Untitled - Now Then

Bison have been on temporary
hiatus, but fear not, the hoof
stomping party beast of a band
is back. After tearing down
the Now Then launch party at
Upstairs, DQ, we caught up with
some of the band to discuss
personnel changes, the
logistics of running a 9 piece
ska band, their new album and
bizarrely enough, Zambian hat
wear…
NOWTHEN-
So you guys have had a few
changes to the line up?
Giles: “Yeah, we’ve just had such a
turn over of staff, there’s only four of
us from the original line up. I think
there has been 16 in total, alumni
of bison. Obviously we’ve lost quite
a lot of people, six in total, but I’m
loving the line up we’ve got at
the moment, its great. We are nine
piece again now which is the original
number. It’s come full circle”.
NOWTHEN-
What can we expect from the
album?
Giles: “It’s called Saturday Big
Shop, which also the title of one of
our tunes on the record, which Jim
wrote about having a whitey in
Tescos, when he’d been up all
night”.
Chiv: “It’s about the morning after
the night before when you
basically just need more booze!”
Barry: “It was actually recorded on
the same sound desk as Bohemian
Rhapsody and Nevermind The
Bollocks”.
NOWTHEN-
Where is the studio?
Chiv: “It’s called The Lodge in
Northampton but basically the
desk used to be in Battery Studios
in London and has recorded Police
and Queen and the Sex Pistols in
its time. It annoying that doesn’t
immediately give you a qualification
for have a sound that is at
least as good as theirs. Queen
recorded on this why doesn’t our
stuff sound that good?”
Giles: “It doesn’t mean anything really,
it’s just something that we can
bore our children with”.
NOWTHEN-
How did you finance the recording?
Giles: “We earned a big fat pile of
cash basically. We played a gig for
some toffs in Edinburgh and they
paid us handsomely for it, and we
were very grateful. It paid for us to
record the album in this lovely little
studio in an otherwise pretty wank
area of Northampton”.
Barry: “Which is pretty much all of
Northampton”.
Giles: “Yeah Northampton is grim
but there is a lovely little recording
studio down there and they’ve got
this beautiful old analogue mixing
desk which is about the size of my
house. We recorded about sixteen
tracks or something and now we
are getting it mastered in America,
which sounds well cool, but it’s really
just the cheapest option”.
Chiv: “Yeah, it really is, because of
the price of the dollar, it is basically
just half price. It’s not being
mastered over there because Rick
Rubin or Steve Albini is mastering it
for us unfortunately”.
NOWTHEN-
Is it a struggle to record and make
creative decisions as a 9 piece?
Giles: “Yes. We’ve never really had
a helmsman as such telling people
what to do, I mean some people
are more bossy than others but it
has always been a bit of a democracy
really. We have so many
diverse tastes in music within the
band that our output is kind of just
a mishmash of influences. What
comes out comes out, it’s all in the
mix, it’s all good and I think that’s
one of the best things about it, we
argue it out and sometimes it gets
a little heated but not really”.
Chiv: “We did have a bit of tension
during the recording, it’s impossible
not to. We had ten people
living together because the studios
had accommodation as well and
we were there for about a week
and a half so it was quite mental
at times”.
Giles: “Yeah, but its immense fun,
otherwise we wouldn’t do it. We
don’t get paid really, a few beers
here and there but we’ve always
done it for the love of it”.
NOWTHEN-
Do you find it hard work and expensive
to tour and are you planning
to take Saturday Big Shop out
on the road?
Chiv: “It’s a logistical nightmare.
Generally we try to get enough
money to there and back and get
some food, but we can probably
count the gigs we’ve actually been
paid for in terms of each taking
some cash home on one of our
hands”.
Giles: “We did get paid in hats
once. That was pretty cool”.
Chiv: “Zambian hats no less! It was
a gig at the blind centre, it was a
show for a Zambian charity and
they’d brought back these straw
hats. We’d basically asked for our
expenses maybe £50 or something
and then it turned out that they
had these hats. I asked how much
the hats we and they said that
perhaps we could sort something
out. It turned out they had nine so
it was clearly a sign. Alas, most
of them are dead now, including
mine which I dubbed ‘The Zamby
Pamby’. We love hats!”
Giles: “You can’t be a ska band
without hats”.
NOWTHEN-
In the past you have been described
as, ‘the peoples band
of Sheffield’. How has Sheffield
helped to sustain you as a group?
Chiv: “Sheffield is easily the friendliest
city in England, we love it!”
Giles: “As a band we’ve always
had a lot of affection for Sheffield,
we formed as a group here. We’ve
written songs about Sheffield, our
best gigs have always been in
Sheffield and we’ve got a great following
in Sheffield. We’re all about
it really”.
Bison will be performing at Stuff’t
Olives on 2nd May @ Fusion and
Foundary, Tonne Of Meat on The
23rd May @ Plug and are due to
release their album this month.
allhailthebison.com
REG REGLER.
BISON.
BISON.
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