Pink Rock Candy-Entertainment

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Rob Diament from Temposhark, an awesome band I wrote about a few weeks ago. Being my first actual interview, I think ever, I was obviously really nervous, but Rob was totally sweet, charming, and let’s face it, he knows his shit. We chatted not only about Temposhark’s upcoming album The Invisible Line, but about the internet’s effect on music, music’s effect on fashion (and vice versa), and— well, you’ll have to read the interview to find out what else, but I promise it’s worth it!

Chelsea Rae: Let’s start with the basics. Why did you and Luke [Busby] decide to start Temposhark?
Rob Diament: I had already started making music on my on, and I was writing songs with a producer called Youth (Martin Glover from Killing Joy), in London. I started out writing on the piano when I was about 13, and then I met him when I was 18 or 19. He took me under his wing and kind of taught me how to work in the studio.

At the same time I was hanging out a lot in Brighton with Luke. I used to go to school with him, but we didn’t really know each other very well in school. I went to a party in Brighton, and really got on well with him. I loved the music he’d been making, so we— actually it was my idea, I kind of forced him into it— I brought him a song and said, “look, would you produce it?” and he tried to produce it, but it didn’t really work out. Then, we just tried to write a song over one of his tracks.

It was a really creative time…Luke lived with Tasha from Bat for Lashes, which is a cool band that is coming up right now, and they were all creating and writing songs and some of them were fashion designers and some of them were performance artists. They did a lot of live shows with visuals, and would spend weeks making these films. Then, you’d go to the gig, and you couldn’t even see the screens because it was so badly set up. But, we had a lot of fun! We even put on a musical, not like a musical in the sense of it being a musical, but it was kind of a joke. It was kind of tongue and cheek, mocking every body. So, yeah, that’s how it started…

Finish the interview after the jump.

CR: Well, you’ve been in Temposhark for about 4 years, what’s your favorite part of actually being in a band?
RD: So far it’s been the traveling. I love going out all over America, it’s been amazing. We went out last June and September, and just going to places you’ve never been before and meeting people you’d never meet otherwise— its just been incredible.

We went to South By South West last year, and there were loads of people singing the words to our songs and we hadn’t even released a record yet. Its so weird how the internet, although its illegal downloading which has it’s benefits and its downsides, but it’s amazing to think you can connect with people you’ve never met before.

The bit I love the most though, is getting in the studio and actually writing songs. I’ve been doing that quite a lot recently for the next album. I just love getting back into recording.

CR: Speaking of recording, what was your favorite song to record on The Invisible Line?
RD: “Joy” we had a lot of fun recording. It’s a ridiculous song, it’s hilarious. I actually love it though. It’s a bit more tongue and cheek. you know, and we were all clapping and screaming. If you listen really carefully, in the background there’s actually whoops and all kinds of things we were doing. So that was good.

CR: Those are my favorite songs. When you have to keep listening to them over and over again and you always find different things in the background.
RD: Yeah, that’s what I love about music though, because when you go back and listen a year later, suddenly you hear something else. And, some records have people talking under them, and you suddenly realize that. Its really cool, that kind of stuff.

CR: Right. It’s fun because you have to turn your ipod up really loud to try to hear it.
RD: Yeah, and even then you can’t always tell. It’s those little hidden things in production that I love most…

“Winter’s Coming” I really enjoyed doing as well. It really means a lot to me. I also loved working with Guy Sigsworth on it. He’s one of my favorite producers, though we actually recorded the vocals with Sean [McGhee] and then sent it to Guy, but it was cool.

CR: So, I heard the name Temposhark came from your “subconscious;” you had just woken up and it came to you, but why did you name the album The Invisible Line?
RD: “The invisible line” was from a book that I’d been reading. We originally had four other titles for the album, and one was actually seen on a promo, industry EP kind of thing called “Battleships.” So I was going to call it “Battleships,” and then we re-recorded a bunch of the demos and made them better with Sean. We decided it wasn’t the same record, and I wanted to define it because I didn’t want people to think it was the same record. So, I was reading a book (Exploration of the Soul) by Tracey Emin, who’s an artist that I love— she’s actually done a lot of stuff in fashion. She did a whole line of handbags (for Longchamp in 2004)— but, I was reading her book about growing up in Margate. In it she was talking about being born, and about how she was connected immediately to the whole world. The future, the past, and the present, we’re all connected.

