Call Upon The Author

White Belt Yellow Tag have apparently just finished soundchecking when myself and my illustrious best mate arrive to interview them. They are Justin Lockey, formerly of Yourcodenameis:milo, Craig Pilbin, and Tom Bellamy ex-Cooper Temple Clause. When they come strolling out from behind the green door, both of our heads snap up – this band are tall! All three of them are over six feet, and as I’m five foot one, I am definitely going to have to get them sitting down before I even attempt to start talking to them. They seem pretty relaxed, sipping red wine out of classy plastic cups, and quite happy to have a chat. We have a seat on the comfy couches of the Edge of the Wedge, and having said our ‘hellos’, I start asking questions…

So, first things first, I’ve been reading up a bit about you…
Justin: Is it all good?
I’m not saying! What I really wanted to ask about is the comparisons you get…
Justin: (laughs wryly) Oh yeah…
You’ve been compared to Doves, Elbow, Coldplay…
Justin: Yeah, I understand that.

So, which comparisons do you like, and which do you not like?
Justin: I’m not arsed about any of them to be honest! I like all three bands, I think they’re all really good bands – good, big, English bands, you know? A lot of people would maybe cringe if their band was compared with one of those bands, but, at the end of the day… they do big tunes. In this, and every band you’re in, someone compares you to something at some point in your career, and I’ve probably been compared to a lot worse previously, so… I’m not really that arsed, I think it’s pretty cool.
Craig: It’s awesome, what are you talking about??
Justin: (chuckles) You see, when you’re in a genre which has a long line of British tradition, then people are bound to jump on that and go… (mimes dropping something into a slot) this is this.
Craig: People have to try and put music into a box though, don’t they?
Justin: I mean, the funny thing is, we’re probably about seventeen thousand times heavier than all those bands put together live, but we didn’t put the live band together until after we’d made the record…

So it was just you two (Justin and Craig) on the record- it’s absolutely massive sounding. Did you get anyone else involved in the recording?
Justin: No, it was just literally us two…
Craig: (laughs) In a room!

How did you do it then?
Justin: Well, it’s pretty much what we were both doing for a living; recording, producing and stuff. (Craig was previously working as a sound engineer). I met Craig in the studio, and it’s the easiest record I’ve ever made; it only took about two weeks to make. I played drums on the record, we shared guitars, keyboard… it was dead relaxed. Surprisingly easy to make this record.
Craig: It’s really easy with just two.. well, maybe three now (gestures at drummer Tom Bellamy, now a full time member of the band, who puts a hand up in acknowledgement) – there’s just not as many…
Justin: Egos!
Craig:…Yeah, problems and stuff. It’s just like ‘does that sound cool?’, ‘yes it does’, and you’re done.
Justin: (Points at Tom, who hasn’t said a thing up until this point) Commit to tape Tom!

Right Tom, you’ve got to join in apparently.
Tom: Yeah I have. They’re going to be playing by my rules soon.
Justin: There’s too many options when you’re working with Tom Bellamy!
(The band all laugh, and shake their heads. Next question I think…)

So is it weird touring…
Justin: With a studio based project? Yeah! Well that’s why we got Tom in, because we sort of…made the record, got a deal, we’ll tour it now, we have to tour it. So we drafted laddo in, via manager, ex-tour manager of his…and it’s really easy touring actually, really easy. Easiest thing in the world to tour.
Craig: Well it’s easy when you’re surrounded by nice people.
Justin: See when you’re in a band with say, five people, there’s always going to be a divide, someones always going to get picked on at some point… it just changes daily.
So which one of you is the middle child then?
Justin: (immediately points at Tom) Him!
Tom: It’s got to be me hasn’t it?

Does that make you two the oldest son and the spoilt baby then? (The band all laugh at this…)
Justin: I’m the oldest!
You’re in charge then?
Justin: Of course, at all times!

