Interview: Trophy Wife

Skiddle chats to Oxford band Trophy Wife about establishing a new sound, co-habiting with fellow Oxford boys Foals, and 'ambitionless office disco'. Whatever that is. 

How did Trophy Wife get together?

The three of us have been friends for a long time. We met when I wanted to start a post rock band when I was 16. We only needed a drummer, really. Jody pretended he was could play drums, and that he was a girl, to get in. For some reason it seemed like a good idea to have a girl in the band when you’re sixteen – not that it’s not a good idea now. Anyway, it turned out he wasn’t a girl, and he couldn’t play drums, either. But luckily he’s a pretty good guitarist. We’ve played in various bands together, up until last year, when Trophy Wife developed out of a wish to try something new, I guess.

So you were in another band?

The three of us were all in another band called Jonquil. They’re a really great band, but I think we were itching to just challenge ourselves a bit more. And try start with this different music that was enticing us a little bit more. The strings, this restrained disco thing, was enticing us away from this other band.

You’ve referred to yourselves as 'ambitionless office disco'. Where does that term come from, and how/why did you come up with it?

When we first put together the first few songs, we realised we that this was gong to be a band, and that we wanted to give it a name, Trophy Wife. We were aware that people were going to be asking, “How do you describe your sound? What does your band sound like?” Not necessarily interviewers, or press or anything. But just friends, and stuff. I’ve been trying to describe my band to friends and family for years and years, and the concept of string together a load of words that don’t really mean that much anyway. You may as well create a whole new term, and make it feel like people can connect to this whole thing that you’re doing.

I can list a whole number of terms to describe music that I feel fits our band, but then you can just take those terms, and put it in a different place, in a different order in that sentence, and you’ve got suddenly got a whole different band, like Beady Eye, or something (laughs). So, we just felt like we wanted something specific to us, that people could connect to. If the music’s spawning from us, then why not the description of the music, you know?

How did you feel about the response to the first single ‘Microlite’, which came out last November, and was really well received by the press and public?

That song, people just seemed to connect to it, quite a lot, I think. I don’t know what is about the song. We’re really proud of that song. It feels like it came about really naturally, and it feels like a really simple song, in many ways. When I look back at how we wrote the song, and how we perform it now, with some of the others, it feels like a really simple piece of music. And also, it’s quite definitive. It has that four to the floor disco beat, without being in your face. It’s definitive of our sound, in a way.

It seems when I listen to your music, that there’s a fusion of indie and dance music in there. Where does that dance and disco influence come from, and are you trying to combine those sounds?

Yes, that’s the idea. We don’t listen to that many other bands, or we’re not influenced by that many other bands that also combine guitars and dance music. We’re interested in all the dance stuff on one side, and the guitar stuff, the Hank Marvin stuff (on the other). There’s not that many bands that combine the two, themselves. I think we were sick of guitar thing, really. In the year leading up to when the band was started, we living with the Foals boys, and we had this shared collection. In it there were records by Studio, quite a few bouncy African records going round, Chic records would be going round and round non-stop. Because with a record player, you can’t be bothered to change it, it just gets played and played and played! I think that actually had a big effect, this kind of records playing relentlessly was also the start of when we started writing the songs.

How has coming from Oxford influenced you? Especially the bands from there, like Foals?

We’ve been playing music here, playing in bands here for a good few years now. Half the time I feel like the music scene and the place is a really healthy place to be. And half the time I feel like I want to be totally insular, and separated from that. Like we don’t care whether there’s a music scene or what’s happening in Oxford or not, we’re just shut away in our room together trying to create something. So it’s really nice to have that kind of balance where we can be really insular and shut away, because of the nature of the place, you can then just go out and feel like you know everyone. Whereas sometimes in a bigger city like London, you don’t get a choice about whether you feel lonely or not, it’s forced upon you.

Are you aware of the scene Blessed Force? Are you part of that, and what is it all about?

