An interview with The Futureheads

David ‘Jaff’ Craig is The Futureheads bass player and founder member. I caught up with him for a quick chat before his bands acoustic charity gig at Sunderland’s Independent Nightclub.

Gary Evans(GE): Tell us a little bit about the charity and how you got involved?

David ‘Jaff’ Craig (J): The guy who’s organising it all, Dave Harper, he often does a lot of things for charity. He done the Christmas single and stuff like that in the past. He’s a really good guy. He come to us and said ‘look I know this girl who’s brothers just died of Marfan Syndrome which effects the connective tissue in the body. Its hard to diagnose and it doesn’t get much funding. Anyway he said will you play? But to be honest it would be of nightmare for us to play an electric set because we have to pay roadies and guitar techs and if we don’t put on a certain quality of show it looks a bit crap to be honest. You can’t be arsed to tune your own guitars. So we said we’ll do an acoustic gig and he was up for.

GE: Is it just you, Barry and Ross tonight?

J: No all four of us, two acoustic guitars, bass, and a small drum set up Jesus and Mary Chain style.

GE: What sort of set can we expect tonight?

J: 13 songs, all the singles and a couple of album tracks.

GE: So what’s next for The Futureheads, is that all the gigging done for the third album?

J: Yes, done for the third record. Two weeks ago we started practising for the fourth album. We have 12 songs up and running now. Barry says he’s got another five. Ross says he’s got a five. So we should have about 25 songs to pick from. In about a month we are to record it up here. We are recording with Dave Brewis. We are going to go a bit DIY, get it raw sounding. To be honest the way the industry is going I think people respect that. Do it yourself, get it grassroots, give tracks away, put a few on the net, a few daft videos. Stuff like that.

GE: Any new stuff tonight?

J: No new stuff tonight. We only have two totally sorted.

GE: Have you had any time off between finishing touring the third album and starting on the new record?

J: We had two months at the start of the year . We haven’t toured since Christmas.  Had two months off until February then two week ago we started on the new record.

GE:The band have started DJing, tell us a little bit about how you got into that?

J: Yeah, me and Ross. Its good fun. When we started off we would just play classic Indie tunes but when people do remixes of our tunes we have been getting a little into the House(music) world, started to beat-match and do that type of stuff. I just play camp 80’s music to be honest. We were out in Dubai DJing earlier in the year too.

GE:After releasing the third album yourself, do you think it is as important as it used to be for bands to get record deals?

J: We were lucky because Warner brothers basically paid about nine hundred grand for us to get a fan base of a certain amount of people. The first two albums they lost about a million quid on us. But now we don’t owe them that at all now because they dropped us. Now we can go out on our own and these people know who we are so that was nine hundred grand’s worth of free promotion, so a lot of people say ‘you most advocate band going out on your own’ and I do but its hard. We nearly lost money on last record. it’s a hard time to be trying to make music and selling records. They internet kills Indie labels more than it kills the big labels. Every talks about how it will be the end of Britney Spears, but you would be surprised how much money Sony BMG and EMI have got compare to me. If you want to have normal life and do music you do need people to buy your records, go and buy a t-shirt or a ticket and get behind a band at a young age. That’s what people need to do.

GE: Do you feel that after great reviews for News and Tributes when it was released, the media were then overly critical of it when the last record was released?

J: What I thought happened was that the second record came out and everyone gave it amazing reviews, then no body bought it, then they started saying it was crap. I thought your just backing a winner then changing your mind. So basically I thought the reviewers just changed their mind and went with the populous. I stand by the second record, I love it. I love the new record as well. You make music for yourself don’t you.

GE: I remember seeing the band play a surreal gig at Privilege(Ibizan super-club) in the early days of Ibiza Rocks. Any gigs that stick in your mind as particularly memorable?

J: We’ve done some pretty crazy gigs. We did a gig in Moscow which was weird. We were supported by a wet t-shirt competition. That was odd. We once played a gig in Hastings and three people turned up and they were all under 18 and they couldn’t get in. So we had to plead with the venue to let them in.

GE: Many  students have part-time jobs they don’t particularly like, and First Day is about starting a new job. What work did the band do before going into music full time?

J: Barry used to work in a call centre. Me and Baz used to work at Kwik-Save for a few years. Then I got a job being a brick layer’s labourer. I was a labourer for a year. It was pretty hard. Dave’s never had a job before. Ross was a student.

GE: Some good bands supporting tonight, do still get to catch much live music?

J: Bubbles are great, B>E>A>K are mint. Frankie and The Heartstrings have only done 3 gigs but they are doing good, they’ve got a bit about them so looking forward to checking them out. I never get a chance to go to gigs round here anymore. When I get back I don’t really want to go gigs, I do that all the time. It’s a bit of a busman’s holiday.

GE: Piece of Crap is always a set highlight during which Ross always sends an insult your way, what has been your favourite?

J: I quite liked the one at Glastonbury when he said ‘I hate you Jaff, you’re the reason why The White Stripes don’t have a bass player’. I quite like the ones where he can’t think of one and just goes ‘Jaff ARGH!’