I just love the idea because I always thought of music in that way, as being a kind of force for good, in the essence that you can make people realize they’re not alone. I’ve always had that dream of my music being an open window for people, in like the middle of nowhere, that don’t feel like they’re part of anything, at school for example. They’re outsiders, I guess, and I wanted my music to be— not like a friend because that’s really cheesey, but a way of people to connect and realize there’s a whole world out there that one day they can actually be part of— that they are part of. And, I get really passionate about the whole kids going around and killing each other in schools. In England there is a whole suicide pack. It was about 20 kids that killed themselves. They were all [getting together] on the internet in this one town in Wales, it was really strange. But, this kind of stuff just drives me mad, because it’s like when you’re fifteen you shouldn’t even be thinking about that. And, I know it’s a really hard time in your life but you have to turn it into something positive and do something good with your life. That’s what I’m all about. I went through a lot of shit in my teenage years and writing songs was what helped me survive.

CR: You started your own label, Paper and Glue, right? Is it hard balancing being the boss and being the artist at the same time?
RD: It can be, yeah. But, it’s worth it. When you do everything yourself you actually appreciate things like people responding to your record. I try not to get too caught up in the whole marketing side now. I used to be very involved in it, and I don’t think it was that healthy, so I stepped back a bit. I don’t read reviews, and I don’t think about it too much. If someone says you’re great you get a bit of an ego rush and if someone says you’re bad you get a real ego down, so I try to not think about it anymore. I think it’s healthier that way.

I do love running a label though, because you get more creative control. For me the artwork is really important, and even the tracklisting and who I work with and what I do— I don’t want to be told what to do necessarily. I take advice from people, but I think it’s good to be in control of your own world.

CR: Are you going to be signing any other bands to Paper and Glue?
RD: I will eventually, yeah. I do really want to do that. I can’t do it right now, and I probably won’t until after my second album. But, it is something for the future. I want to establish myself first and feel more stable with [Temposhark], but that’s definitely something I want to do. There’s already some bands I’m kind of considering, but its really hard to find the time especially since I’m going to start touring now. You never know though. Actually Sean, who produced [The Invisible Line], might make a record this year and I might put that out.

CR: I read on your blog you’re having Motomichi Nakamura animate your upcoming video for “Blame.” Why did you choose to use animation instead of a live action video?
RD: Because, I love animation anyway, and I love art— I love his art. So, I wrote to him and asked him to make a video, and he got back to me with this crazy figure I couldn’t afford, like tens and tens of thousands of dollars. I wrote back to him saying thank you so much, but I can’t afford it. Then, over Christmas he listened to the album, and he wrote back to me saying “tell me what you can afford and we’ll just do it because we love you.” It was a total dream come true, because I really, really love his work. I think he’s a genius. He did a video for The Knife, a really cool Swedish band, that was fantastic. I like his work because there’s a kind of angsty undertone to all of his stuff. So, although the characters are almost sweet, there’s this weird almost subversive themes. He totally understood the song, and I loved the storyboard that he pitched. I just really respect him. He does massive paintings, and he does sculptures and he creates his own universe. I just want to be part of it, I think it’s great.

I also wanted our first video to be a bit different. I didn’t want to be standing there standing on some shit roof top. If I make a video with us in it, I has to be cinematic almost. I want it to be something really good.

CR: I have my own “chicken or the egg” question with fashion and music. My question is, do you think the musician’s style inspires fashion trends or do fashion trends inspire musician’s style?
RD: I think it can work both ways— and that’s a really rubbish answer, but it depends really. I think normally the underground will inspire, like there will be a community of people that are often linked. Fashion designers are often friends with musicians— at least we were when we were first starting out. We were all hanging out with students who were fashion designers. So, you kind of influence each other, and I think sometimes you’ll meet a fashion designer, who’ll be listening to music, and that music will be really inspiring to that designer. I remember this one girl, who was obsessed with Mr. Scruff, and she used to say her whole collection was inspired by his music. So there’s that level to it. But I also think if you’re hanging out with people, you’re naturally influenced by them.

