Yes Giantess : Interview

Image by : Annabel Staff

Where : The Great Escape, Brighton

I have an innocent mind, well so far as porn goes, which translated means porn just isn’t my thing.  It’s an educational minefield that is pre-disposed to take things beyond the realms of what is in some cases deemed normal.  For example the urban dictionary reliably informs me that these days you can foray into such glorious things like emo-porn, Japanese bondage porn and even the sublime sounding arborphilia, so I guess nothing should surprise me. 

But surprised I was when researching the band Yes Giantess, to find out from my Google friend that there is also a kind of fetish pornography association with being a Giantess. My curiosity heightened, I begun to delve in deeper to this phenomena for the purposes of being a learned hack, only to find it isn’t in anyway phenomenal, just very, very weird. Sufficed to say no more words will be wasted describing it. 

Unluckily for Yes Giantess themselves, their MySpace appears underneath a torrent of “giant women engulfing tiny men” streaming.  Although judging from the noise being made about the Boston originating quartet the name connotations don’t seem to have put anyone off, maybe its even benefited them, who knows, there’s clearly some strange people out there.  Plus I am predicting a potentially lucrative soundtrack career they could pursue…

Until recently college parties were this band’s meal ticket and main existence in the live environment with their battered 80’s synth driven “boy band” tunes providing the entertainment to the scores of Frat boys and Sorority girls high on life and liquor.  But in collusion with fellow alumni Ayad Al Adhamy, from this years ultimate buzz band Passion Pit and with support from Derek Davies of Neon Gold fame, Yes Giantess are set for much vaster notoriety beyond Boston and even the States.

More New Kids on the Block in their 90’s heyday but with a twist evolved for now, they punch out choruses and melodies ready to be etched into our memories, for a while at least.  Couple this with an assault on dance-floors everywhere, where their electronic pop sensibilities resonate and power up the party hard atmosphere they seek out wherever they go.  

With their first ever UK shows taking place at The Great Escape this year, 4or The Record spent some time with Yes Giantess before the eponymous Neon Gold party later that night, where they terrorised the rambunctious crowds with a rousing set to finished off what was 3 days of musical debauchery.

Yes Giantess are…

Jan Resenfield
Chase Nicholl
Karl Hohn
Joey Sulkowski


4or The Record: Yes Giantess, welcome to the UK and The Great Escape!  As it’s your first UK tour, give us the background story on the bands beginnings.
Jan: Well I have been writing songs for the last year as kind of a bedroom electronic project, and then Ayad from Passion Pit and Karl heard the songs and decided to produce the tracks.  So we went in and half way through that process of recording the tracks we realised we wanted to start a band, so got in Chase and Joey who we had already known for a long time as we had played in various other musical projects together.  So we all started playing and pretty soon we were doing dance nights on the Boston circuit.
Karl: College frat shows and stuff like that.
Jan: Then we hooked up with Neon Gold about 4 months after and put a single out and now here we are.
Karl: We should also probably mention that Ayad was the one that introduced us to Neon Gold, as Derek was the one who broke them out onto the scene really.  He has been really, really good to us.

4TR: Lets clear up the name change.  You have gone from Giantess to Yes Giantess recently.  Why?
Chase: Well there’s a band from Canada called Giantess and basically the record label wouldn’t let go of the name; but I’m surprised they wouldn’t let us have the name because that particular band in their career have only sold 140 albums.  And now they are defunct, but the label still has or owns the name.  So because of the legal hassle we just changed it.
Jan: [Laughing] so we can get a chant going now at shows because it rhymes.
Karl: Like Milli Vanilli [laughs], but I don’t want to invoke any Milli Vanilli comparisons.

4TR: You recently released your first single over here which was a double a-side of ‘Tuff n’ Stuff’ and ‘You Were Young’.  Why those tracks and why a double a side?
Jan: Those were the flagship songs you know and were the tracks that Derek provisionally heard when he asked us to put something out.
Karl: Also in the recording process there was a spark with those songs and they just gelled in a really special way.

4TR: What was it about Neon Gold that made you want to work with them and Derek Davies?
Jan: Well initially he asked us to play and host a party, which was a very small kind of cool gathering but when we weren’t actually on the label.  We went down to New York and we played a show with Theophilus London and the next night we were all hanging out in the bar and Derek just said lets put something out.  Actually he was managing us as well at the time.
Karl: Sort of de-facto managing us.
Jan: He was an all in one, like our manager, label, rep, everything so it made sense, plus he had been doing electro stuff and throwing parties and stuff and we're a party band basically.

