Fender® G.B.I.’s raconteur-in-residence, Nigel Trimmington has been in deepest, darkest south London. Armed only with a map, compass and Dictaphone, his brief was to locate the secret studio of one of the country’s brightest and most creative bands, Athlete. Fresh from their number one album, Tourist and their Mercury Award nomination, they are busy beavering away on their new album.
Joel Pott (Guitar/Vocals)
The door is opened by the band’s guitarist/vocalist Joel Pott, and Nigel is ushered up the stairs to hear the band’s work in progress. (I can report that what I have heard so far is great stuff, by the way!) Nigel then offers to make the hot beverages…
Fender: Tea or coffee? Joel Pott: Coffee. White. With.
Nigel then comes back with the drinks and the interview commences:
Fender:Can you remember the first time you picked up a guitar? Joel: I remember that my mum and dad first bought me a snare and some high hats – just a snare and some high hats – and that didn’t really work out, so then they bought me a nylon-string when I was about six.
Fender: What was the first tune you learnt to play? Joel: My first tune was “La Bamba”.
Fender: Can you remember the first band you were ever got into? Joel: When I was twelve, my sister started going out with a guy who was a big funk-head, so I really started getting into Sly and the Family Stone and The Meters. They were the first bands that I got into. Then when I was fifteen, there were the indie bands, like Blur, Radiohead and Oasis.
Fender: When you were learning to play, what artists inspired you to take it to the next level? Joel: A really, really big changing point for me guitar-wise was a friend of mine called Jonny (Pilcher) who’s in a band called Weevil. He’s actually coming down for a few days while we record our stuff and we really want to get him involved because he’s got great ears. I remember just jamming with him; he really pushed my playing. As far as bands go, there was Pavement. I found that really, really inspiring. And of course, Graham Coxon.
Fender: What was the first gig you ever went to? Joel: I wouldn’t really be able to remember because it was bands that you hadn’t really heard of. Many times, I was just going up to Camden seeing bands I liked. I remember seeing Sleeper before they were signed, and just going up to the Dublin Castle and The Monarch (which is now the Barfly).
Fender: And what do you regard as the best gig you ever saw? Joel: Best gig? Oh man, there’s a few! The one that really sticks out in my head is Radiohead at Glastonbury in 2003. That was just completely mind-blowing. I saw Bright Eyes last year. I didn’t know what to make of him before, and so me and Steve (Roberts, the drummer from Athlete) after we played in Montreal, heard that he was playing over the other side of town and we were, like: “Okay, let’s go and check him out”. It was just one of those things: he just completely blew me away that night. It was amazing.
Fender: Which one of your own gigs is the most memorable? Joel: I think the most memorable one was after the release of our last album; we played up in Glasgow at the Academy. It felt like we were just in the Beatles for a night. It was that mad. It was really mad. It was just deafening noise. When we came back out for an encore, we couldn’t actually play for about five minutes because of the noise!
Fender: At the moment, what sounds are you listening to? Joel: A lot of Bright Eyes, singer/songwriter kind of stuff; I’m really into Sufjan Stevens: I think that’s really inspirational. Band-wise: Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire. I really like the sound of what they’re doing. It feels like they’re just losing themselves in it and I really like that. Other than that, a lot of really mellow electronica; a lot of stuff on Morr Music like The Go Find and múm. A label called Type as well. There’s a guy on there called Helios.
Fender: Okay here’s a tough one… You can only have one… if push comes to shove – Floyd or Zeppelin? Joel: (Groans as if making a hard decision) Oh man! I think I’ll go Floyd. Definitely Floyd.
Fender: What Fender gear do you use for touring, recording and rehearsing? Joel: All sorts. (Gestures towards a lengthy rack, loaded with Fender gear). I’ve got some DeVille™ amps, a 65 Deluxe Reverb®, an original ’69 Jaguar® guitar, a Jazzmaster® guitar. I really like this (hands me his prized Custom Shop Thinline Nocaster® guitar).
Fender: What advice would you give to any guitarists starting out now? Joel: I’m not the most naturally gifted guitarist and if you’re mentally held back by that, then you don’t push yourself so much. It’s important to think “I can still play; I’ve got a creative mind and I can come up with stuff myself.” I think that’s the thing: to think outside of what other people have done before, not to try and be the greatest guitarist.
Jimi Hendrix is Jimi Hendrix and he’s a genius and Johnny Greenwood is Johnny Greenwood and he does HIS thing and he’s amazing and you have to think “I’ve got to discover MY thing. I might not be as technically great as those people… You don’t need to copy any of them.
Fender: Imagine if you will, that somewhere out there, there’s an alternative universe where Joel Pott never learnt how to play guitar. What’s he doing right now? Joel: I’d be snowboarding year after year, definitely. We went out and played the Sundance Film Festival, just doing showcases in the evenings, so I managed to go snowboarding for the first time in six years. It’s something I did in my teens and early twenties every season without fail; I absolutely loved it. As soon as we got signed, it just went out of the window!
Carey Willetts (Bass/Vocals)
Joel nips off to the shops to get some more Hob Nobs, so it’s time to speak to the band’s bassist Carey Willetts. Nigel asks him:
Fender: Fancy a hot beverage? Carey: Cappuccino, one sugar.