If you look back to Madonna, in the early 80s, when she was in New York. She was hanging out with a lot of artists like Andy Warhol and Basquiat and lots of fashion designers. There was a woman named Maripol, who is a friend of mine, and she did all her styling. They were all part of this scene in New York at the time, and I do think Maripol gave Madonna her style, like the early bangles and mad hair thing. But Madonna had her own image as well. She was inspired my Marilyn Monroe and other people, so, all these different influences came in, but it was Madonna who took it to the main stream. I don’t know if Maripol would have done it on her own. It needed that vehicle like Madonna, that could take it and make it mainstream fashion, but originally it came from the underground. So, I think they both help each other.

Even if you look now, there is a photographer I saw today at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Juergen Teller, who crosses art, fashion and music. He has photographed Posh Spice and Björk. Some people don’t see his work as art, but it is art, even though he has fashion campaigns in his art show. I think it’s all mixed up and we all influence each other at a basic level, but I think for it to become mainstream, it sometimes takes a phenomenon.

CR: Last fall you went to New York Fashion Week, did you see any shows, and which were your favorites?
RD: I went to eight or nine shows. I went to a couple of boring ones, but I won’t tell you who they were because that’s rude. I went to Jason Wu, he was amazing. And, I hear he designs dolls and stuff. I haven’t seen them, but I heard that’s how he started by designing clothes for dolls. I was just blown away by his show. I though it was really fresh with very well cut, great clothes. We also saw Charlotte Ronson, who was very LA, I guess. I could imagine her clothes on the beach, she was cool. I think she had her sister modeling for her— it was very funny. They all cheered every time she walked down the catwalk. We saw Nicole Miller, who is a bit more conservative. And, we sat next to Ivana Trump. It was really freaky to sit next to her because you see her in magazines all the time, so, to sit next to her was quite scary. We went to Buckler, which I really enjoyed. I thought the menswear was great. And, we went to Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B. which was really fun. I just really respect her for being so creative. I think she’s passionate about fashion as well and she really means it. I don’t like it when people go in to different things, and you just feel like its part of their branding exercise. They put out a perfume or something, but I feel like she genuinely loves fashion, and she dresses amazingly herself.

I love a jewelry designer named Hannah Martin, who’s from London. She was at fashion week too. She had a big party at some boutique in the Lower East side, it was really cool. She makes amazing jewelry that’s really expensive, but she gives it to me for free so… I also like Jacey Withers, he’s a really good friend of mine. The two of them are my favorite jewelry designers, because they make stuff for both men and women. Jacey made the necklace I’m wearing now, it has a hammerhead shark on it, and I got it before I was in Temposhark. The jewe’ry is not too expensive either, because it’s silver, where as Hannah makes stuff out of gold, and that’s why it’s more expensive.

CR: I have a theory that guys from the UK are much more stylish than the ones in the US. What do you think is the difference between the way each dresses?
RD: I think New York is a really creative place, and I think people dress really amazingly in New York, but I think in Europe, especially Italy, London, and France there are often trends that come through sooner. So, I think you’ll see people wearing things there, and then you’ll come to America a year later and it’ll be here then. I don’t know why that is though. I think the younger designers don’t get to come to America and show in New York Fashion Week because you need such a big budget, so it’s harder to cross over. But, in London you have places like Kokon To Zai that will support people who are 19 years old and making t-shirts or making fashion. They literally had Marjan Pejoski, who designed the Swan dress Björk wore to the Oscars, before he had even left college. There’s that kind of spirit in London. They support people while they’re at St. Martins and let them sell their work. They’ll do like one t-shirt and its unique, but you can go there and buy it. There’s also people like M.I.A., who has worked really closely with Cassette Playa, who’s an amazing designer. And, through her music Cassette Playa has become known, and it grows from that. It just depends on who’s hanging out with whom, really…

But, I guess that happens in New York, it’s the same thing, but it’s just a different kind of style. New York really does have a kind of distinct voice.

