I'm only saying this as a matter of fact: if a bunch of Haitians didn't die, I never would have attended Fraser "Mr. C" Milroy's Haiti benefit gig and never would have had the opportunity to interview the very lovable Niall and Chris from Scottish high-school band Amy Lightwave. I really enjoyed this interview a lot. The transcript here misses out large amounts of patter and irrational humour from the actual night (including a lengthy quickfire question round at the end of the recording) so if anybody really wants a CD copy of the interview (which I recommend) I'd be very humbled and would oblige to get one to you if I'm contacted. Fraser Milroy, being a good friend and a general sound guy and all, decided to sit in on proceedings.
BP: The basics.
Chris: My name is Chris Beltran, I play guitar and I sort of sing, and my position in the band is... .. melody hunter.
Niall: Hi, my name is Niall Morris and I am 18 years old and I like everything and I want a baby. I play the bass guitar and the laptop and I am in a band and we are called Amy Lightwave.
BP: Are we missing anyone?
Fraser: I'm Jack. I am 18. Is he 18?
Niall: Yeah, he's 18.
Fraser: I am a drummer.
BP: How long have you all known each other, and when did you form your band? What do you think inspired you to make music together?
Chris: Jack and I have been friends since we were both in primary 7. We both kind of got friendly because we were both into music and we started hanging out and playing together. The past six years we've been doing our own seperate things in other bands but now we've returned as one - as a unit, where we should be.
Niall: Chris and I are from different areas in Glasgow, so we grew up with different people and played in different bands but we decided to do this together coz we're friends and we have similar tastes in music.
Chris: And coz we think Jack's a good drummer, we brought him in and that's how we started. It's kind of.. ever since I met Niall, I knew that something was going to happen eventually. I was actually introduced to him by someone else..
Niall: You were playing that acoustic gig by yourself, weren't you?
Chris: Yeah, I was playing a solo gig in Cambuslang and I was introduced to Niall. He was a bassist and our band at the time lost a bassist, so he became the replacement bassist in the end.
Niall: Green Day. We liked Green Day. We spoke a lot about Green Day. We'd both been to the same Green Day gig and we liked the same Green Day songs...
Fraser: How many times are you going to say Green Day? GREEN DAY GREEN DAY
Chris: Anyway, I'm really glad that Niall and I became good friends before we decided to be together in this band because I think the good thing about our band is that we're all really good friends. We're not just a band but a love team - a love squad, as it were.
BP: I like love squads.
Niall: I prefer team. There was always the worry that Blazin' Squad weren't a real squad.
Chris: I like the song "Flip Reverse". It's all about doing it up the arse. It's about enjoying yourself, taking things around, flipping it the other way.
BP: Fifth base, then?
Fraser: Is that what it's about? I don't have a fifth base, I go straight to fourth. No wait, I skip fourth?... Keep going please.
BP: What sort of genre of music do you consider Amy Lightwave to be?
Niall: Dirty pop. But not like in a dirty way, just in an N*SYNC sort of way. Just pop
Chris: I'd say we're kind of poppy, and some of our songs have a sort of rocky kind of...
Niall: Not really.
Chris: Well, not really but we started out thinking we would be a big rock band.
Niall: Pop. Electropop.
Chris: Lappop.
Niall: Ah, see. For a name for a genre, that's great - so we're not just a pretty face.
Fraser: Not even.
Chris: I'd say that lappop sums it up pretty well. We were hoping to say fightpop but that's too strong.
Fraser: What's fightpop?
Chris: Like Dananananakroyd, the best named Scottish band ever.
BP: My mate and I actually came up with a great genre name for them; we were in Mono and I was talking about Faust and I cringingly used the word 'krautrock' but he misheard me and thought I said 'crowd-rock' trying to be smart and play on the name 'stadium rock'. Through talking, D-Kroyd were the sort of group that conjured up an image of what this mystical crowdrock could be for us.
Chris: Well, there's elements of crowdrock in Amy Lightwave. Definitely.
Niall: To answer the question; lappop.
