Reagan - Interviewed

For someone who hasn't heard Reagan how would you describe your sound?
It's kind of hard rock with a lot of electronic influence, there is an element of most dance genres there and we are quite happy to skip around different genres. We have used so many different elements from drum & bass, techno, house even some ambient. At the moment are sound is changing a lot we are always trying to maintain a hooky edge and have good melodies in there, I think a lot of bands to try and do dance/rock crossovers where there is often a lack of melody and we are trying to make the crossover yet trying to keep a distinct melody involved.

What bands are you listening to at the moment?
All five of us have pretty different music tastes, I'm listening to a lot of ambient electronica, some older ambient stuff like Brian Eno also Nick Drake and Blur the Libertines is another one of my favorite bands of the moment, for the sheer Brit pop and catchy melodies and things. I bought the album off the cuff but it is really good. I think you have to listen to music that inspires you, that first feeling when you listen to great track, that's why we do it. When you're sitting there and you write a song and play it for the first time it's like a million times better than when you first hear a song that connects with you, it's the biggest Buzz

Who are your general influences?
Band influences are Primal Scream, Blur Radiohead and people like Underworld, there are elements of bands like Sunnyday real estate, our bass player is really into them. When you have five people in a band and we all have quite different music tastes we put a lot of individual influences in, what comes out at the end is hopefully not sounding too much like anyone else.

What can people expect from you when you play live?
Lots of energy, we share a lot of energy with the crowd, the band works as a tight unit, and that reflects onto the crowd, the music side is often a lot more guitar based than the recorded version. It's a lot more noisy and it rocks, I usually end up by the end of most gigs bleeding, Steve usually sings his voice to shreds…. it's a high energy stage show, it's not overtly serious.

Who would your dream collaboration be?
Each member of the band would be able to name about 15 different people they would like to collaborate with. Myself production wise, I think it would be someone like the Chemical Brothers I would love to work with Brian Eno or John Lecky. If I was asked to be in a different band though I would like it to be the Libertines but I think that has more to do with the going out side of things.

How do you go about writing tracks?
Writing usually consists of two main things, one of us could be sitting at home and come up with something and work on the vocal melody and then we will all bring it together in a rehearsal session and it will launch of from there when everyone add there own bits, or we could all be sitting down and playing away and we often come up with an instant hook and take things from there. We don't have a main songwriter in the group it is literally everyone putting in an equal effort.

At your ideal after show party who would you invite?
Definitely Ainsley from Fame Academy, we made it are new years resolution to meet him, so far we are doing pretty well, I think we have some leads on his address, so we are gonna go and hunt him down, he was the only one on the show who would kiss another guy and he pulled the nicest looking girl in there! I think I would have Graham Coxon there maybe Audrey Hepburn to add a touch of class and perhaps Marilyn Monroe, we may be able to get them to have a fight or something. Jack Nicholson would have to be the abusive bar man. I am always quite weary about meeting my idols because they never seem to live up to expectations, I think people build up a different person in your imagination then when you meet them they completely don't fit.

What are your ultimate goals?
Currently we are with the idea of writing the best album ever and them splitting up. We don't want to be like so many bands out there that have passed their sell by date. A 10 out of 10 review and world wide acclaim then I think it is time to quit. But saying that we will probably totally sell out!

www.reaganised.com