Welcome to the first of my interviews with Manchester bands, starting with the lovely Run Toto Run. I’ll be speaking to as much local talent as possible over the coming weeks, asking them about the local scene and their plans for the Summer and beyond. Next up will be Pocketknife, and then the guys from 1913, but for now its electro-pop 3-piece Run Toto Run:
The boys havn't quite worked out how best to hold a keyboard yet
A N Other Manc: So how would you sum up your sound in a sentence?
Rachael: Electronic music, minus the coldness.
ANOM: How did you start out?
R: We were all involved in different musical projects and bonded over a shared sense of musical direction.
ANOM: What are you influences?
R: Loads of different stuff, Matt’s been having a 90s dance phase which has now moved on to a garage phase. We all listen to bands like Radiohead, Hotchip, The Postal Service and lots of new indie stuff which changes every week, bands like Active Child, Blue Hawaii, Tanlines, Neon Indian, lots of Chill Wave this week.
ANOM: What do you hope to achieve by the end of the year?
R: We’ll have an album finished and we hope to step up a gear with the touring and to have a second album well on the way. As always I’d love to be able to bring some visuals to the live set and make it more of a show.
ANOM: Whats it like being a Manchester band in 2010?
R: It’s exciting, it feels like there’s a lot of focus up here at the moment, we hope to be in the same position Manchester bands like Everything Everything are in, in a year’s time.
ANOM: Do you think the scene is pretty good at the moment do you think the environment is good for new bands? How would you categorise it?
Mike: Manchester has some awesome venues and a decent music loving population. For any band willing to put the work in you can have a great time here.
R: Finally there’s some new sounds being accepted from the city and it’s not all the same thing and indicative of one type of scene. I’d say that overall the thing that binds them together is the breaking away from the old sound, and in general there seems to be a more sophisticated Manchester emerging in it’s place.
ANOM:Do you owe anything to ‘Madchester’ or would you rather it wasn’t so glorified by the music press and Hooky’s new wheeze Fac251?
M: Manchester has every right to celebrate its musical heritage, it certainly helped put the city on the musical map. However, I’d say we’re not influenced by Manchester’s glory years, personally it wasn’t music that stirred me. Plus you don’t actually have to look far to find Manchester music that doesn’t fall under the “Madchester” influence. It’s a city big enough to have a huge influx of ideas and influences.
R: There’s a lot of polarisation in Manchester right now, the old guard holding on to the lad rock and baggy sounds of the past and the new, despising and ridiculing it. As Mike said, we’re not musically indebted to Madchester, in some respects we’ve had a job in shirking it and being accepted by a city naturally inclined towards bands with guys and guitars. But we have felt the hand of friendship from lots of the old school and so wouldn’t like to get lumped in with the haters. We’ve received a world of encouragement from Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam for instance, who’s proven himself by not just reliving glory days but by supporting new acts and bringing attention to what’s going on in the present day.
ANOM: Who would your ideal gig consist of?
R: I’d like to construct a massive ball pool with slides and play a gig in that. I’d like there to be trampolines. David Bowie would duet with me. We’d get one of those spinning drum cages… if we had a drummer. I’d like it to be spectacular, lots of pyrotechnics and some sort of platform that goes over the crowd. Failing that it would just be awesome to play with some bigger bands on bigger stages to see how we change and fill the space. We’ve played with bands like The Noisettes and Mike Snow, but they have so much gear on stage that you don’t get any more space, it would be interesting to see how we’d adapt and develop to a larger set up.
ANOM: Are you planning on playing any Summer festivals?
M: Secret Garden Party
R: And the South Sea festival, we’ve an album to do by July so festivals haven’t been the priority this year sadly.
ANOM: Which other local bands do you admire and would like to play with?
M: Everything Everything, we played with them once before and would love to again.
R: Ditto, I think we’d all second that.
Last year's animal head disease outbreak hit the band hard
ANOM: Love and Disaster just released their Manchester sampler earlier in the year and Dutch Uncles have just released their new single on the label, do you think being signed to a local label is the best way forward as its hard to get any London label people to come and look at bands outside of In The City?
R: Funny you should mention L&D as our next single is going to be a track on their second EP. We’ve had no shortage of London folks coming to our gigs, mainly as that’s where our main fanbase seems to have fallen and it’s going really well down there. But it is great that there are still people trying to get things done in Manchester and not seeing the need to move down south. We’re just at the stage where things are still building and a small local indie is perfect for that.
ANOM: Whats your favourite vowel?
M: ooooooooooo (the sound of a pleasant surprise)
R: A, it’s the winning vowel.
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The band will be playing the Secret Garden Party in Cambridge on the 24th July, and you can hear them being interviewed on 6 Music on the 22nd. Their excellent single Hater is available along with their other stuff on I-Tunes here.
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