A Rare Welsh Bit

INTERVIEW

In a crowded, bustling cafe in Somerville, I had the opportunity to sit down with singer/keyboardist Euros Childs and violinist Megan Childs of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The Welsh band opened up for Luna at the Somerville Theatre on December 7.

THC: How is your tour going then? How far are you guys into it right now?

MC: This is our first night, so we don't know how it's going yet.

THC: So, how did you guys end up hooking up with Luna?

EC: We've got the same

MC: Same label in Britain, Beggars Banquet.

THC: I listened to some of your other music, and I definitely see so many influences, like The Beatles, and other British pop. What were your influences on your music?

EC: We've always liked mismatched stuff, really. We like rock and roll like Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, we've liked the Beatles and Rolling Stones, we liked punk, and stuff [like] Soft Machine. We've liked folk music, country music...We've been going for eight years, so I suppose we've listened to a lot of records over that period of time as well.

THC: This is your seventh album, then, Spanish Dance Troupe?

MC: Sixth.

THC: I know this is also the third that's been released in America. How do you think your sound has changed over the course of those albums?

EC: Well, we started off when we were 16, so obviously we play a bit better now than when we were 16. We were only starting to play our instruments, so obviously that's changed.

MC: I think we're a lot more competent on things like acoustic guitars, and we do a lot more live recordings, live songs. We can actually all play together with a song and record it live and that affects the natural sound of our albums as well.

THC: Is that how your approach to music has now kind of changed? Is it more live then?

EC: The album was, Spanish Dance Troupe, cause the songs were good and that's what the songs needed. It was based on the band so I couldn't see much point in recreating the band thing when you had the band in the studio in the first place.

THC: Makes sense.

EC: Yeah, exactly! We play live a lot so we could pass that off in the studio.

THC: I'm sure you guys probably get this a lot, so I apologize for asking this, but how did you guys come up with your band name? I read on the Internet that it means "Dimwit Reproductive Monkey" in Welsh.

MC: It's not Welsh, no. You can translate it, paraphrase it as that, but it is a bastardization of English and Welsh together. It's meant to be nonsensical as well, there is nothing meant [by it].

THC: Now, have you guys toured America before?

MC: No, we've played New York twice before. We did play Boston three years ago?

EC: Yeah.

MC: Three years ago, we did one gig, and nobody came! [laughs]

EC: [laughs] Bill's Bar was called the place.

THC: So do you have anything to really compare between American and British audiences?

EC: We haven't played enough to really know yet, and we've only played New York really, and no one turned up in Boston, so we don't know what Boston audiences are like. So we have to play with Luna for a couple of days and we'll probably have more of an idea.

MC: Playing New York as well is a lot like playing London in Britain. It's very different from playing anywhere else in the country and so you get a feeling that it is going to be different from the New York crowd [laughs]

THC: Do you guys like touring? Do you mind touring?

MC: It's part of playing music, it's quite a natural thing to do, and accept it as natural as a band, to play your music live after you record it.

EC: We've had this issue where we've had not enough money to tour, so we stayed at home being bored. So now we've got a new label [Beggars Banquet] and we've got a chance to tour again, and we appreciate it, and count our blessings really that we can continue playing.