This
summer, Nizlopi will be wooing crowds at the Guilfest, Greenbelt, and
02 Wireless Festivals. John Parker took time out from plucking Stephanie
(his double-bass) to talk to magazine about Prince, beat-boxing, gay
football anthems, and life after 'The JCB Song'.
What is
your favourite festival memory as a performer?
I think it was our first ever Glastonbury, which was three years ago.
We played a tent with about a thousand people in it. We like to get
offstage and play acoustically, which we thought would be a nightmare
at a festival, really. We got offstage and walked in the middle, and
as we put our instruments down, everybody sat round in a circle. That
was a pretty special moment. We couldn’t have planned it better.
Who are
you looking forward to meeting backstage at Guilfest?
I’d be intrigued to see what Billy Idol’s like, and to see
what he’s like onstage…White Wedding and all that.
It seems
you’re flying the contemporary flag at Guilfest (other performers
include A-ha, Gary Numan, The Stranglers and Sparks)
Yes, we’ll be like kids amongst those guys. That’s what
I like about festivals. You can go and see these up-and-coming acts
that you’ve never heard of, or bands that have a real reputation.
We saw Coldplay at Glastonbury last year, and we just thought ‘oh
they’re just gonna be a bog-standard big rock band’, but
they were really good. It sounded great, and they made everybody feel
like they were performing to you, which is a hell of a thing to do with
80,000 people.
Who taught
you how to beat-box?
Myself, really. It started as a joke, and then everyone was like ‘hey,
you’re really good at that’.
You might
have some competition at the Greenbelt Festival. Daniel Bedingfield’s
a bit of a beat-boxer as well. Maybe you two could have a ‘beat-off?’
A beat-off?? (laughs) The two people who get mentioned quite a lot when
you talk about beat-boxers are Daniel Bedingfield and Justin Timberlake.
But we’re playing the Wireless Festival and Killa Kela is playing
too. Now he’s proper good. There’s beat-boxing, and there’s
people who have really crafted it. He can do several noises at once.
But surely
no-one does it like Nizlopi?
Oh definitely. Well, the others don’t play double-bass and beat-box
at the same time, so I’ve cornered that market.
What’s
the weirdest cover version you’ve ever performed live?
There’s a Prince song, 'Gett Off' which keeps appearing in one
of our songs. Every now and then we’ll be playing away, and that
comes up. Also, 'Enter Sandman' by Metallica.
Would you
like to collaborate with Prince?
I don’t know if he knows we exist. But we’re definitely
fans of his. It would be a little bit intimidating for us, but then
apparently he’s quite small, so maybe not.
Do you have
any random celebrity fans?
Daniel Day Lewis. He lives in Ireland, and tried to come and see us.
We were supporting Jamie Cullum at the time. [Recounts anecdote about
Daniel Day Lewis trying to get in touch with them, but being inadvertently
shunned by their tour manager]. He even invited us to the premier of
his latest film!
What’s
the strangest thing you’ve ever received from a fan?
I had a doll made for me, like a voodoo doll. It was a doll of me playing
double bass, it was very strange.
Nizlopi
are named after a girl that Luke had a crush on at school. Have you
ever wooed a girl by writing a song for her?
Funnily enough, I think that’s how Luke got so good at performing.
He wasn’t very popular with the girls when he was younger. He
realised that if he sang them a sad song, he’d usually get quite
far.
Nizlopi’s
lyrics are quite romantic. Is it your intention to write baby-making
music?
We get quite a few emails from couples, who say: ‘oh, we were
on our first date at your gig, and now we’re getting married.’
We’ve played at a lot of weddings, a lot of down-the-aisle stuff,
which is great because you get to play your own material.
Are you
working on any new material at the moment?
We’ve just recorded an EP/mini-album, that we’re gonna put
out in mid-August. We’re just dying to get some new material out
there.
[The new stuff is] a lot more of what we do live. There’s a lot
more beat-boxing on it. It’s got more of a hip-hoppy kinda feel,
but not in a naff way. I guess we’ve grown as writers, so we’re
writing about things that effect us now. They’re not all romance-based.
There’s a bit of political stuff too.
The JCB
Song very much told a story. Other acts, like The Arctic Monkeys and
The Streets are writing music that has more a narrative. Do you think
this is the reaction against more formulaic pop?