In London, fashion and music are really closely linked. Since I’ve been doing music there’s been sort of 3 different types of movements so far in the club scene, and they’re always link to the music. Like, there’s a girl called Princess Julia who’s a kind of style icon and she runs a magazine called The P.i.X. and she has orange hair now. She’s kind of a barometer for what’s going on in London now. If you look at what she’s doing, that’s normally what’s going to be happening in the mainstream a few years later.

CR: What’s your favorite clothing store in London?
RD: I really like Martin Margiela. I just think he’s amazing, and I have lots of clothes from him. I go to Kokon To Zai a lot. I love Selfridges just because it’s really expensive but I love it because it’s a big brand store compared to the others. I like Liberty as well, they’re kind of chic, but you have to have a lot of money or save up to shop their, but I just love going there and looking around. I love Alexander McQueen. I love Vivienne Westwood. I think Alexander McQueen’s a complete legend— Vivienne I just adore her. She’s got this manifesto at the moment about everyone turning off the TV and reading books and not being distracted by mass marketing and not spending loads of money on things and not getting into the whole consumer culture we’re all obsessed with by now. I just really respect her. It’s so funny to think she came from this punk world, and now her punk is almost like going conservative. You know what I mean? It’s like this sort of twist on values, but I agree with her because people just numb themselves. They go home every night and turn on the TV. You end up getting so rundown that you don’t notice when things are happening in politics and when the politicians are putting things through that are actually really wrong. Like what’s happened in the last four years in America and England. None of us really made a fuss about it because we’re all so tired. You get so knackered by all this marketing 24-7. Everywhere you go now there’s someone selling something to you.

I don’t think people think of themselves anymore. The key is to have imagination. If you read a book— I mean if I read a book I feel so much more inspired than I do if I just watch TV. And, you actually start thinking and using your imagination again, and sometimes it really shocks me, like, how much imagination I have because I didn’t really know I had that much anymore. You forget what you’re capable of, and I think people are kind of selling themselves short a bit. I’m not saying you should never watch TV, but I think there’s a balance that needs to be struck.

CR: We’ve already talked about guy’s style, what’s your favorite outfit for a girl to wear?
RD: I love girls who wear lots of jewelry. Like bracelets and cool earrings and stuff… I don’t really know what I like. I just like it when girls have their own individual style. Like you look great, when I met you I thought that you looked cool. You do your hair really great and you just looked cool. And, I think that’s what’s important. It’s not necessarily a certain item of clothing, it’s whether it all suits the person and whether they’re expressing themselves rather than following a trend or anything. I’m much more about people working out what they like and looking really cool with it because that’s always the best way. You know what I mean? Just be yourself.

I also think, you don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money on clothes. It’s cool to maybe buy one expensive item and then everything else you can just get cheaply because it’s not about wearing a designer. It’s about wearing clothes that look good on you, and you don’t have to spend a lot of money to do that. You could go to a market or even American Apparel and buy a t-shirt rather than going to somewhere really expensive and buying a t-shirt, there’s just no point.

CR: I already said I thought guys from the UK are more fashionable than those here in the US. So, do you think European girls or American girls are more fashionable?
RD: I think it’s just different. I don’t think you can say ones more fashionable than the other. I think there’s just a different sensibility, but I think women normally just look great anyway, I mean more so than men. I think men are sometimes— lazier or don’t want to experiment as much with their clothes. But, I think all the women I’ve met in America are great and the women in Europe too.

CR: For my final question I’m going to go back to music a bit. We are obviously living in a digital age and the internet has changed the way a lot of people process things, news, music, etc. How would you say the internet has help/hurt Temposhark?
RD: Basically, we were so lucky because we started doing EPs when we went to university. Literally, our main objective of going to university wasn’t actually to get a degree— it was just to do our band, and we need money and we didn’t know how to do it. So we thought, let’s go to university. Let’s just get student loans and spend it all on our band. So, Luke bought loads of equipment, and I just started spending it all making our record. We’d record 3 or 4 songs and would spend loads of money making a cd. And, at the time it was all about getting onto iTunes because it had literally just launched, but none of us knew how to get on there. It was like a magical kind of thing. So, we found this distributor who could get us onto iTunes and that was the key for us because that meant we could sell records all over the world. So we were in Japan, all over Europe, America, Canada, Sweden, everywhere without actually having to put a cd out. That led to getting orders for our first ever 10” vinyl, it was like this pink kind of vinyl, in Japan. We sent hundreds and hundreds of these vinyls to Japan and they all sold out. Then we started to get calls from America, and we sent singles over to America, to some tiny independent stores, and slowly people started writing blogs about us and you’d see sales increase. We ended up selling 12-15 thousand downloads on iTunes, in America alone, without having done any promotions or having any real records in the shops over here, but it was from word of mouth.

