Q: Can you please introduce yourself/selves to everyone?
I'm Andrew and I play bass and sing the odd bit in Bangers.
Q: What were the main inspirations in starting Bangers? Any musical influences on top of that?
When we started we just wanted to play super simple 90s sounding melodic punk, Roo had just moved back to Cornwall after living in Brighton for a while and had some songs written that were supposed to be for a band up there. I think we originally planned to sound a lot more like Weezer than we do.
Q: Seeing as we're nearing the end of the year can you tell us how 2010 has been for you?
2010 has been pretty awesome, been meaning to actually look through everything that we've done but I think we've been on tour for 11 or 12 weeks this year. Been to loads of places I never thought I'd get the chance to go - Sweden, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and generally exceeded my expectations of what I thought was possible with this band. We haven't actually recorded any new music in 2010 which is something that we're trying hard to rectify next year.
Q: How was the European tour with Dirty Tactics? Any stories to tell?
I think that tour taught us a lot, it was a long time, spending the whole 7 weeks in a van with 4 other people that we'd never really met before, playing mostly in places we'd never been to often tiny audiences. In short it was hard work, but I'm glad we did it and I'm glad we got a chance to go to all the places as we did. Hamish has written a diary zine from that tour so if you want all the stories you're probably best off getting hold of that!
Q: Any intentions to work on a full length after the teases that are the 7"s and split 12"?
Yep, working on that at the moment, currently got 10 or 11 songs written which we're hopefully going to record in January. Plan is to have that out by May and then get back into touring again properly.
Q: What's your view on the current state of Punk Rock in the UK? It seems to have had a revival as of late thanks to bands such as yourselves.
Punk rock in the UK is great at the moment, so many good bands, so many good scenes and so many people excited about punk rock again. Not really sure why but it's great and I really hope that people keep actively doing things and pushing boundaries of what's possible for punk rock in this country.
Q: You're also behind Specialist Subject Records aren't you? How hard has it been running a distro/label in a time of a "download" culture?
Yeah, I also run Specialist Subject, I wouldn't say it's particularly hard but then again I'm not old enough to really know what it was like before "download culture". I'm sure loads less people buy CDs and records now than they did 10-15 years ago, but plenty of people are still interested in buying music so I'm still going to make sure that those who are can access what I think are awesome records!
Q: Speaking of which, I noticed that you put the mini-disog Dude Trips up for a pay what you want download, how has that gone down? How was the ratio of paid to free downloads?
It's gone down surprisingly well, basically we just want people to be able to hear the songs and we know that if people wanted they could easily download the record for free so they might as well get it from us. We had no expectations of making any money from it, and don't expect anyone to pay but people have been really generous, we've even had people donate towards the download and order a copy of the CD at the same time, which just seems crazy to me! Ratio wise a large majority of people don't donate but it doesn't bother us, I'm just happy that people are interested enough in what we're doing to want to listen to it and will hopefully want to come and see us when we play in their town.
Q: Do you think giving people the option of downloading the record for free hampered sales of the record in anyway? Or do you think it was mainly people that had the songs on vinyl but wanted a digital copy?
It's hard to say, there probably are some people who haven't bought the CD because they can download it for free, but I'm sure there's other people that wouldn't have even listened to us if it wasn't for downloading the songs for free who've gone on to buy the record or a shirt.
Q: Any surprises musically this year? Bands you've played with/bought records by?
I think I've been really lax in checking out new music this year, something that I'm planning on changing in 2011. But we've played with some great bands and there's been load of good music coming out this year. Particularly into Rush n Attack, Underparts, Big Eyes, Iron Chic, Harbour, Ssssnakes at the minute, can't recommend those bands enough.
Q: Excited for 2011? Or just another year?
Yeah I'm real excited for 2011, excited to be recording again and making plans for tours later in the year. Looks like it's going to be a really busy year for Specialist Subject with loads of great releases in the works and also trying to get more involved in putting on shows in Birmingham where I moved recently to live with my girlfriend. With any luck next year should be better than ever!
Since conducting the interview, Bangers have completed said album and are offering an instant download of two tracks in exchange for picking up some new merch at http://specialistsubject.limitedpressing.com/ the shirts are worth it purely for the fact that they have pictures of cats on!
