As you may have noticed from browsing around hecklerspray, we quite like The Go! Team. Actually we like the Go! Team a lot, and when we heard that they were playing at Newcastle’s finest free festival – the Orange Evolution – we all decided it would be another brilliant opportunity to pick their brains a little bit more.
We visited The Go! Team to ask main man Ian Parton and front lady Ninja about Rainbow characters, The A Team, tea, oh and a few questions about their music too.
hecklerspray – So how’s work on the second album going, then?
Ian – *laughs*
Ninja – Stop talking about the second album!
Ian – Gotta be the most asked question now, about the second album. Er… fine I think. Not sure. *laughs*. It's really early you know, I’ve just got loads of little starting points for songs. You know, I have a chorus for something but not a verse, or middle or whatever. So it’s at that stage really, so it could go either way. But I want to try and make it noisier then the first album.
hecklerspray – What are The Go! Team's favourite albums of 2006 thus far?
Ninja – I couldn’t even tell you about any albums that have come out this year. I’m so out of it, everything I’m listening to is…
hecklerspray – Old stuff?
Ninja – Yeah, as I’m getting older, the music I’m listening to is getting older and older and there’s nothing newer that I’m liking more and morerer. So I couldn’t tell you!
Ian – You like The Pipettes album don’t you?
Ninja – I like The Pipettes! The Pipettes are fantastic!
Ian – You got any tip offs?
hecklerspray – The Flaming Lips? The Knifes album?
Ian – Oh yeah, the Swedish band.
hecklerspray – Yeah, the band that Jose Gonzalez ripped off with that Heartbeat song. Are you bored of Gnarls Barkley and neverending chart success?
Ian – Don’t like what I’ve heard to be honest. *Pauses* Ya Craaaaazzzzzzzyyy. That one. Its been at number one for weeks now hasn’t it?
Ninja – Gnarls Barkley’s just Cee-Lo going under another name. There’s an American rapper called Cee-Lo who's been going for years and years and his previous albums have been really good. They're really musical and orchestral as rap music goes, it’s wicked. So I dunno what’s going on here, maybe someone was trying to sue him as Cee-Lo so he changed his name. I dunno what’s going on here. As a solo artist/rapper I love his stuff but I dunno what’s happening here. Go back to being Cee-Lo.
hecklerspray – So who's going to win Big Brother, or do you both think it's shit and shouldn’t be watched?
Ninja – I love reality TV! I don’t care what anybody says. I like to see what everybody else is up to and see if anyone else is as mad as me! I think Pete’s gonna win.
Ian – Haven’t seen it.
hecklerspray – Have you ever considered recording a live show and releasing it as a CD or DVD? Or is it something you haven’t considered doing yet?
Ian – Yeah, we’ve quite a few of our shows filmed with the intention of releasing it as a DVD but it never happened did it?
Ninja – Did we?
Ian – Yeah, at that Toronto show, we had about six cameras on us. But maybe, I’m not against it.
Ninja – But if you do that, no-one will come and see you.
hecklerspray – True.
Ninja – Maybe you know, when we’re really old and grey. But I won’t be grey. I’ll dye my hair. But maybe when Ian’s grey. Then they’ll be a Go! Team DVD.
Ian – *laughs* It’s funny, people still don’t know what we look like and when people turn up to shows they don’t know what its going to be like.
hecklerspray – So what made you want to use two drummers live? Was it a decision to be different from other bands?
Ian – I like the look and the sound of it and just to see people matching each other's movements. There’s loads more potential for what we haven’t explored.
hecklerspray – But there’s never been a time where it’s gone totally wrong with two drummers?
Ian – We do drift occasionally now and then. But most of the time we get it right.
hecklerspray – So do you actually consider yourselves dance or electronic music? Because most of the time that’s the category your usually lumped in.
Ninja – Is it?
Ian – We’re pretty pissed off that we’re in the Dance section in record shops like HMV. It’s really odd. I never imagined that really.