So, Justin, your former band mate (Paul Mullen) is now in the Automatic. What’s it like touring supporting them?
Justin: Strange! It’s a bit weird… see, he moved Cardiff not long after the old band, and I actually got him in that band by accident, so…
By accident?
Justin: Yeah! Someone rang me and asked if I knew anyone who screams a bit and plays guitar…he moved to Cardiff, I still talk to him a lot and stuff, but hadn’t seem him that much and now ended up on tour with him. It’s quite strange to see him playing those songs, but then it must be strange for him to see me playing these songs. Most of their set now is Paul’s songs, he does lead vocals on most of the set. He’s just gone in there and kicked them into shape I think. He seems to have grown a couple of inches, and he doesn’t do weird stuff like hide in cupboards any more. He was a very strange kid… but he does look taller. It’s fine, we get on alright with that lot, we just keep ourselves to ourselves mostly.

You also recently toured with The Airborne Toxic Event – what was that like?
Justin: That was good! Yeah, they were really nice, I mean we don’t really storm around with an attitude, we’re pretty open, plus we know how to talk to bands A) because we’re in them, and B) because we work with bands all the time so it’s easy for us to sort of befriend bands. They were… they were knackered, they were at the end of a years worth of touring, but we still had a good time, a couple of really late ones!
Craig: I nearly beat Mikel at poker a couple of times, but he gave up, it just went on too long!
Justin: They were really cool, and their audience was really receptive, and they were doing bigger shows, I mean they were doing Academy One shows. We hopped across to Ireland with them as well, it was really really good.

Do you like touring then?
Craig: Well we spend a lot of time in rooms with no windows, or just one window, so…
Justin: Yeah, because we’re mostly in the studio it is nice to get out into.. (laughs) into a moving studio, and then into a dark room! Because there’s only three of us we’re not crammed in, there is space.

It’s a van and hotels then? You haven’t graduated to a Bon Jovi style tour bus with twenty screens and all the rest of it?
Craig: (Laughs) No!
Justin: I don’t like buses to be honest. Never liked them! I don’t like not being able to see where you’re going, and I don’t like sleeping in moving things. Knowing I’m going to sleep in something that’s going to be speeding down the motorway doesn’t exactly blow me away. And they’re all confined. (Shudders)

How do you entertain yourself on tour?
Justin: There’s certain towns where you know you’re going to have a really good time in certain pubs or bars, but otherwise we watch a lot of films…Tom reads.

What sort of thing do you read Tom?
Tom: I’ve just finished ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy. I didn’t like it. My old man works in a library, so I ask him for books and he gets them for me.
Justin: For us, we have headphones on and laptops, and sometimes, we even talk to each other! We don’t really listen to music though.

I was actually going to ask you what music you’re listening to…
Justin: I was horrified to hear an Ellie Goulding tune this morning. It put me off my day, it really did. She just instantly winds me up. What else are we listening to? I do like that one girl, who is she…
Craig: Marina and the Diamonds! (Shakes his head)
Justin: I like the one song. I’ve seen her in person and she annoys me. Florence and the Machine – I don’t like her. She just shouts over someone else’s song. It winds me up. Who else is there?
Tom: What, that annoys you? Quite a lot!
Justin: There’s a lot of female fronted things…it’s a good thing, a bit of a scene.

Does it worry you that you might get caught up in a scene like that? Lumped together with other bands?
Justin: Well the old band used to get lumped together with bands and they were all American and stuff… and we didn’t sound anything like them. I reckon the American bands were going ‘why are you on tour with us?’ while we were going ‘don’t know!’. ‘Cos we were louder than them – I think they were a bit jealous.

Yourcodenameismilo were considered very cool though?
Justin: Because most of it was unlistenable! These days though, because we come from Newcastle – well, we’re adopted Geordies anyway – there’s a massive scene of bands. The people in bands there have only started talking to us in the last six months, so we’ve never been part of a scene – but that’s good because if you get lumped in with that scene you’re stuck with it forever. We’re from Yorkshire though originally.

Is that why you recorded the album there?
Justin: The album was recorded in Doncaster, the studio has a sound that’s really ace; the guy who runs the studio let us have it at a reasonable price; and I got my brother to engineer on it who was cheap – half free! I’ll tell you who we do like…
Craig: The Joy Formidable!
Justin: Yeah, The Joy Formidable are probably our favourite band. That Friendly Fires record is amazing, but that’s old now I suppose. The Beatles! The Beatles, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana is all I really listen to. Bjork is the most listened to on my iPhone.
Craig: Loveless for me.
Tom: The Levellers?
Craig: No, Loveless.