I think people are sick of bubblegum pop. It fits such a formula, you’ve
got a chorus that’s very big and simple and doesn’t necessarily
make much sense. There aren’t a lot of people who can really relate
to those songs. With JCB, there were an awful lot of people who’d
go ‘God, yeah I drove in diggers with my Dad’, or ‘I’ve
lost a parent’. It just hit a chord with people.
Would you
write a whole album, with one big story or narrative?
No. I think the trick as a songwriter is to get a big story and shrink
it down to a song form. I don’t think you need to make albums
about one thing. They can often be quite distressing to listen to [laughs].
Do you think
the internet has played a big part in your success?
Yeah, massively. JCB was a hit before we’d released it, because
we did the animation, and that was sent out as an email. It just went
right around the world…like a million hits before it was even
released as a record.
We’re on an independent label, and it’s really hard to get
your record played on the radio and TV, but DJ’s at Radio One
were receiving it from their friends, and they’d open it up and
go ‘oh cool, I’ll check it out’.
Has the
internet given you a more direct relationship to your audience?
Yes. In the end it became quite hard to reply to everybody, we had 20,000
hits a day at one point. People really felt it was theirs, ‘cos
they’d received it personally. We had a lot of worried emails
– ‘now its number one, does that mean you’re selling
out?’
But you’ve
managed to have a No.1 hit without selling out.
Yes, yes, we’ve been very fortunate. Kind of a one-off, really.
So
what’s on your MP3 player?
The new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. They’re one of my favourite
bands. They’re so damn entertaining. They were wearing nappies
when I saw them live.
Would Nizlopi
wear nappies onstage?
If we had their kind of physique, maybe. But sadly no. Skinny and white
- It’s not a good look.
Your double-bass
is called Stephanie. Is she named after Stephanie Beacham of Dynasty
fame?
No. I’d never met a Stephanie, until I’d named my double-bass
Stephanie. It just felt like a Stephanie, it’s really strange.
My Mum hates the name, so I’ve just got another one, and called
it Catherine after my Mum.
Do you think
there’s a spiritual element to your music?
Yeah there is. It’s not an explicit thing, we don’t come
from any particular religious belief, apart from being good people.
But you definitely get that feeling at gigs, there’s something
bigger going on. The spiritual thing comes up a lot – a lot of
people think we’re a Christian band, but we’re not.
In your
lyrics, there’s a lot of reference to the spirit, to the soul
and to ‘rising up’. It’s almost like gospel in that
way.
Definitely, there’s a real gospel feel to it all. We believe in
what we do, we’re honest, good people, and people are looking
for that in today’s society. They’re looking for a bit of
hope.
You ran
the London marathon recently, to raise money for The Anthony Nolan Trust.
How was that?
That was great fun. I thoroughly recommend it. It was a lot of work,
though. I had a strict running programme, training 6 days a week, with
my friend Darren. It really kick-started a passion for it, so I’m
running another one in October.
I watched
the video for your last single, Girls. There seems to be a cowboys-and-tents
theme. Is it inspired by Brokeback Mountain?
[Laughs] Brokeback Mountain and Tim Burton films, maybe. Actually, no,
it’s not. I don’t even think we were aware of the film by
that point.
Embrace
are performing alongside you at Guilfest. They’re about to release
the official World Cup song. If you were asked to write a song for the
World Cup, would you do it?
We’ve kinda written one. It’s not specifically for the World
Cup. At the moment it has the working title of ‘The Gay Song’.
It’s all about people being part-gay, and the end is like a football
chorus of people singing: ‘part of me is gay’. And we just
thought it would be interesting to see the England fans singing it very
loudly.
That’s
very ambitious. Good luck with that. Which football team do Nizlopi
support?
Luke’s not really a football fan. I’m a Man City fan, ‘cos
I lived there for a while.
We [Man City fans] like to suffer, cos we’ll win a couple, and
then we’ll lose a lot more.
What would
I find in a Nizlopi Festival Survival Kit?
The first thing’s got to be a sense of humour. Toilet roll, that’s
pretty good. Obviously, I’ve got to bring a double bass. I’d
probably bring Catherine, cos Stephanie’s a little bit more fragile
you see. I always miss a good cup of tea, so I suppose some form of
making tea-making facility. And some fresh underpants.
John is still in
the process of hitting his £10,000 fundraising target for The
Anthony Nolan Trust. For more information, or to help him out, go to:
www.justgiving.com/johnparker
by David Wright
