Breakthrough 2004: Art Brut

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Eccentric, electric and almost overly energetic, Art Brut have been dazzling sweaty live audiences for more than a year now. Raising more than a few eyebrows and bemused grins along the way, they have been lauded prime movers in the music press' latest manifestation the 'New Cross scene', as they purge the post punk landscape along with the likes of Bloc Party, The Vichy Government, The Violets and others.

Headlining a capacity gig at the Breakthrough Festival, the celebratory fortnight to welcome back London's legendary Marquee Club, one of the most flambuoyant and original bands may well be leaning over the edge of greatness, but they are also wobbling just round the corner from nothingness. Picked up by Rough Trade and subsequently put down, they currently face their biggest challenge  - transferring an incredible live experience onto tape and selling records.  

Kept frimly in line and grounded by the towering Eddie Argos, the five 20-somethings came to be when they quite simply 'formed the band', wrote a song in five minutes, and called it exactly that ... or so the story goes. Because trying to seperate fact from fiction is futile, unnecessary, and merely takes the mystique out of Art Brut's ironic charade.

With lyrics about still being in love with a should-be-forgotten teenage old flame from school, destroying claustrophobic art galleries, and suffering from pre-sex nerves, Art Brut serve up an honest, insightful and hilarious stage presence, a lesson in how to not take yourself seriously and a refreshing, high-energy cabaret that should be kept corked for special occasions. More than novelty though, they have their mission; the attainment of world peace and a slot on Top Of The Pops.

VF catches up with Eddie Argos and Ian Catskilkin, just before the band takes the stage, to find out which is more important.


Virtual Festivals: There are various stories about where you formed Art Brut, ranging from Burger King, the Isle Of Wight and a festival in Germany. You even wrote a song about it. Care to reveal the real story?
EA: How we formed is not really important. I don't know how to use the internet so I had to find some band members the old fashioned way.
IC: We got together probably in the same way most bands do. The normal reasons are always really boring so we thought we'd add a bit of intrigue to it all.

VF: So what's the truth?
EA: I met him (points to Ian) on the dance floor at a friend's party, trying to form a band, and no one else wanted to know.
IC: I was trying to pull girls.
EA: And he ended up being the one mental person who said yes. I was in a funny art band in Bournemouth and we were supporting Ian's band. We were funny so he liked us. Then we realised we didn't have a drummer and we met Mike, who I thought was German, and he said he was a drummer. We ended up leaving a note asking him to be in the band and that was that.
  
VF: You've been tagged part of the 'art wave' by sections of the music press. What does 'art wave' sound like?
IC: We do that thing of straddling genres, we ride them a lot. One week we're one thing, the next we're another.
EA: We're not like the fucking Others though.
IC: We're not anything like most of the bands we've been compared to. Franz Ferdinand? What?
EA: And I've been compared to Mark E Smith from The Fall. I'd never even heard of him when I was told that, never heard his records. He can't sing - so he's like me in that respect - it doesn't help. But he's totally incoherent, whereas at least I can mutter the odd sentence.

VF: So are you artists?
EA: The art thing's my fault. Our name doesn't help really and our songs talk about art a lot too, so we asked for it really. But when the art wave tag was born I was like, 'Fuck off, someone's going to get famous out of this and I'll end up hating them all'. I didn't realise it might be us. None of us went to art school though and we're not particularly good at it. 

VF: Is that why you've been kicked out of various galleries?
EA: No we've been banned for rocking out in galleries. We don't actually take our instruments in. We just jump around and make a lot of noise. It just seems a bit ridiculous to have these places where you're meant to get all cultural but not enjoy yourself. We thought we'd take our art there and bound it about.
IC: My dad used to get kicked out of galleries too so it's not anything too unusual.

VF: You're playing at the Breakthrough Festival tonight as part of the Marquee Club's reopening. Do you feel you've already broken through as a band?
EA: This is a festival is it? No on told us! I just thought it was a gig for Art Rocker. Kaito have been around for about six years. I'd say they've broken through. We're still looking for a record deal though so no, we haven't in that respect.