And when you’re writing songs, do you get to a point where you think ‘That’s done’ quite easily?
Justin: When it was just the two of us, really easily, but since Tom’s come on board, Tom likes to have options, he likes to leave things really open ended so they never have any conclusion to them.
Craig: ‘The extra five percent.’
Justin: (Laughs) Tom likes to put in the extra five percent – which makes absolutely no difference!
Tom, can you explain the extra five percent?
Tom: When you’re doing a take, and you want it to be like…mega hot yeah?
Justin: You don’t need it!
Tom: They’ll do a take, and go ‘yeah yeah that’ll do.’
Justin: Tom’s a perfectionist. And me and Craig like to go outside and have a cup of tea and a cigarette. Although Craig’s moved onto coffee now, he’s gone all ‘frontman’.
Tom: We hadn’t worked in the studio together until we did the last single, and it was weird because obviously everyone works in different ways. I have to buy them sweets to keep them happy.

So the internet is pretty unreliable about White Belt Yellow Tag, and keeps changing it’s story about what you all do in the band. Can you clear this up?
Justin: I know! I don’t sing, but usually in the Yorkshire area press, I’m the singer. I don’t sing at all – I just like to take credit for everything (laughs), I grab the opportunity to take credit for absolutely all of it, and Craig never challenges me so I just go with it!
Craig: I’ve always felt odd about being the singer anyway, sort of an odd frontman, so I just choose to ignore it really. These two were in the game anyway, so… they’ve had five, six, seven years of touring the world and having a good time, so I was like the kind of outsider coming in…
Justin: Newbie!
Craig: (Laughs) …Yeah, these are the veterans, and here newbie comes along. But I sorted them out, I saved their lives. Their careers were going like that… (mimes a downward slope) but now they’re going back up like that again.
Justin: It’s purely Craig! Nobody does it like Craig, Craig’s the best! We play subliminal messages in his room at night like (whispers) ‘You’re the best Craig, nobody does it like you.’ So he wakes up in a good mood really.
Craig: The other thing with the internet is nobody can actually spell my surname (Pilbin), they feel the need to put an H in it!
Justin: I get ‘Lockley’ as well in the NME.

They’re loving you at the moment aren’t they?
Justin: A bit of love and hate I think. Radio’s fine, NME radio all the time, and NME TV we do really well on, but in review we got 6 out of 10. It’s not brilliant, but it’s not terrible either.
Craig: Ah well, their highest is eight anyway!
Justin: It’s really strange with the press, because our best reviews are from Artrocker, which I thought would absolutely kill us. They gave us 5 out of 5 for the record, and I just didn’t expect that. I could understand where a lot of reviewers could fall down though, because it is easy to make comparisons with this band, and it’s not a super instant first listen type record.

So, the single comes out today (29th March)…
Justin: Whoooo!

…How does that feel?
Tom: Super jived up!
Justin: I’d forgotten the date actually!

Is that because you don’t have a day job?
Justin: Oh God, I haven’t had a day job since 1999 or something! Someones been paying me to do this for far too long. I feel like they’re going to go through the books and go ‘Hang on a minute…’. No, we’re lucky because our day job is making records with our band or other bands, so…it’s still work!

So… how do you think the single will do?
Justin: We’ve had quite a bit of radio on this one, but I tend to curse everything I do… everything seems to be critically acclaimed, and then not follow through on a commercial level, so… I don’t know. I stopped watching midweeks in about 1994, so if no-one had reminded me I wouldn’t even remember we’d had a single put out today to be honest! If you think too much about it, you would drive yourself nuts.
Craig: It’s going to be a bit of a slow burner I think…I’m thinking things may start getting busier towards the end of the year.

And do you have that feeling that this band is the right thing, that this is what you’re meant to be doing?
Craig: Oh definitely.
Justin: (Almost simultaneously) Oh yeah. And we’ve only done the UK, there’s all the other places to do yet as well!