Interview /// Concrete Playground Meets The Wombats

Overview

There are a whole lot of bands that make you want to dance, but none have done it quite so well in the past few years as The Wombats. Shooting to global recognition in 2007 with 'Let's Dance To Joy Division' and 'Moving To New York', staples of indie dance-floors everywhere, the pressure was on for the Liverpool three-piece to follow up with something that went above and beyond their debut.

With last month's release of This Modern Glitch they look set to eclipse themselves, and are back in Australia to begin an intense year of touring. Sporting a very fine hat, the Wombats' drummer Dan Haggis sat down to chat with Madeleine Watts ahead of their Sydney gig.

I'm sure every Australian asks this, but how did you get to be called the Wombats?
It was completely random. We've made up stories in the past, but actually we just needed something for the poster for our first gig. Me and Murph called each other 'silly goats' or 'wombats' sometimes. But it stuck, and now we can't get away from it.

How was Groovin' The Moo over the weekend?
It was amazing. We didn't know what to expect, but it's just insane. Even though it was freezing last night, people still had their tops off, just going for it and having a great time. To be honest we've never really had a bad experience in Australia, except one where we were jet lagged and broken from touring too much.

What did you guys do differently with the new album?
We were really happy with the first album, but we played for so long that we needed something completely different. The first album was right up in your face, non-stop high energy, which probably reflected how we were at the time. But this album is more thought through. So we had ninety percent of the songs mapped out but then we could mess around in the studio and get excited and geek out with knob twiddling.

What kind of bands were you listening to when you were recording?
We're all fans of Depeche Mode, New Order, Joy Division, obviously, and Kraftwerk as well. We had a couple of really grungy new songs. Then we did some DJ sets for a bit of pocket money one weekend and we were absolutely annihilated. And me and Murph were in the hotel room dancing around to Kraftwerk, still pissed I think. So we bought a Moog right after that. I think we wanted to challenge ourselves to be octopuses.

Was it just you, or all of you, who had near death experiences before recording?
It was me and Murph. Murph was in a car going really fast and ended up in a bush by the side of the motorway. Then we were in Dubai, and I was on a dune buggy - just, you know, a day off in the desert, normal day - and my girlfriend was on the back and I got a bit over-excited, as you do, and went too fast and she went flying off the back. I tried to keep on but I couldn't, so I fell off and it landed next to me. But things like that wake you up a bit. It shakes you and you go "oh fuck it, we're not immortal."

You guys all met at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. Did you meet Paul McCartney while you were there as well?
Yeah, we've met him a couple of times actually. At LIPA Paul McCartney does one-on-one song-writing classes. Then we met him again at the European Music Awards. We passed him and said, "oh, Sir Paul, congratulations on your award." And he said, "Oh yeah. Thanks for your album, really liked that 'New York' song," And we said, "OK, thanks a lot, take care," and then walked off and all screamed wildly for ten minutes and generally shat ourselves. Then we ended up doing an interview with him on Radio One. Which was even more nerve-wracking because we were the presenters. Imagine if your first interview was live on Radio One with Paul McCartney. That's what we did. It was fucking horrendous. But it went really well. Talked about tea with him for a while.

Finally, after all this time can you still dance to Joy Division?
I think we can, yeah. We just have to be really shitfaced.