This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist Interviews
Q&A: Pens
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009
Shambolic, chaotic and noisy are three words you may like to use in order to describe Pens, even though two of them mean the same thing. Disorderly is another. But that would make three words that mean pretty much the same thing, and I reckon that’s probably too many. Anyway, Pens make short and sweet garage pop, a taste of which can be found on their new album, ‘Hey Friend, What Are You Doing?’, which is released by De Stijl Records this week. We spoke to keyboard player Helen to ask our Same Six Questions.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I had piano lessons when I was seven and clarinet later, but was never on stage until now with my best friends. Amelia and Stef had formed the band, and I joined in on keyboards for our first practices in Stef’s bedroom.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Hard graft! A ton of different things – mostly the excitement of being in a new band, writing songs and seeing where they took us.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
We’ll generally write it at practice, then have a really hard bit when it all goes wrong, then it all comes together eventually. The lyrics usually come last.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
We all have different tastes, which meet somewhere in the middle, but in general we really admire people with the guts to do things that they really believe in.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Nothing, I think. They can make up their own minds. I think you should be able to listen to music with an open mind and not be swayed by prior opinions.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I really hope that the people who would like the album will get to hear it. For the future, I’d love to visit as many places as possible to play, and write more songs that people enjoy.
MORE>> www.myspace.com/penspenspenis
