Interview | 9 O’CLOCK NASTY- Too Cool
Read Time:7 Minute, 32 Second
United Kingdom, Leicester, UK
This week has been a strong one, so why not see it out the same way? Well, the best way to do that is to introduce you to an amazing band from the United Kingdom, Leicester. This amazing Garage rock band bless the airwaves with sounds to create angst in the calmest of people. They offer the world epic guitar riffs, and explosive, head-bop-worthy drum beats. The vocals are rage worthy with lyrics to match. This week we had to chance to pull together an interview piece from this amazing three-piece, keep reading to learn more about the band and their most recent release, the magnificent ‘Too Cool’.
Who are 9 O’Clock Nasty?
There are three of us in the band. Pete Brock plays guitar and does vocals. Ted Pepper plays bass and does vocals and Sydd Spudd does drums and vocals. We all do other stuff as well, so for any given song, who did what and who wrote what will vary a great deal. That’s one of the strengths of the unit that allows us to work at pace and keep ideas fresh
When and how did you first come together?
We knew each other for years. Ted was once the roadie for Pete and Sydd’s band. We’ve been in bands that played the same places and sometimes crossed over and a couple of us would be in the same project for a while. 9 o’clock Nasty started during the COVD lockdown. It allowed us to channel our growing madness into something positive and once we got started it had its own energy.
We listened to Too Cool, but what was the inspiration for the track?
Lyrically we had the phrase “he’s the low fat Jesus” for quite a while. That happens a lot – we have pages of fragments and ideas that come up and fester until the time is right for them. I think “too cool for school” was a bit of a catchphrase in the band for a while when someone was too wrapped up in something else to give full attention to what we were doing. Musically it started with programming some drum loops and Ted adding this really off-balance bassline to it. Like a lot of our songs it started in many small pieces and then one day it broke through. We’re great believers in that. If you craft at things then the inspiration will strike to lift it.
How long did it take to write/create?
The song began in June 2022. We were very busy with a lot of other projects at the time, so it just became a rough demo and moved on. I think we had just recorded Team Player and we were finishing off the LP and preparing for our first live show. In the Autumn we had it on our list of songs to finish and when we went back to it, we fell in love with it. We realised it could be something worth releasing and put in a lot of work on the arrangement and tightening it up. You can hear a lot of small embellishments and tricks in the song if you listen carefully – that is us playing with the song and investing in it. We’d been talking to Hugo, who is a producer, about working together and played him the demo and he suggested an approach that was very different from what we would have done with the mix and we were intrigued. He stripped the song back down, added grit where it needed it. From the second we heard his mix we knew it was done.
As your first collab with Quebecois music producer Hugo GT, how did the creative process go?
It was very natural. We do not collaborate well as a rule. We’re very opinionated and we can go off on a tangent and leave something half done that can be very annoying for people working with us. With Hugo we felt comfortable that he was an obsessive like us and had a different idea about what we could make than us: that is important because we are capable of mixing a song, we wanted someone to change and improve the work, not just tidy it up. We left him totally free to do what he wanted, I think we have three conversations about it where he wanted feedback, and our advice was always “do what you think is right.” He did. What we released is his vision of our song.
What else would you like to tell fans (if anything) about this release?
We’re deliberately flexing this year. 2022 was all about refinement. We had a vision of what we wanted to do and every release was our story of getting there. If you listen from King Thing through to I’m Bent you can see that process of simplification and sharpening. We feel like we’ve kind of done the two minute singalong chorus, so it’s time to move on. Too Cool is without doubt the most “9 o’clock Nasty song” we will release this year. We’re spreading our wings a bit and pulling in punk, trip hop and a range of other styles – including and out and out ballad.
Where do you see your musical career in 5 years?
Absolutely no idea. Not massively interested either. All that matters is the last thing we did and the next. We will certainly be writing music in 5 years time but it does not matter now what form that will take and what vehicle it uses. 9 o’clock Nasty is a passion not a project.
Other than yourselves, who would be your next favourite band?
That would be an immense list not one name. There are a host of brilliant bands that we’ll namecheck in a second but you just can’t say “this is my favourite.” You need a range of voices in your head to dance to the disco of life.
As recommendations to the reader, we are hugely into Hi-Res by Ren right now. Other acts on the indie and new to give a listen to, in no particular order, The Margaret Hooligans, Julience, Mark Wise, The Qwarks, Arch Femmesis, Everything But the Everything, Golden Plates, Avresa, Molosser, I Am The Unicorn Head and Bones in Butter get played on our speakers every day.
What would you say is your greatest strength as an artist?
Freedom and depth. We don’t need to make a living from this and we aren’t trying to be famous, so we are free to do what we want. This is not our first rodeo, we’ve been in bands before and we know what we like. So we single-mindedly do that and only that. If it feels like work, we stop. If it feels like compromise, we stop.
What is your proudest accomplishment as a musician?
9 o’clock Nasty. We’d each pick a different song, but this band. For me, this minute, Gastronaut which we’re just finishing is the best song I have ever been involved in. Without doubt. A genuine masterpiece lyrically, musically and in the sense of telling a story with a drum. But that is today’s answer.
What interests or hobbies do you have outside of music?
Absolutely none. Well we love and we live.
What is coming next for 9 o’clock Nasty?
The next single is a slice of punk rock called “Low Fat Jesus.” We’ve got a series of songs where the first line of the lyrics of one is the title of the next. It was a fun conceit and has led to some strange nonsense. A couple of people are working on dance remixes for it which will be interesting, because we have stepped back and given them total freedom to rebuild the song however they choose. We have a single called Disco Investors that Hugo is working hard on at the moment which is Glam Rock writ large. Beyond that we have a very healthy pipeline of new stuff. This year will be relentless, we feel confident and full of ideas and as long as they flow, so will we. Hopefully there will be a second single with I Am The Unicorn Head before too long, and we’ve got a deal with the Qwarks to form a supergroup called the Regency Bastards that will one day take the stage.
All that is left to do now is what out for these plans to unfold and if you are anything like us you heard the first lick of guitar and chomping at the bit to listen to their next release!