By the time we got to SXSW, one of the people in the SXSW office had read about us and heard of us on iTunes and some blogs. So, they invited us to play. It was just an amazing opportunity and would never have happened before— maybe eventually, after like 5 or 6 years of slogging, but it happened a lot quicker than it would have before. Then, Myspace put us on the front page and iTunes put us on their front page and it was just this amazing synchronous thing. I don’t know, it all kind of linked up. That’s another thing about “the invisible line”. It’s like this whole kind of web of people who can help you without there even being any real mainstream marketing for it. It’s amazing.

CR: I feel like the record industry is really veering towards the internet. Like with the whole Radiohead letting people choose what to pay for In Rainbows thing. The record industry has become very cookie cutter, and I like when bands take a different path.
RD: I think really it’s important to question people because people need to think about what their doing as well. Like, I don’t think a lot of people realize that by not buying a Radiohead album it means a lot of younger artists don’t get support. Though I think it’s really good that people hear music germinally, I’m not totally anti-downloading music. I think if people do end up illegally downloading something and you don’t like it, fair enough, but if you do really love it then you should support that band. Not necessarily just by buying the record, but by going to see them play live or just supporting them anyway you can, even if its by buying a t-shirt if you don’t want to buy the record. Otherwise they can’t necessarily continue, you know what I mean? I don’t want to get all heavy about it, but running my own label I know its nice when people choose to support you.

CR: For me it’s not just downloading illegally that can get annoying, but even sometimes when I download an album off of iTunes, it’s just not the same. I want the album art and to read the “thank you”s and all that stuff. So I end up buying three different versions of the same CD to have everything from the hard copy CD to the special iTunes bonus tracks.
RD: I mean I think the future is definitely going to be downloading CD quality files. We’ve started to do that in Europe already on iTunes, and its DRM free. I don’t think you have to have DRM; I don’t agree with that. But, also, giving downloadable artwork is smart. The next few singles I’m working on, the illustrator is going to be doing pdf artwork especially for the download that won’t be in the CD artwork so it will become more unique. I’m always up for that kind of thing. I’m trying to work out ways of bring back the artwork. To be honest, the younger generations, kids who are like 15, 16, don’t care about CDs anymore. A friend actually told me they heard about this record label who brought in 20-30, or even more, maybe 60 students who were between the ages of 12 and 18, and they spent a whole day talking about how they felt about the future of music. At the end of the day [the record label’s people] said thanks for coming, thanks for filling out the questionnaire, go in the cupboard there and take any CD you want. And, not one kid took a CD because they said “oh it’s okay, I can download it for free.” The younger kids who are like 12, 13, 14, 15 don’t care about CDs anymore, where as I would have been like “yeah man, lets take the CDs, I want the CD.” The younger kids though, it’s not even in their realm of thinking anymore, about buying a CD, and that’s kind of sad. That’s just the way it moves though, and we have to move with it and just try and be inventive in a different way. We’re giving out drop cards now, which are like little credit cards and you can go onto the net and have a download code to get a free download. We’re just trying to do things like that. I think they’re selling drop cards now in the shops, and maybe that’s the future. But I think it’s sad in a way because I think lyrics are really important, and it’s nice to have the book. Maybe it’s about doing limited runs and having really fancy packaging. But who knows, we just have to step up our game. So the worlds changing, and the key is we all just have to move with it.

I want to thank Rob for meeting with me and bearing with me through my bumbling and obnoxious use of the word “like” (which I edited out). Temposhark will be touring the US this spring (I’ll post the dates later), and their first full length album, The Invisible Line comes out in March. Head to the Temposhark website for more info on the band.