4TR: And will the Yes Giantess/Neon Gold relationship be continuing with further releases?
Jan: I would love it to, we would love it, and we’d love to throw releases Derek’s way whenever we can.
Karl: Yeah it’s just a very friendly thing.
Jan: And its kind of win win.  We get a record out and he gets records, so its not at a point where millions of dollars are being thrown around or anything like that, but its a really cool, easy way to put things out through people we know and like.

4TR: Its quite early days at this stage, but what has the response been like so far from the UK? 
Carl: Well everyone has been really polite so far hahaha
Chase: To be honest I feel like this is the beginning of us starting in the UK because not many people seem to know about us.  Popjustice did a little thing on us, NME…
Karl: And Music Week I think and record of the day, you know a few little bits like that have happened on the Internet.
Chase: I think this is going to be the start of something good potentially, fingers crossed.

4TR: What about the concept of your live shows?  Is it hard to bring the multi-layered electronic sounds to the live environment?
Karl: It’s not easy at all and it takes a lot. 

Jan: We write and record first and then we figure it out, so we don’t approach things as an electronic band we think of ourselves more with an arena rock ethic [laughs].  We're as loud as possible so brought in the real drums immediately because we wanted it as loud as a rock band and didn’t want it to be quiet like an electronic band. 
Karl: And we didn’t want to be dj’s either, we didn’t want to be pigeonholed like that.
Jan: We basically love sweaty crazy crowds, that’s the thing we want so we have kind of played to that end.

4TR: The 80’s early 90’s pop influences are quite obvious in your sound, is that where most of your inspiration comes from?
Chase: Oh yeah absolutely, half of our keyboards are from the 80s for a start.
Karl: Yeah we are unabashedly about the 80s.
Jan: We are trying to be a pop band you know and are under no illusion other than that, like we aren’t trying to be an indie band or be cool in any sense.  We're trying to make and adapt pop music, which is kind of inaccessible to most kids in many senses.
Karl: You can go see like big pop acts like Justin Timberlake or Lady Gaga or Britney Spears, but you have to pay wads of money and go to an arena and sit hundreds of feet back.
Jan: Yeah so we like to think we are the small-scale version of that and that we have the same kind of mainstream appeal.

4TR: So essentially you are aiming to achieve that whole crossover concept?
Chase: Yeah exactly.  I would like to think the mainstream kids and the indie kids would be there dancing together.
Jan: You know we are all about the whole ‘everybody is invited’ idea so we're against being exclusive in anyway, but I know it sounds cheesy to say that because everyone says we don’t want to be part of a scene.  We mean it in a much more literal way than most people, most people have cool points but we literally want to be played on top 40 radio and stuff, which is probably a little different in the UK because that’s a normal thing for bands here, but in America its not normal.
Karl: In America its like just Britney and Lil Wayne that gets played on the radio.
Jan: We would like to be sandwiched between Britney and Lil Wayne, and I mean musically [laughing].

4TR: In that case is it very hard to get your music played at home?
Jan: It’s hard in the sense that we couldn’t just go and book a shitty rock tour right now, like in America I guess there's this sort of romantic idea where you get in the van, drive around and play different shows and it happens for you.  In that sense its harder, because its harder to find bills and harder to find people to play with, but in reality its been very welcoming and people have been super nice.  There is kind of a dance club circuit in Boston and we are treated as a band people come to dance to, so it’s been really great so far.

4TR: In the UK the emerging or unsigned scenes are championed and celebrated with a lot of people trying to promote and break the bands on it.  Is there that kind of support for newer bands in the States?
Jan: I would say it’s the opposite actually; it’s very snotty about letting new music in.  People want new music but they want it exactly how they want it.  They want it extremely cool, super hip and they are very exclusive about it there, clubs especially.  Clubs in New York and Boston are very particular about what bands they let in, like if you know the right people you can get in if you don’t then you are screwed. 
Chase: We have been so lucky with the people we have met in Boston who have helped us.
Jan: Here everything is set up to break new bands, you have beautiful rehearsal spaces and like you have got the BBC, which is an awesome radio station; we don’t have a mainstream radio station that plays great new music.
Karl: Mainstream pop radio in America just seems like this edifice you know, its sitting up on a mountain top beaming down to you and you have no idea how to get there, its like so little can actually get there because its up on such a pedestal, so its stupidly hard.
Jan: Its just not set up for new bands to come in, but that being said its not a bad environment for playing music, it’s a great one but its just seems much more cut throat.  There's a total survival of the fittest thing going on.

