We speak to frontman Luke Jenner of New York dance-punk mainstays The Rapture about their forthcoming visit for the Parklife festival, recent departure of theirbass player and the healing powers of softball.
Hey Luke, how you doin' tonight?
Doin' really good man
Are you home in NY right now?
Yeh, I live in a place called Park Slope in Brooklyn, it's really nice here - have you been?
I've been to Brooklyn..but not Park Slope. So I hear Matt moved on from the band last week?
Well, it wasn't exactly last week, we just sort of announced it last week becasue we wanted to make sure it was a permanent thing. He was really un-happy you know, and he seems a lot happier now and we've all been able to move on and do what we wanna do. For about 6 months there he was really upset and didn't wanna talk about it. When we did finally talk about it he said he'd been really struggling with it and wants to see what he can do on his own..I mean...basically, he moved out of his Mum's house and into our band and was in the band for like, 8 years.
Was it amicable?
We actually have a better relationship now then we probably ever had, cause of all the talking we've done. I've been able to say, if that's what you really want to do then I'm happy and I'll be there for you if you need me.
Does this mean you'll take on all of the vocal duties?
Yeh, the years before he was there I did all the singing, and the same with the first record..it was really only the last record we started splitting the vocal duties more, so I guess it will be back to how things were at the beginning.
I've gotta say, I haven't heard your name bantered round much lately until this happened - where have you been hiding??
Ha ha ohh jeeze, I've just been playing a lot of softball in the park, and getting a tan you know?
Brilliant - have you started a team?
Yeah! I played for about 2 years straight. After you've been on the road and played around 250 shows you never want to play music again. It takes a while to want to do it again.
I suppose softball in the park would be pretty entcing after a tour schedule like that?
Yeah, you kind of forget who you are. It comes off of you in small pieces while you're on tour, then when you get home you slowly settle and figure out who you are, and then you realise you sing and play guitar and you enjoy doing that, again.
So have you started writing?
We've been writing a lot, especially since Matt left we've really been on a tear, a lot of our energy was taken up by dealing with that. Now that we're free it's been really enjoyable to let loose and throw everything against the wall to see what sticks.
As a band, you've been fairly influential with the sound you've developed over the past decade; in a progressive sense are you looking to take this record to a new place?
Yeah I think so....I mean, I hope to do so. I always think everything we've always done has been revolutionary, even though I know that isn't true. Everytime I play something to someone they're like "Oh yeah, that sounds like you". But to me I feel like I'm taking this huge risk. We've all changed as people and I think it will reflect that in some way another.
You've been DJ'ing lately too. Is this something you've always done while being in The Rapture?
I've always been interested in it. I moved to New York City in 1999 and worked in a bar where there was non-stop house music for like 10 hours a night and hated it and always thought 'You've gotta be kidding me, the same kick drum for 10 hours', but after a while I started liking it and discerning which DJ's I liked and didn't like. I guess I started to understand it and got into it myself, then started buying records and hanging out with other people who liked it.
And it also led to your initially affiliation with DFA, yeah?
Somewhat. The kind of 'un-sung hero' of DFA is this guy called Tim Goldworthy, who's the other parner besides James[Murphy]. If you compare them to the Neptunes, you have the Pharrel figure, who is defnitely James, and then there's other guy... and that's definitely Tim. He's got a lot of chops when it comes to house music and I guess meeting DFA through him was a big step for us. The thing is, they weren't a label back then, we all sort of created this thing together 'The house of Jealous Lovers' was the first record on DFA, we had no distribution and it was literally us sitting on the floor of a room in Manhatten going "Well, what are we going to do now?" - then nothing happened for 6 months. The reason we didn't put our first record out with them was because they had no distribution.
Yet you still sold over 7000 copies of 'Jealous Lovers' with no distribution?
Yeah, but they kept getting all the pressings wrong. There's all these weird copies with no printing on them; I have about ten different versions - it was very Mum and Pop.
You released a mix record last year called Tapes, which was a really eclective bung of mash-up's. You had stuff like Ghostface Killah, Junkyard Band, Arcade Lover, even Richie Haven!
That was just really fun to do. It was us getting all of our records and throwing them into the middle of a room and seeing what came out.
Is this something you're going to keep doing?
I hope so, I think it was a good thing to do. DJ'ing is just such a pleasure and I think it really changed the way I thought about music. There's certain records that just don't sound interesting until you put them over a massive system and you start hearing and feeling different things that you normally wouldn't on a car-stereo or something.
Any chance of a Rapture/Ratatat show? Cause I'd like that.
Ha ha ha.....ok.
The last time I saw you guys play was at the 2007 Good Vibrations festival in Brisbane. It was an environment that you looked really comfortable in. Do you enjoy the festival scene?
Yeah, I love the chance element of a festival you know? A festival can be the best thing ever, or it can fall on it's face. I'm not a surfer, but I think it's kind of like a big wave - you can either really crash, or it can come off great! When you play your own show there's not really a lot of margin for error, but playing a festival is really a gift - anything can happen.
Do you approach these shows any differently?
I think that's the fun part of these shows, you need to be more aware of the audience then you usually do because you just don't know what you're going to get.
It also gives you an opportunity to hook a new audience that you normally wouldn't have at your shows.
Absolutely, I like the challenge aspect of it. I was always into sports as a kid, so to me if feels like a sport in some weird way.
You're back here soon for Parklife. What's your relationship like with Australian audiences?
Really good, I love Australian people. I think it's because they have a really good spirit and they're not afraid to have fun - which goes along with what we're into. Some countries we go to it's a little bit hard to get people into it - with Australian's, if you show them you're willing to have fun with them, they'll have fun with you.
I reckn Parklife would be the perfect opportunity to show us some new music?
I'm really looking forward to that thing to! It's been a long time since i've even wanted to write new material, so it's going to be nice to share it with everyone.
PARKLIFE 2009
Sep 26 - Parklife Brisbane - Riverstage and Botanic Gardens, QLD
Sep 27 - Parklfe Perth - Wellington Square, Perth WA
Oct 3 - Parklife Melbourne - Birrarung Marr, Melbourne VIC
Oct 5 - Parklife Sydney - Kippax lake, Moore Park, Sydney NSW
Oct 5 - Parklife Adelaide - Botanic Garden, Adelaide SA