Interview: Jae Laffer of The Panics
- May 08, 2009
Following on from our feature/review of The Panics last week which you can see Here, I managed to catch up with lead singer Jae Laffer before the band start a month long tour of the UK.
Tom Sowerby: Now, over here you are still fairly unknown, but you've played with an amazing list of bands, a lot of your favourite bands are from here, how does it feel meeting, playing and chatting with them?
Jae Laffer: It's been strange, getting to meet so many of my heroes already; we've got to rub shoulders with a lot of cool people when bands come over to Australia to play. I think the most notable time was getting to play with Noel Gallagher last year, he was a high school hero of ours, and it was magic. You already feel like you know them, because you listen to all their songs, see all their videos and stuff, it's really interesting getting to make conversation, it's nice starting to realise that everyone's just human.
TS: So how long have you been in England this time around?
JL: Well, it's been around two and a half months now, we're based up in Manchester. We have been here four or five times, but only for brief periods, and basically our manager is a guy from Manchester, and a lot of our favourite bands are based in Manchester and now our English label is too. It's just always been a place where we've come and gone from, taken a lot of influence from and played quite a few industry shows there. We love it.
TS: How does it feel for you as a band, because you've really established yourself already in Australia and now you're coming over here, does it feel like you've got to do it again, or does it feel quite fresh and exciting?
JL: It's pretty exciting; because you don't feel like you're doing it all again because when you started out, you were younger and hadn't quite reached your peak. We used those years to work on our sound and do loads of tours in Australia so we come here with the knowledge that we can go to a club, play well and make a good impression, and with all these songs we've got, we're free to mix it up during shows. It's been a perfect start for us, with the debut single getting some plays on XFM, hopefully people will hear and see the name, maybe come out to see us, and we'll take it from there, you know.
TS: It's looking quite good so far, with the airtime you've been getting and everything.
JL: It's going great, I think; I have nothing to measure it against here. It just starts with some radio play, get a good reputation, play live and stuff. I mean there's almost three times as many people here than there are in Australia but that's kind of exciting, and if you get to be a national name here, it's a big deal.
TS: Did you know that Music Week magazine had your small private show last week as their Gig of the Week?
JL: The industry magazine? They showed me that, and I thought it was hilarious just because the place wasn't even a venue! We just played where the secretary normally invites people in! We're just stoked to get the attention, so it's been a good start for us, who knows what's in store for the future but you come a long way, and you just want people to notice you, and to me the best bit has been getting on the radio. Driving around and suddenly you hear your track on the radio, it's great.
TS: Has having Gaz Wheelan of the Happy Monday's as one of your managers helped you in getting your name out there to the right people do you reckon?
JL: Maybe, because I guess when you mention the Monday's there's a lot of respect for them, they're a great band. It may be a talking point, it helps us more because we get to talk to people who have been there.
TS: Have you noticed any major differences between the English and Australian music scenes?
JL: Well, not really, because we're only kind of at the bottom here at the moment, but I reckon if you asked me in a couple of months I'd be able to give you a better answer. All I can tell you is that there are loads of bands and it's really competitive. A lot of kids out there are desperate to be famous, and they sound really focussed but also it can sound a bit similar, which is hopefully where we'll stand out a bit, because we haven't payed much attention to the sounds of the last couple of years, so hopefully it'll make an impression.
TS: Now you're latest album, Cruel Guards, I hear loads of different influences, like Beatles' Rubber Soul/Revolver era, a bit of The Shins and a little bit of a Crosby, Stills and Nash influence throughout the album. To me, it sounds like you have all these great influences, and it shows on the record, how do you feel about it?
JL: Well, it's great that you can hear a whole bunch of different stuff in there, you mention groups that have a lot of harmonies and we love that stuff, we love Bob Dylan, and we've always loved British bands since High School and that's stayed with us, bands like The Beatles. We listen to everything, and it's all influence. We got a nice western flavour to a lot of songs, we love this guy Ennio Marroconi who did a lot of western movies.
TS: You've also been working on a new album, and you first released Cruel Guards a year and a half ago, in Australia. Have you had much time to work on the new record or has it been too busy?
JL: Well, when it first came out, it was really busy but it's good that most of us have always been living together and the others were always near by so it's made it pretty easy. We're pretty close now, I'm just getting the last of the lyrics together, then we can book some studio time. It's nice to release this one here now, and if it does well and people like it, it's good that the new record will be out pretty soon after.
TS: Can you reveal what we can expect off the new album?
JL: All I can say is that it's really stomping, there's a really good energy. It's making us move a lot more and there's a lot of good feeling about it. That's all I can really say because we're looking to get into the studio, and sometimes that's where the record really takes shape.
TS: Due to you having all this stuff going on, and you're getting to work on the album in your spare time, is it important for you that the label isn't pushing you to get it out, is it having a good effect on the songs?
JL: Well there's always pressure, more from yourself and the group, we'd like to get it done as soon as we can. There's not much pressure in choosing the songs because we've got a lot to choose from. The only real pressure is choosing the direction you want to go in.
TS: You said you're living in Manchester at the moment, are you thinking about staying around for long?
JL: Yeah, we're in a pretty good situation here and we haven't got return flights. We want to do all we can to get this record going, it's out in a month now, so we're just gunna keep working. We eventually want to see the whole world, but right now, this is what we want to do.
TS: Yeah, well if you're going to be sticking around this summer, can we expect you to be playing at any festivals or even just visiting?
JL: Well we want to if we can, I think we find out this week about some possibilities, the only thing is that because we're only brand new here, a lot of them will probably be full. We don't expect to just turn up here and then be playing on stage at Glastonbury or anything, but things have been snowballing pretty well, so it would be great to play some stages at festivals. I've never been to one here, but they sound like massive fun. I think everyone all over the world dreams of playing festivals like Glastonbury. We'd definitely like to go see whatever we can, we've got a lot of shows in England and Scotland coming up so we'll just do what we can between touring.
TS: Speaking of festivals, last year you played SXSW, that's pretty incredible.
JL: Yeah, well it's a different kind of festival; obviously it's not one big stage or anything. We were kind of dreading it at the time, to tell you the truth, like twenty million bands trying to impress and get deals and all that, but we had a brilliant time. We just decided to play some shows, have a good time, not think about it too much, and it was excellent. We got to make some new friends, spoke to the Kings of Leon guy, Nathan Followill, who then talked us up to Rolling Stone and that was nice! Texas is a pretty cool place.
TS: Are you planning on heading back to the US any time soon?
Well the albums already out over there, but then we came here to do this, so maybe after here we'll go there and back some shows up to support it, you can't really go over their for a week, you've got to do a long slog or nothing. But there's something about England, even English people back home always respond really well with it, and we've created this great affinity with England.