4TR: So Jan are you still the primary songwriter or is it more of a collaborative process now?
Jan: Well I start by writing the skeleton of the song, then bring it to the guys and we will produce it.
Chase: So he writes the songs and we realise them as a group.
Karl: Right like sometimes Jan will come in with a fully formed verse and chorus but it will need a bridge, so we all sit down and flesh out a bridge together. But the lyrics are Jan’s and the main backbone and structure of the songs is almost all his as well.

4TR: And bearing in mind the whole party atmosphere of the music, what are you writing about?
Karl: Girls.
Jan: [laughing] well we sing about having fun and good times, its autobiographical as much as anyone’s songs are but its not like I’m singing 'oh man that was a great night' and writing it down.  It’s like a phantom idea you have and then you write a short story from it basically and that’s all it is. 
Karl: The song has micro-fiction [laughing]
Jan: It’s more about the way I feel than things that physically happen you know but its abstract in a sense.  It’s funny saying its abstract because all of the songs are basically about dancing and partying and having fun, but I think actually they are more than that.
Chase: Actually one of them is about time travel.
Jan: [laughing] yeah one of them is about time travel, it’s like a love story through time travel.

4TR: Us Brits get a glamorous picture of American kids, college parties, frat parties etc from TV & Film which portrays what appears to be a far more debauched lifestyle and more fun for that matter than what goes on over here.  Is it really like that?
Chase: The thing is though where we went to school it’s nothing like the standard.  Whereas at the last college we played at we showed up to a whole house of people drinking everywhere, couches in the yard, and 95% of people there had to be underage.
Karl: Yeah it was like an MTV animal house college party.  We got there at like 6pm and everyone was already hammered and had been hammered since Wednesday.
Jan: We didn’t come from that kind of environment but ironically we work very well there.  But then even though the songs are about partying I would like to think they are a little more than that.  Its not like I’m saying let’s party and have sex, it’s about a feeling that is associated with that.
Joey: We are not Andrew WK after all.
Jan: Yeah right we are not Andrew WK and we don’t have a song called ‘lets party’ [laughing]
Chase: Although we do like to party.

4TR: So after your shows tonight will you be partying at the Neon Gold label bash?
Chase: I hope so, but we have to play 2 shows and then tomorrow we go to London.  Shot gun not driving by the way.  I got my international drivers permit and I drove a giant van on the wrong side of the road with a stick for the first time yesterday.
Karl: Yeah but it’s the right side of the road here.
Chase: But it’s so different you have no idea.
Jan: [laughing] I guess you could say we are definitely here to party and to careen through the streets of London in a huge van on the wrong side of the road.

4TR: What’s next in terms of Yes Giantess releases?  An EP perhaps?
Jan: I think we want to do an ep yeah and are thrashing out the details of it.  We have got all the materials and everything is done but it’s a matter of timing.   We want to let the single be out there for a while before we put the next thing out.

4TR: And will you continue keeping production within the band or might you look to outside support?
Karl: Well the thing is we are all familiar with music technology, but we don’t have the know-how that a producer has who has been doing this for like 20 years, so we are open to the idea.
Jan: We have been talking to a few producers but we haven’t decided on anything yet but we are open to outside influences.
Karl: Yeah and we want someone to make us sound like Kylie Minogue records, that is the goal, whoever knows how to do that the best please call us.

4TR: Are Yes Giantess big Kylie fans then?
Karl: Oh my god yeah.
Jan: [laughing] Please get that in the interview somehow.
Karl: We have been sort of floating the idea of covering a Kylie song but we haven’t ever done it because we want to be able to do it justice and we haven’t really made that come together yet.

4TR: So the summer will be a continuation of your party hard lifestyle, just at home and away this time.
Chase: Well Karl and I just finished college so yeah a summer off, then life.  And lots of partying……until we die.

www.myspace.com/yesgiantess

Words: Francesca Strange

si
Posts: 1

Re: Yes Giantess : Interview
Reply #1 on : Fri August 28, 2009, 20:36:08

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i want your frigin EP

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