After struggling with the coffee machine, Nigel totters back into the room with an overly frothy mug of Cappuccino. The conversation commences:
Fender: Can you remember the first time you ever picked up a bass? Carey: Yeah, I can. I was about fourteen. A friend of mine played bass and he was actually quite good. (Before, when I was a kid, I was forced to play piano and organ and so I wanted to do something that was a bit more fun). So, I went to his and I picked up his bass and played around with it. I was shocking! He used to teach me a few things now and again.
I ended up going to a little second hand shop in Crewe (where I’m from) and they had this really rubbish old bass for about thirty quid, so I persuaded my mum and dad to buy it for me, so that was my first guitar. It was a horrible black thing with a pink splat on it which I couldn’t get off. I tried to pick the stupid thing off for weeks!
Fender: Have you still got it? Carey: No, I swapped it with someone for a Squier® about two years later. I had no idea why they wanted my bass. They said “Oh, we’ll swap” and I said “REALLY?”
Fender:Result… Carey: I looked at them and thought, “Have you really thought that through?” So in the end, we swapped and I ended up getting a black Squier.
Fender: Can you remember the first band you were in? Carey: It’s actually this one! Before I moved to London, not many of my friends were into music in the same way I was. Most of my mates were into football. I used to be a lot into football as well.
Fender: Were you a Crewe Alexandra fan? Carey: No, a Liverpool fan, because it’s only about forty minutes away and it’s the first team I went and saw when I was about five. So, most people where I lived were into football: It wasn’t really a music kind of town. But, I was always really into music. I didn’t really have anybody else to play with, so I use to play along with songs by the Soup Dragons and stuff like that. The whole Manchester scene was happening at the time, so I used to go to Manchester a lot for gigs.
Fender: What was the first gig you ever went to? Carey: Oh, flippin’ ‘eck! The first gig I ever went to? (Long pause). (Laughs). I don’t really know if I want to say it. I think one of the earliest ones was a Deacon Blue gig, which a mate of mine dragged me along to. He loved Deacon Blue. I saw the Happy Mondays... I saw the Soup Dragons once.
Fender: When you were learning bass, what were some of the first bass lines you ever learnt? Carey: (Laughs). One of the first ones was that Cameo one ("Word Up"). I also really used to like seventies disco and soul stuff, particularly for bass in the early days, because it was so melodic. After that came Nirvana. I learnt all the Nirvana tunes. Then I started thinking about Beatles stuff. So it started off with the melodic stuff and then went to some of the slightly grungier chorus stuff as I got a bit older.
Fender: When you were learning to play bass, what artists inspired you take it to the next level? Carey: That’s really difficult, I’ve always had different people at different times that have really inspired me, but they all seem to be quite contemporary. I always found people I was watching at the time inspiring as opposed to the great legends of the past. I used to love Carol Kaye. All of her stuff, I just used to think she was amazing. It was so melodic, but it grooved in such an amazing way, and often one note could make difference. Just the way she played the notes, I found really inspiring.
After that, it became people like Alex James from Blur in the early days and Colin Greenwood from Radiohead. I love the way he developed his bass lines and they’re actually well thought-out, rather than fancy. I’m not really a lover of fancy bass playing. I’ve found more people from now inspiring, maybe because I find the music more inspiring.
Fender: What was the best gig you ever saw? Carey: Probably Radiohead at Glastonbury.
Fender: It sounds like you and Joel had an amazing joint experience… Carey: Unbelievable. I’ve seen Radiohead quite a few times, but it was the first time I'd seen Thom Yorke really enjoying himself – at least the first time I’d noticed, anyway. Before, he’d always been an intense-looking fellow and just really into it. This was the first time that he just looked like he was messing around and having a laugh. Something about that really sparked off an interesting feel for the whole gig. It almost drew everybody in because HE was enjoying it so much, you suddenly found yourself sucked into the feel of it.
Fender: Okay then, top three albums of all time… Carey: Of all time?
Fender: Yeah. Carey: Oh, flippin’ ‘eck! Erm, Mezzanine by Massive Attack. Love that record. I’ve got to say O.K. Computer, just because I still listen to it a lot. I’ll pick something newer just because I’ve listened to it a lot recently: I’ll pick Sufjan Stevens’ Come On Feel The Illinoise.
Fender: What sounds are you currently listening to? Carey: Things like Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Sufjan Stevens. I’ve been listening to a lot of electronica as well; a guy called B. Fleischmann on Morr Music. Another band called Electric President. So it’s somewhere between full live band music, some singer/songwriters and all of them have electronic sensibilities, I guess.
Fender: If push comes to shove, is it Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin? Carey: (Long Pause) Pink Floyd.
Fender: What Fender gear are you using for touring, recording and rehearsing? Carey: In fact, all the guitars I’m using at the moment are all Fender. Mostly I’ve got my ’76 Fender Jazz Bass®, which I love. So far, on this record, it’s the only guitar I’ve used. That’s pretty much what I use all the time. Hopefully, I’ll be getting an early 50s-style bass built with humbucking pickups. I just want the ‘growl’ sound.
Fender: What advice would you give to any young kids starting out in a band? Carey: As a bass player, in any band, I think you’ve just got to listen to as much good music as possible. I think what separates a good band from and average band is a band that actually has good taste and knows what they want to do and how they want to do it – not trying to be fancy, not trying to do too much, but just doing what makes the song better.
Fender: Imagine if you will, that somewhere out there, there’s an alternative universe where Carey Willetts never learnt how to play bass. What’s he doing right now? Carey: Probably trying to be a footballer.
