9 o'clock Nasty emerged glistening from the plague pits of Leicester. They play with glitter and they take no prisoners. Relentless and yet full of love they take a side eyed look at the world and punish it with driving beats and mild sarcasm. Low Fat Jesus is a punk apocalypse. The kind of song you need to shout 1-2-3-4 before you hit play. Everyone worth knowing has a favourite punk band. This is not a song about the Jesus that threw the moneylenders out of the temple. This is a song about the Jesus that welcomed them in, as long as they contributed a fair percentage of their income as rent.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey 9 o'clock Nasty, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. How has the time gone for you since our last interview?
Good thank you. We’ve slowly gained audience, slowly built our little corner of the internet. Every time we put something out we seem to find new people. We’ve moved from having one studio that was also our home to working in a couple of places, which is much healthier. Pete has become an obsessive keyboard player which will come as a relief to anyone that heard Ted play.
What’s your strongest memory of your childhood?
Playing guitar in a covers band in smokey bars with drunken old men throwing coins. The scent of sweat and the crunchy sound of a floor sticky with stale alcohol. The distortion from the speakers and the crackle in the air. That sense that at any moment it could all turn to violence.
Really, well for Pete. He was in a child-band that did the clubs.
Your latest track is 'Low Fat Jesus'. Can you share with us the background of its creation and did any unusual things happen during its creation?
Most of our songs have a story. A troubled journey from the initial idea, through rejection and disagreement through to redemption and release. Low Fat Jesus is that rarity. We had an idea. We all agreed on it. We made it very quickly. In just a day or two I think. It was simple and natural. It is probably the easiest song to write and record we’ve ever done, partly because it speaks to genres and styles we all love very deeply.
What’s your most embarrassing moment?
I don’t think there are any. Truly. To be embarrassed you need to care how you are perceived. I don’t think we really do that much. That sounds arrogant, and maybe it is, but we do something stupid or wrong, well, we just move on!
Is the artistic life lonely? What do you do to counteract it?
Yes and no.
No. We are a band. A unit. A hive-mind. Every step and every detail is something we build together. As individuals we would not be 9 o’clock Nasty. None of us alone could do what we do. Writing music is an intensely social experience. The humour and the rough edges are what makes the project what it is.
Yes. The days of belonging to a local scene where you live and breathe the work of a host of local bands that you see all the time are gone. We try to replace that with friendships with other bands we’ve met online and that is a wonderful thing, but that creative exchange of belonging to a community that sits in the same chairs and smells the same smells has largely gone from the indie scene.
What is your dream project?
That changes from month to month. Right now, working with a Techno producer to release a song has become a dream, a nightmare, an obsession. We met Mark Wise of @markwisetechno online and followed his work. He is exploring something he calls Heavy Metal Techno that has an uncompromising edge - it reminds us of a lot of the hard-driven electronic music we were into back in the day. Cabaret Voltaire and the like. But he somehow makes it approachable and open to a new audience. Working with him to remix Low Fat Jesus has been fun and educational.
Now that we’ve established a sound, a reputation, we have the freedom and the confidence to risk collaborations and that is probably the most interesting and exciting projects open to us. The more different and challenging the better.
We’ve written a song that needs a powerful gospel inspired singer. That will be interesting. If you’re interested and you’ve got the voice for it, get in touch.
What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Don’t. We made a million mistakes that made us. Make your own. Take your own path. Just start, the rest will work out as you go. If you wait until you’re ready it will be too late.
When were you generally fulfilled in your position as an artist?
Every release feels a bit like that. The hardest thing about working the way we do, apart from the late nights and terrible diet, is the strange timeline we work to. This month we’re excited to release a couple of songs, but the day you release a song, all your attention moves to the next one. It is always the next thing. Or the one after that.
Hyperbole aside, I think our April release which is called “The Gastronaut” is by far the absolute best thing we have written and recorded. In every way. It’s an instant hit, an earworm you sing all day, but it is also musically incredibly rich and very clever. But we’re already working on the release to follow it which is our first out and out radio-friendly pop single. Something so sweet it will make your teeth fall out. Well, it may have a few hidden layers that are deeply subversive. But it’s a banger. It’s endless.
So probably the reason we do what we do with the intensity we bring, is because we never feel fulfilled - we’re always reaching.
What jobs have you done other than being an artist?
Being an artist is not a job. At times we may have paid the rent through music, but there is absolutely no intention to make 9 o’clock Nasty into a career. The freedom to just do what we feel is right without worrying about money is an essential part of what we do.
What can we expect from 9 o'clock Nasty in the near future?
Well, on the 25th February there is the remix of Low Fat Jesus by Mark Wise. It’s pretty special and we adore it, but it certainly won’t be a natural fit for our audience, but we hope it reaches some new people and diversifies what we do a bit. We really like all forms of electronica and would like to pursue that more.
Next month, March, is the second single we did with Hugo GT our collaborator from Canada. He always delivers the most incredible sonics, and is half human half guitar. So the song is called Disco Investors and is a glam rock invasion. It is a lot of fun. It may be our most obviously political song for a while. Anyone that liked Too Cool is going to lose their shit for that one.
Then Gastronaut for April. It’s orchestral. Really. Complex, mature, layered and infectious. If that was the last thing we ever did, then it would be a really good ending. From the broken disco of Gammon v Pilgrim to the intense garage-rock of I’m Bent to something so strange and subtle would be a great journey.
But that isn’t the end! We have a ton of songs we’re finishing off, some of which will be singles, and some will be for the summer LP which will probably be called “x3 Repeat” after something a reviewer said about us. We want to write songs that make people keep hitting repeat. Play again. Play again. Dopamine. Dopamine. That’s how we are with songs we love, play them loud over and over and over. That’s how our music is designed to be played.