BP: What are your major influences musically?
Chris: I'd say Nutella. I like Nutella.
Niall: Girls. Boys. Mostly girls.
Chris: Musically, I really like the band Guillemots. Their music feels so right; music for me should feel more like that.
Niall: In terms of chords and things, Carole King and Elton John. We don't sound like them but we're influenced in terms of chord progession.
Chris: I like the Automatic too, I should say.
Niall: Carole's got nice chords, she loves the C.
Fraser: What did you say? She loves the sea?
Chris: C-chord, C-major. It's a lovely chord. She loves the sea too. Listening to seashells.
Niall: Do you think you could microphone a shell?
Fraser: That would definitely work!
Niall: Shellcore
BP: Conchmetal?
Niall: Haha, yeah! This interview's happening!
BP: Tell us about your live shows; past and future.
Chris: We've only played one but we have intentions of doing more. The one that we did was a Haiti benefit gig put on by Fraser. He's always been a bit of a hero of ours, so we're happy we got to play with someone we liked and not some shit promoter.
Fraser: Promoters ARE dicks, putting that out right now.
Niall: When we write the music we do it on our laptops, so we have to have an element of sound coming from it in our live shows. We run our instruments through a laptop onstage and our vocals through the laptop as well. It's just guitar, bass, drums and vocals pretty much.
Chris: We started out doing a lot of unnatural sounding drums and backing music; just odd things. But as the band's moved on, we've decided to use nicer sounds.
Niall: At the start, the melodies were just synthlines on the laptop.
Chris: Our newest song has some mandolin, glockenspiels. We're actually going to be recording with a marimba soon. In Jack's house.
Niall: We want to book some more gigs, and soon. We'd love to put on our own nights. We want to have it so you're not just coming along, buying a few drinks, watching your mates play, going home and thinking that was a waste of a fiver. We want to make it as cheap as possible, and we want to have a buffet. We're thinking we could make the ticket whatever price; or free if you bring a dish. What if someone brings a lasagne? Then we'll all just sit down in the intermission and have a great wee munch and make a really friendly atmosphere.
Chris: We have a lot of friends who play the typical acousticky folky sort of stuff as well so we might have them playing whilst you're having a munch because it's the perfect soundtrack. Scarborough Fair is the perfect tempo for lasagne.
BP: What do you think is the perfect food to eat along to Simon & Garfunkel?
Niall: Sandwiches.
Fraser: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!
Chris: If you're a drummer and you maybe wanted to eat to the beat; you'd probably want some sort of crisps, like Doritos or something. Give that crunchy percussive sound.
Niall: Something really chewy?
Fraser: Chewits.
BP: I'm thinking.. pasta
Chris: Oh yeah! Pasta's a good shout. Prawn salad?
Fraser: I like prawns
BP: Me too. Oh but Niall, you're a vegetarian!
Chris: If we do gigs, we'll have to forbid people with nut allergies from coming.
BP: Why are there no hazelnuts in my chocolate sandwiches?
Fraser: It sounds like a great idea but then you walk into all the business of nut allergies, and fruit allergies.
Chris: We'll just have to live dangerously; and just do it. I went to a gig where you went in and you were given two slices of birthday cake at the door. So you'd give a fiver to get in; but you're getting over five quid back in cakeage. In all seriousness, we'd like to play King Tuts some time, before the end of this year.
Niall: People always say they want to play Barrowlands, it's King Tuts I want to play.
BP: The ultimate would be Glasgow Central
Niall: That would be rad. You could play Glasgow Central.
Fraser: You could just walk in and start playing. Would they stop you? Probably.
Chris: You could go into that lounge waiting room place. Nobody knows or goes in there.
Niall: I've got a battery pack; tell us when you want to do it and we'll do it.
Fraser: It'll be Amy Lightwave Lite?
BP: So.... who is Darius?
Fraser: I ain't dissing Darius. He's colourblind.
Niall: He was in that Superstar versus Operastar
Fraser: I wasn't aware of a 'versus' in the title.