I don’t necessarily know if it’s something that you can be part of or join or lead, or not. A group of us have been making music and friends for a long time, in loads of different bands. It includes people who grew up in Oxford, and people that moved here. There’s a group of us, maybe 10 to 15 people that share a similar interest in not just music, but arts as well. And have always for years and years bouncing ideas off each other, collaborating with each other, just in minor ways. Then suddenly we started to realise that quite a few of us had started up new project all simultaneously, for whatever reason. It was our friend Andrew Mears, who plays in Pet Moon. He was the one that rallied everyone, and was just like “this is happening, we’ve been doing it for years anyway, why don’t we just call it something, and it means it’s an added way that people can connect to it”. It’s something that’s been going on for years, it just hasn’t had a name. I guess it’s just nice now that if someone listens to our band, they’ve got an immediate link, and are likely to listen to Andrew’s band or Hugo’s band, or whatever. It’s positive, that’s the way that I look at it.

When can we expect an album?

An album’s not been set in stone, or anything. We’ve written a whole bunch of songs, we’ve got loads more that we’re finishing off. We’ve just spent the last few of days finishing off a couple of songs that we’re really excited about. It feels we’ve got a nice little body of work now that, with a few tweaks, couple morph itself into an album. So, potentially, later this year. We’re really keen to stretch ourselves a bit, right from the outset. Even on the first record. And that might mean potentially working with some other producers, just to try and stretch our sound a bit, and keep things interesting. So I think we’re not going to rush it out, or anything. Even though it feels like the songs are there, and we’ve got a collection that is feeling really good at the moment, I don’t think we’re going to rush anything. We want this first record to be something special. We want to give it time, and worth with the right people to get it there.

How do you feel about touring, and the response you’re getting from fans when you play live?

It feels like there’s more to come from us. We’ve been playing a lot down South. I’m liking the idea of getting up North on this Esben and The Witch tour. We’re doing our own headline tour at the beginning of March, so we’ll manage to get up to Manchester then. The response so far has been really great. I think people are looking for this restrained, quieter thing, but when it comes to live, and we bring a much bigger, dancier, more fun thing, I think people are responding to that really well. People can still hear that restrained nature, but don’t necessarily have to not dance when they come and see us. They can still have a good time. I think that was our intention all along, as well. For the three of us, this band was all about having as much fun as possible from the beginning, and trying to communicate that to people, through dancier, more expressive live shows definitely what we had in mind from the beginning. We’ve just added a new member to the live show, this guy called Andrew Halford. He’s an amazing producer himself. He’s been in a few bands.

What do the Foals boys think of Trophy Wife?

It seems like they’re pretty big fans. They were the ones that spurred us on to take it seriously, in a way. We’d written two or three songs, and I just had them on my laptop and I brought them to the living room and played them to the other guys, just finding it a bit funny, with these basslines and disco beats. Yannis and Jack especially were both like, “This is awesome. You’ve really got to do this. You’ve got to work with this producer, this could be amazing”. Me and Jody pricked our ears up, and were like “Is this really what you think about it?” They’ve also been so supportive in getting things going for us. Obviously they took us on tour. I presume that means they like it! I don’t think they’d do all that unless they were that keen on the sound. 

It’s nice as well, because the kinship between the bands is a really healthy one. We were living together when they were writing their second album Total Life Forever. And it was the exactly same point at which we started Trophy Wife. All in the same house. It was a really nice atmosphere and nice vibe.

Do you have any goals or ambitions for this year, or in general?

No, we’re ambitionless! I want to get this album done the right way, working with some interesting people, certainly. And just play a load of shows, play some festivals. We’ve experienced big venues, and we’ve experienced tiny venues with this band so far, but I think the festival thing is something that would be good for this band. I want to buy a new laptop as well. This one is breaking! That sounds really boring, change that. Make it, ‘A massive bag of coke, and a laptop’.

Interview by: Abbas Ali

twitter.com/abbasali5000

Trophy Wife play Manchester's Night and Day on March 5th. Tickets are just £5 - catch them before they're huge!

Tickets are no longer available for this event