THE WINDMILLS

INTERVIEW BY PAUL REED

The Windmills are on the excellent Matinee label and produce brilliant melodic-guitar-pop. They have been compared to the likes of The Go-Betweens, East Village and The Loft, and have just released a new LP ‘Sunlight ’(highly recommended).

Fresh from a gig at the Notting Hill Arts Centre (home of the Poptones gigs) Tony from the band answered a few questions……

1. Who’s in the line up?

Roy Thirlwall sings and plays guitar, Dan Pankhurst plays bass, Rob Clarke joined this year on drums replacing Pete Spicer who played on a lot of the new LP. I play guitar and complain.
Everyone writes the songs, separately and together....

2. You released your debut single in 1988 and the follow-up wasn’t until 1998, why?

Well we didn¹t want to rush the follow-up......... we split up around 1990 for the usual reasons ....stayed friends in the meantime although people went off to different places and did other things. In '98 three of us were having a drink in the Grand in Leigh-on-sea and Andy from Tipper suggested that both bands reform to do a one-off gig. ... We borrowed Tipper¹s drummer, Pete and rehearsed and did the gig. It was good fun playing together again..
At the same time weirdly, Jimmy from Matinee Recordings of Washington DC tracked us down from our one eighties single and asked us to record some stuff for him. Its gone from there...
 
3. You’ve been compared to East Village and The Go betweens, what bands have influenced you?

 Well I’d never heard East Village until we were compared to them so they weren’t a direct influence on me.. The Go Betweens have always been played here and there ... Loads of different stuff is influences ... don’t really want to do a list...

4. What’s your favorite C86 era band?
 
Felt I suppose... do they count?  I’m not sure what bands are C86 exactly

5. Matinee records? C86 for the Millennium?

Well Jimmy¹s certainly put out plenty of good records in a short space of time... I think Matinee¹s getting a reputation for lots of high quality stuff.

Don¹t think it’s really fair to stick them in an eighties pigeonhole though.. 95% of the stuff they release is being written and recorded now in the noughties.. ..We released one single in the eighties. which was self-financed... in the last three years we¹ve recorded about thirty songs and released two albums, two eps and a single.... yet we still get called an eighties band...grrrrr... wouldn¹t mind so much if we¹d had any success at all in the eighties, but we didn¹t really...

6. Most memorable gig played?

In the same vein.... the two gigs we did this week (ROTA show at the Notting Hill Arts Centre and last minute gig replacing illness-stricken Tompaulin at Chelmsford's Bitterscene ) were probably the best we¹ve done.... and really enjoyable... Historically I suppose it would be supporting Julian Cope on his warm up gig for his World Shut Your Mouth tour in the late eighties
He was showing off that huge square steel tube mike stand for the first time... the one he¹d climb up and swing out over the audience on...he was brilliant... can¹t remember what we were like.

7. Ever had a Chopper bike?

No chance.. wanted one but too expensive (four boys six years apart in our family) lucky to get some hybrid piece of shit with one gear one brake and one wheel....  Didn't they turn out to be horribly dangerous anyway?. ? All style and no stability...

8.Whos the hardest? The Windmills or Airport Girl? (other Matinee band)

Well there¹s more of them.. so in a mass group brawl I think they¹d come out on top.... but one-on-one unarmed man to man combat... they¹d probably still come out on top... We would probably take them at Scrabble easy.
 
9.Your playing a show in the Czech Republic, how did this come about?

We¹re not now... its off for the moment .... maybe next year... Also hoping to do a short US tour next spring.. Washington, New York and the Mid West... really looking forward to that...

10.Whats the Southend music scene like?

 Not the person to ask really.... not aware that there is one.

11. Who would you have your one2one with?

The twat who came up with that stupid fucking advertising campaign....

12. Plug your latest L.P. in one sentence.

Its called ‘Sunlight’ just out on Matinee ten songs and is fairly orange. ( is that one sentence?)

Check out the bands website at www.the-windmills.com