Chris: Pavarotti would kick the shit out of everyone. Or the Go Compare guy actually, I dunno.
BP: Pavarotti's dead.
Chris: Darius is the biggest thing to come out of Bearsden. So our goal is to be bigger than Darius. Right now, me and Jack collectively are taller than him.
Fraser: I can tell you something about Darius, he used to come into Blockbuster and buy second-hand porn. True story.
BP: Is that true? That's a high-five.
Chris: He's such a cumbucket!
Fraser: That's an absolute fact. He's got a bit of money. I'm not going to say he's rich or anything but he must have a bit of money. So if you're going to buy erotica, don't buy it second-hand. It's clearly not that good if it's traded in.
BP: Maybe there's secret messages from colourblind fans.
Fraser: Fans of the song, or fans who happen to be colourblind? That's what that songs about; he wanked so much he went colourblind.
Chris: Stop talking about Darius. There'll be a press release; Amy Lightwave Determined to Destroy Darius.
Niall: Darius does google-search himself everyday in the hopes that he's that little bit more famous.
BP: Which songs do you excercise most frequently?
Niall: We've got a song called "This Love is Cool?". That's primarily our biggest tune.
Fraser: Was that the first one in the set, yeah? Not including the Lion King intro music obviously.
Chris: Yeah, it's probably our most dancey track. It was a song that Niall submitted to me and Jack. Niall wrote all of it, by himself, apart from the words and the amazing singing. He came to us with it, just under the guise that it was a little idea he'd had. But Jack and I looked at each other and we had one of those moments where we thought we definitely need to do that song. It was a special moment where we realised that Niall as a creative force on his own can actually write a belter of a tune.
Niall: Cheesey as fuck. How stupid is that?
Chris: It's not just me who writes amazing songs.
Niall: Speaking of which, Chris has written an amazing song too called "Echo Drive", and that's our other big staple. When we're going to record songs, it's going to be those two at least. We feel they're our strongest songs.
Chris: "Echo Drive" is a song about how I kind of resent being from Bearsden. You know everyone's always like "ooh Bearsden". I don't hate Bearsden coz it's shit, I hate it coz it's so good. It's not good in the way that it's enjoyable.
Niall: It's pristine. It's got that American suburb image where everything's right, everyone goes to a good school, everyone has to be a doctor.
Fraser: I really dislike this criteria you're setting up for me, because if that's the truth then I'm fucked.
Chris: I'm in sixth year at school at the moment and my friends are getting offers for uni and receiving unconditional offers for law and becoming doctors. I just want to play music and don't really mind what job I do; and some people in this world, they don't really look down on me, but you can tell that they secretly think I'm going to end up slaving in a hellhole or something.
Niall: See when you're a wee boy or a wee girl and you say "I want to be a popstar", people think that's dead cute but there's a point in your life where you decide to pack in your hopes of becoming an astronaut or becoming a pop star, and say "I want to be an accountant". Where does that come from? Why do we stop trying to do what we want to do? Why do we not believe that we can be popstars?
Chris: If you look at pictures of Lady Gaga when she was a teenager, she looked just like us, you know.
Fraser: She literally looked just like Niall now.
Chris: I think maybe half the battle with music is the full realisation that you really really want to do it. You do it because you love it. Some of my friends play musical instruments just because they happen to be really good at whatever they play.
Niall: I think the point is we want to be popstars.
Chris: Being a popstar is not something to be frowned upon. They can be guitar-slingers like us.
Niall: I think that pop charts are definitely not limited to sexy solo singers; bands like Friendly Fires have such a great sound and are probably a good example of just simple pop music. It's pop.
Chris: I love their imagery. They really deliver. They're not a band who let their fans down. We don't have fans as such now but we consider ourselves to be like that. We won't write music that we can't perform to a high standard. Pretentious rant over.
BP: Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics of your songs, and do you think these themes will change over time?
Niall: All three of us write the songs, and because we live quite far apart from each other, we choose to do it over the internet and sending mp3 files to each other then finally meeting up regularly to finish them off. But you tend to write more ballads than the rest of us, Christopher.
