winter meal deal - Now Then

NT. Tell us a bit about ‘Noise Festival’ and being
picked by Badly Drawn Boy.
Dan - “About two years ago, around the time we were
just starting up, we heard about ‘Noise Festival’ and we
sent off a track, I think it was ‘Time’ and we never thought
anything of it. Then a couple of months ago we got an
email asking us to resubmit our tune, so we re entered.
Then on Wednesday last week we got this phone call
saying we’d been selected by Badly Drawn Boy. We didn’t
really know what was happening but got asked to go
over to Manchester and headline this show at The Dry Bar
and we ended up doing this television interviews for BBC
North West and for the Noise Festival website. The whole
festival is about finding underground independent talent
from across the arts and we’re one of the top picks for
music which is a great platform for us to get some national
exposure”.
NT. What are your plans for releases?
Pete – “We’re about to put out our first release. It coming
out on a European label and features one of our tunes,
‘Time’ and then remixes of it on the B side. It’s going to
be a vinyl only release, hopefully on green vinyl limited
edition - 500 copies. It’ll be available over here in the UK.
It’s something a bit different with the remixes thing and
as a band we always looking at all the angles, looking for
other ways to move forward”.
Dan – “We’ve also been working on E.P. but we’ve not been
quite happy with the way the recordings have come out –
they haven’t captured our live sound s we’ve put it back to
get it right”
Rossmann Frister are a band on the
in-the-know lips right now.
Having played only a handful of gigs in
Sheffield and London and leaking only a
couple of tracks out via the internet and
friends it seems incredible that they are brink
of their first European release and have been
hand picked by Badly Drawn Boy for ‘Noise
Festival’ in Manchester. We caught up with
band members Dan and Pete to discuss how
they are quietly becoming one of Sheffield’s
most promising and prominent bands.
NT. You guys haven’t played a lot of gigs What are
your reasons for that?
Dan - “We’ve been quite selective really. We don’t want
to play the wrong venues and we feel there are a lot
of wrong venues out there. With our sound that’s a bit
unconventional with all the elements, drums, bass,
guitars, vocals and then electronics - it can be quite
a wall of sound so the venue is important. We’ve played
a few shows in London and a couple in Sheffield just to
find our feet. We want to make the right move to play the
right gig that’s going to further us. We don’t want wear
the sound out too early and it makes it more of an event.
So far it has paid off for us”.
NT. What are your thoughts towards signing to
label – major or indie?
Dan – “We need the backing to get out on a large scale,
on a world scale which is where we want to be.”
Pete - “But we want to do it right, we are very cautious. We
have people throwing things at us all the time, be it gigs or
deals but we just say no because we know its not right for
us at the moment. We’ll just wait and see – we got a long
way on our own so I guess if the right thing comes along
we’ll go with it”.
NT. You guys are very much a Sheffield band how do
you feel about the local scene are there any bands
you particularly like?
Dan – “At the moment Sheffield definitely seems to be a
city on the up but on the music front I still think it is in the
aftermath of what happened with the Arctic Monkeys.
To be honest I can’t see that much in Sheffield to get too
excited about. I hear good things about Exit Calm – they’re
going in the right direction but apart from the Monkey’s
who are a great live band, it’s a bit problematic”.
Pete – “It’s sad really because Sheffield used to be a
really creative city, like Warp. Warp came from Sheffield
and Cabaret Voltaire, these were really great creative
things and I don’t really see a lot of the bands around
now displaying the same qualities. Hopefully we can do
something about that”.
Rossmann Frister will release ‘Time’ on Rhythmetic Records
later this month before playing some select shows and
releasing their E.P. before the end of the year.
You can find out more about their involvement with
‘Noise Festival’ @ noisefestival.com
myspace.com/therossmanfristerproject
myspace.com/rhythmeticrecords
Reg Regler.
ROSSMAN FRISTER.
PAGe forty-six.
our walls of noise.