Ninja – Dance artists don’t have faces! They just have songs that they play in clubs, and glowsticks. Most indie bands have faces.
Ian – And we have more faces then most indie bands. Maybe it’s because there’s samples involved or something like that. I’ve never really thought of us as dance music. But then I wouldn’t be happy that we’re an indie band either.
hecklerspray – Can every member of The Go! Team play the recorder? And if so, would you ever consider making a track just on the recorder, just like in primary school?
Ian – *laughs* I’m sure everyone could actually.
Ninja – I can still play my old recorder that’s at home and I still have my old recorder books from school. And I can play the Coca Cola song – the old one that goes “I’d like to teach the world to sing.” And I can play We Three Kings. Without looking! Even the hard bit. *starts playing imaginary recorder*.
hecklerspray – How do you take your tea or coffee?
Ian – No sugar.
Ninja – I don’t like tea or coffee. Because coffee reminds me of teachers. They always have brown teeth and bad breath. And tea reminds me of everything that’s boring in the world, and Pauline Fowler, and a lot of people that I don’t like. So I’ve just never drunk it. Last time I had tea was when I was nine or really young. Never drunk coffee at all.
Ian – Why do you think tea’s boring? I think it’s quite nice.
Ninja – It jus reminds me of rituals, I don’t like people who have to do a certain thing. I dunno, I just don’t like tea and what it stands for.
Ian – It has Englishness I suppose.
Ninja – And sensibleness. You can’t be rock and roll if you like tea!
Ian – The drummer in Bloc Party has a cup of tea next to him as he plays. Fact for everybody there.
hecklerspray – Who would win in a fight between the…
Ninja – …A Team and The Go! Team?
Hecklerspray – Damn, and we thought we were being original with that question!
Ninja – Well, Hannibal’s dead, so we’re already outnumbering them anyway. And I reckon, if the three girls from The Go! Team strapped themselves together, we’d put up a really good fight against Mr. T. And then for Face, maybe Sam [another Go! Team member fact fans] could put on a wig and distract him. Coz Face was a ladies man. Murdoch was quite mad, so he’d probably end up fighting the wrong people. So I reckon we’d win.
hecklerspray – What’s your favourite song to play live?
Ninja – I like The Power Is On and Ladyflash. There are no rules in Ladyflash and The Power Is On is quite aggressive.
Ian – Junior Kickstart. Because it’s a license to thrash.
Ninja – And if there were sound effects while Ian played it, it would be a like the noise a sword makes. *Stand up and does thrashing motion with sound effects*. That would be the sound his guitar would make.
hecklerspray – Who's your favourite Rainbow character?
Ian – Don’t have any opinion on it!
Ninja – I like Zippy, because I always thought he was a biscuit.
hecklerspray and Ian – *Laugh*
Ninja – Me and my brother used to argue about it coz you never knew what it was! One's a bear, one's a hippo and one's a man. I always thought it was biscuit, and my little brother a hamburger. We just kept the argument going really. I don’t know what he is. I like not knowing what he is. But I think he’s a biscuit. You know, like a ginger nut cream.
hecklerspray – Do you think the internet is a positive thing for getting new music heard and for older bands to promote themselves further?
Ian – In theory, yeah. But at the moment I think it's kind of reached its saturation point. You're just bombarded with stuff at the moment, especially through MySpace. Every fucker wants you to go and check their music out. So there’s no real process of weeding out the good from the bad. But in theory the internet can be amazing. But on the flipside, every fucker’s stealing the music.
hecklerspray – Finally, are you both sick of doing interviews?
Ninja – No. I like interviews, especially good interviews where people know what there talking about. We’ve had interviews in the past where people haven’t heard of us or haven’t done their research. I don;’t like disorganised interviews. That’s what gets me.
Ian – No. I think they're quite good, though its better for people to show interest then being bored. I like it when people have listened to the music and have their own take on it.
[interview by Matthew Laidlow]