Chris: I'm a ballad-maker.
Niall: I tend to create more danceable numbers.
Chris: The reason I'm more inclined to write ballads is because I'm really upset most of the time. I have a guitar, and I just pick it up when I'm sad and play a D-chord and find the cosmos write the songs for me.
Niall: I write a lot of my songs on keys whilst Chris writes his on strings.
Chris: "Echo Drive" we touched on just there but "This Love is Cool?" is more about the frustration of some people always wanting to have a girlfriend, even if it's the worst thing to happen to them. In some situations, having a girlfriend will bring about a lot more bad than good but they still really want to have a girlfriend.
Niall: We think a lot about girls but Chris and I don't seem to get any ever.
Chris: We don't court anyone.
Niall: We're just really lonely.
Chris: When we're popstars, we'll be.. still lonely. There's always the argument that if we weren't lonely, we wouldn't be inspired to make music.
Niall: If we weren't lonely, we'd be more inspired to pump our girlfriends.
Chris: It's funny coz Jack's not here and he's the definite ladies man. He not the band whore as such; he's a one-woman man but he definitely loves the burds.
BP: ... Tell us about autotune.
Niall: Ermm... ... have you heard the song "Life after Love" by Cher?
BP: It's actually called "Believe", I'll have you know.
Niall: Ah right. Sorry! The point is everyone likes that song.
Chris: I'll have you know it was number one for eight weeks. Eight glorious weeks... .. I hate the autotune question.
Fraser: You do use it EXTENSIVELY.
Niall: Okay, autotune is a big part of our band because a lot of pop music is based around autotune and it's not a bad thing. It adds a good effect to the voice and we think it adds to the sound of our band as a whole and there's not many bands with a bass, guitar and drums who use autotune today. There.
Chris: I think autotune only works with certain voices. Miraculously, we all think it suits my voice very well but we've tried it with other people like Jack but it doesn't work as much. Using autotune is not as easy as some people think; there's times when recording demos where the autotune still tuned to the wrong pitch.
Niall: We do the autotune thing live. We don't mime.
Chris: It's not always like getting in tune to the right note. Sometimes you sing a note and you might be singing a little bit out but it may correct your pitch but to the wrong pitch. You still have to be a good singer; it's not an automatic easy street option.
BP: What are your rehearsals generally like?
Chris: We started off trying out in LoFi studios, which from my experience is quite friendly and social.
Fraser: BOOO!
Niall: We practise in your bedroom now quite a lot.
Chris: We practise in my bedroom, to the great joy of my family. We try to soundproof it as best as we can. The kind of no pressure environment where you can practise leisurely in your own time is great.
Niall: The main thing is in studios you pay in blocks of three hours, and you're pressured to use those three hours to make something. If we rehearse at home and nothing comes out of those sessions, then nothing comes out. You can't force new songs.
Chris: We don't have set times when we rehearse, we just do it whenever we can, usually Saturdays or Sundays. Niall and Jack both have jobs, and I'm trying to get a job. When we get together, we usually comment on how our playing is getting tighter and our songs are taking shape so it's a good dynamic.
BP: On that note, how have your songs evolved since the start?
Chris: Well, now I feel like a proper songwriter at least.
Niall: We started off making boring rock music with funny laptop samples and filters and strange sounds. We were quite heavy when we started. Personally, I think we've evolved in terms of chords - harking back to classically written pop songs so that's a big change for me.
Chris: We've become a bit more ambitious with tempo and being able to move the song structure around. One thing I always try to do is pen out a good melody that people can remember but not hate. One thing that's going to become more apparent with our new material is we are a very ambitious-sounding band - it's not going to be the usual verse/chorus/break/verse with the new stuff. We want things to sound like our personalities but still be listenable.
Niall: We never used to use percussion as much before whereas we do now.
