future is foxy"
the bronze age fox sound is very listener friendly - an intentional move away from the noisy media promoted sounds of last few years?
we’ve always been a bit out of step, despite trying to jump on every bandwagon going. we do get a bit bored of posturing rock bands who are pretending to keep it real though. we make no secret about the fact that we’re not particularly rock and roll. but we do keep our methods secret.
there doesn't sound to be a lot of angst within the music unlike every other band on the planet, how is the bon-homie maintained?
its like sparks say, "what are all these bands so angry about?" i reckon that 90% of noisy, bitter music is just put on anyhow. i think that we’re just a bit more honest, we lay ourselves on the line in a different way by making twee vignettes about seemingly insignificant events. the anger and hurtin’ is all there though, in our songs, you just have to look in the right place.
as dominic once mentioned during a chance meeting.. ‘we don’t sound like any other band going at the moment’, when you all got together and decided to make sweet music what was the premise, vision and goals of the group?
the goal was, and always will be, to amuse ourselves and make people happy. but the making people happy bit is an add on. we basically play for our own enjoyment, and over-theorise about everything. its like a game that we’ll never win. our insular world is full of in-jokes and oblique references that only we understand. that’s what happens when you grow up together. and bond on scout camp.
"limited to be awkward"
rumours of 200 only of each shape. how many are you hoarding for ebay madness and mortgage relief over next few years ?
in an astounding feat of selflessness, each band member has only 2 copies of each shaped single, the rest of them have been proffered in the public domain. and the rumours are absolutely true, only 200 of each single will ever be pressed. which is a weight off our shoulders, what with them managing to end up in l.a. en route from new zealand.
"echo and dr rock."
many classic bands named their respective drum machines and gave them the credit they so deserved. do you have a name for your overly referenced laptop ?
it gets a lot of abuse, but we usually just swear at it. it has no name, it’s a machine, a tool to save us having to pay a keyboard player. thom refers to his guitars as his "ladies" though.
is all the music coming out as minotaur shock actually created on a laptop or is this over simplistic journo genre speak ?
no minotaur music has been produced on a laptop. it comes from the tangle of wires and bits in my spare room, which are attached to an old pc.
"the evidence m'lord ..is for all to see "
the live show is accompanied by some very entertaining film sequences - i noticed the dead fish was removed from the dazed gig though!
.. who does all that side of things?
funnily enough, our ex-manager, who now is part of a visual collective called mechanical mouse. he was a crap manager, but he does good visuals apparently (although they are always behind us so i haven’t seen them). eventually we will get more involved in that side of things, but at the moment we have got enough on our plates trying to keep people happy.
and last but not least ..
who packs dominics suitcase for the gigs?
the contents of the brown suitcase are self-generating. the case looks after itself.