The Maccabees Interview

Get on your dancing shoes and head to the nearest mosh pit- The Maccabees will be headlining this year’s Shockwaves NME Awards Tour, supported by Bombay Bicycle Club, The Big Pink and The Drums.

The 14- date tour is designed to be a warm up for the Shockwave NME Awards 2010 on February 24th. The Maccabees are in very good company, with previous headlining acts including The Killers and The Cribs.

Read on to find out how they feel about being the 2010 headliners and why they always request avocadoes in their rider…

1. How does it feel to be headlining the NME Awards Tour?

Orlando (Weeks, vocals): It feels like quite a responsibility, when we’re rehearsing. Because it’s such a good lineup, so you have to play well, But it’s going to be a good way to round off the ‘Wall Of Arms’ record and make sense of that. But yeah, it’s just kind of important that we don’t let the night down.

2. NME called you the best new band in Britain a few years ago. How have things changed for you since then?

Felix (White, guitar): Well… We’re still good… it’s a difficult thing to answer. I’m not sure we were the best band in Britain at that time.

Orlando: Well, we’re not that new anymore. The hot tips have gone cold, but apart from that we’re pretty much exactly the same. We still rehearse in the same place for the same amount of time, we still get frustrated by the same things.

3. What city on the tour are you most looking forward to playing?

Felix: On the tour we’re doing Brighton Dome, which we’ve never done before. And it’s a beautiful, lush place where we’ve seen Richard Hawley and Loudon Wainwright, so it suits those kind of grand occasions. And the NME Futureheads/Killers/Bloc Party tour, we saw there. So that’ll be a real, like, benchmark to do.

Orlando: Bristol, because my brother’s studying there, and I haven’t seen his house yet, so it’ll be nice to see him. I hope he’s proud that his brother’s in a band, but I don’t ever feel like he’s showing me off or anything. He doesn’t really have similar taste in music to me – I don’t think he’s really decided on his taste in music yet.

4. What’s the most extravagant thing you’ve ever requested on your rider?

Felix: Actually, we got asked that question the other day and Hugo sent a list of like 150 things, the most blunt email. I got really into mangoes a couple of years ago. So that was important. And we get avocadoes, because apparently it’s the vegetable or fruit or whatever, that you can live for the longest on. On solely avocadoes. I don’t know if that’s 100 per cent fact, but I think it is.

Orlando: I don’t think we’ve ever asked for anything expensive on our rider. This time around we’ve asked the people at the venues to make us a mix CD of obscure party songs from across the world. And we’ve got to not know at least a couple of the songs. But that’s the kind of thing you put on your rider and people go ‘Oh, sorry, we left it at home…’.

5. If you could tour with any band from past or present who would it be?

Felix: It would be fun touring with The Jimi Hendrix Experience, but as a band, you’d just get the shit kicked out of you every night. He’d be like, setting his guitar on fire and wailing away and stuff, and we’d be like ‘Hello! Plink, plink, plink’. So probably not them.

Orlando: We’d get shown up ridiculously, but going on tour with The Band would be pretty amazing. Everyone in the band would probably say that, I think.

FEBRUARY 2010

Saturday 6th – Manchester Academy
Sunday 7th – Leeds O2 Academy
Tuesday 9th – Nottingham Rock City
Thursday 11th – Birmingham O2 Academy
Tickets are on sale exclusively through www.nme.com/tickets or 0871 230 1094. Further info on the Shockwaves NME Awards can be found at www.nme.com/awards.