Chris: It's a shame Jack's not hear to talk about his drumbeats but they are pretty fundamental to the band's sound. It's not just glorious sweeping chords and soulful autotune; somehow our three elements just seem to work. It seems so ridiculous when it's said, but it works for us somehow. Maybe if we put out a whole release and nobody enjoys it, we might go back to rock music. We're going to give this sound a good go because we like it so much. And I know we wrote it, but I think we would like the music we make despite that.
Niall: We all love pop music. Our music is poppy, although we don't write for the radio, we write and record music for us to like.
Chris: I used to play keyboards in a band between October and December last year. They're a good band but they're very very heavily influenced by only four bands: Flood of Red, Saosin and stuff like that. They're very good at what they do but what they do doesn't go outside those four bands and it very much doesn't reflect their personalities or the people in the band and I find that very frustrating. Obviously, they're happy doing that but I'm kind of glad that I'm doing something that I feel is me.
BP: What's the ultimate direction?
Niall: Fame and fortune. Full stop.
Chris: I'd like to be famous, but I just really like playing music. I'd love to be able to do exactly what we're doing right now but be praised for it, instead of being told to turn it down.
Niall: Right, I don't want to be rich and famous. I don't want to live in a mansion or that. I think that prospect is over nowadays what with the illegal downloading and state of the industry. If we could make enough money not to need a real job, just playing music, that would be lovely.
Chris: We have lunches quite often, and daydream about what our band might grow into, but as long as we get by, that's the important bit. But I'd love if people appreciate the music.
Niall: By the way, if anyone comes to our gigs, and has read this, don't clap if you don't like the songs. Clapping should be about praise.
BP: What advice do you have for people who want to start their own bands or music projects?
Chris: Do it.
Niall: Do what you want. If you're a wee mosher, be a wee mosher.
Fraser: Special message to moshers; fuck you.
Niall: Do whatever you want to do just make absolutely sure to make the music you want to listen to.
Chris: And for God's sake, don't fake your Scottish accent.
Niall: Just sing in your own voice. Man up.
Chris: If someone tells you you're shit, just try to make it better next time. Always strive to please people.
Fraser: Basically promoting prostitution.
BP: Strong words. People die of AIDS, you know.
Chris: We all know who died of AIDS!
Niall: Aww man, that's Mercury! That's harsh. I can't believe you said that. I feel like you've punched my dad.
Chris: I'm sorry, I love Freddy Mercury! For the benefit of the tape I held up a blow-up sex doll with a penis and Freddy Mercury's face (he actually did). Let's continue.
BP: So how do fans-to-be get a hold of your music?
Fraser: I have some of your tunes on my iPod.
Niall: Listen to Fraser's iPod!
Chris: Add Chris Beltran on Facebook and send me a message saying "I'll swap you nudes of my sister for Amy Lightwave tunes", I'll be like YEAH!
BP: Hmm... well, is there anyone you'd like to acknowledge for supporting the Wave?
Niall: Fraser, for putting on that gig for us. And Tim for breaking our interview V.
Chris: You've popped our interview cherry
Fraser: You've shredded their interview hymen.
Chris: I'd also like to praise our mum and dads. Jack's mum and dad too, who are infamous for having made said Jack. Jack was shouting in the womb "I'm fucking mountain-biking once I'm out of here! I'm fucking skiing mate!" I'd also like to thank Fender.
BP: What made you choose Fender rather than someone else?
Chris: Well, I play a Fender guitar and he plays a Fender bass and Jack plays Fender drums and he's got a Fender laptop and my throat is insured by Fender.
BP: I remember. Did you not have an Orange amplifier?
Chris: I have an Orange amplifier but I don't play through it though. I have it sitting atop my actual amp just to make it look good. I went to see Girls last Saturday and the Orange amp is like infamous for its gain. Girls play a sort of ladidadee sort of strummy pop, but the last two songs in their set were like total earfucks. He turned on the gain for the first time in the whole set and literally everyone fell over, and it was such a meaty moment. Girls are a great live band.
BP: Cool man, well it was good talking to you guys.
Chris: Thanks for working with us. You're alright, Tim!
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