MISS BLACK AMERICA

It's never the best thing when you get to a venue to interview a band only to be told 'oh, I think they've just left,'...Thankfully, Seymour appears a few minutes later with a group of fans in tow, 'They found me wandering about a bit lost so I said they should come to the show,' he mumbles, as the small group of mini moshers look a bit bewildered behind him (later they will be thrown out for not being old enough and others will be refused entry for the same reason - stupid age policies!).

For those not in the know, Miss Black America hail from that rawk 'n' roll place, Bury St Edmunds and consist of Neil on drums, Mickey on bass, Seymour on vocals and Gish on guitars. Big on idealism, outspokenness and making a hell of a racket, their debut album, 'God Bless Miss Black America' was released in September.

How's the tour gone so far?
Seymour: Yeah, not bad, only two days in. I think it's a bit of a mismatch coz we're not very Sonic Mooky, we feel like square pegs really. But we don't ever feel like we fit in with anything so..I dunno, it's probably ok. It's weird coz it's the first time we've done a support tour, it's strange being under dogs when we're usually headlining. We're usually headlining in tacky toilets that no one wants to see us in anyway. But it's ok, it beats sitting at home, which is what we wanted to avoid.
So do you enjoy touring then?
S: Yeah we love it, it's brilliant coz you get to meet people more than anything and go to places. I mean we come from the most boring town in the world, with the exception of Mildenhall. We stared the band to escape the boredom of living in a shit town, so bands that whinge about going on tour we think are idiots coz they've obviously forgotten how crappy life is when you haven't got everything laid out on a plate for you like they have.
Do you think your attitude will change the bigger you get?
S: It depends how much cocaine we take I imagine! I don't know, I hope not, I love it anyway, I mean, I'm kipping on our bass player's floor at the moment, haven't had a home of me own for years so the whole idea of home for me doesn't really mean anything. Home is where my mates are and I'm on the road with them. So I guess, I've no reason to get homesick, I hate where I come from so being anywhere else is better. I've got a couple of friends back in Bury that I miss but they keep sending me amusing text messages so god bless technology.
The tour's with Liars, what do you think of them and the whole emergence of new American bands?
S: They're nice blokes, it's just..it's not them I'm suspicious of, it's the whole NME culture of cool thing. To NME, we're not cool, and hopefully we never will be cool, but I feel sorry for bands like the Liars as people will be interested in them for about 5 minutes and then something else will be considered cool and they'll forget about them which I think is a shame as I think they've got a lot to offer, certainly a very interesting band, there's a lot of wicked players, but it's just a shame that they're gonna get forgotten about like a lot of these bands. NME likes to create scenes, they have to have an angle on anything and the nature of pop music, in 5 minutes time they're gonna find something else they consider more interesting so they can sell. You pick it up every week and read about the best band in the world, the best band in the world blah blah blah, and in the end the effect is like being shouted at by a Socialist Worker Party member, you switch off to it, no one fucking cares, it's a shame, but the NME destroys bands that way. They do a lot more damage by saying a band is good then when they say a band is bad. They put you in the 'scene with no name' feature, what did you think about that and the other bands in it?
S: It's nice to be written about, at least with that scene it was Mark Beaumont and Steven Wells kind of pissing around but unfortunately people are taking it seriously. People are 'well this is definitely a scene, the NME said so', and it's like, but they were taking the piss. 'All of these bands having nothing in common, we need an angle, so lets make one up,' at least they were honest. They're my two favourite NME writers anyway, Mark Beaumont and Swells so I'd rather have something made up about me by them than anyone else. But we're not part of anything, We've never been part of anything. Who've been your favourite people to tour with?
S: Antihero. they're lovely and they rock. That's that really.
Did you enjoy the recording process when it came to the album?
S: Yeah I love it, its really fun. Coz when we play live it's very aggressive coz we love it and we're drunk and then we get to go into the studio and I enjoy it, I know it sounds like a tragic muso wankey thing to say, but we really do enjoy making music! So it's nice to hear, I think we're very good at what we do, so it's nice to have some proof!
Have you got it sounding how you envisaged?
S: Yeah, and Gav our producer is the best bloke in the world, he's one of my heroes, he's worked with The Smiths and Terris and Jesus And Mary Chain, people I really rate, so it's all good. and I can get away with...he's made me sound like I can play guitar...it's quite good actually, look I can play guitar! And I play live and I'm rubbish...yeah alcohol! yeah..I'm rambling today, I really really have had too much to drink.
It's got further than The Dawn Parade interview where I managed to ask the same question three times and still never got to the end of it!
S: Trying to get a straight answer out of Greg..he goes on and on and on...Greg will argue that the sky is pink, the sky is green and the grass is blue. I phoned him up when they were in Peel and recorded the whole song going 'YOU'RE ON THE RADIO, FUCKING HELL! HOW GOOD IS THAT?!?'
Well we tried to do the interview the day they had all their clothes stolen....
S: I know, 9 days in the same clothes, Greg never changes his clothes anyway. They deserve a break. That's the thing, you get bands like The Dawn Parade who aren't part of the trendy London thing, the trendy fucking London wankers, and so don't get written about, no one's gonna give them any attention, apart from the fanzine's, coz they're being done for the right reasons. That's the thing that really pisses me off, there are several people on this tour, who are just fucking hangers on, useless fucking cunts, people who don't like music, they like the idea of music, as long as it's whatever's gonna make you look cool.

The NME are writing about us but not lavishing us with praise. I think we've got a good deal out of that, if they do what they did with The Vines for us, The Vines don't deserve the hype they've got. It's such a tabloid way of writing about things and it isn't the way to write about music. If I wanted to read tabloid shit I'd buy The Sun, why do they insult my intelligence every week with this fucking 'sensational news' and there's no need to write about it like that coz I'm interested in it anyway. I wanna read about it without this fucking clever clever sixth form fucking shmindie wank attitude they have, it's bollocks. I hate the way they write about things, so patronising, they underestimate they're audience, they really do. Kerrang's probably better but at least Kerrang's gleefully dumb. It's still immensely patronising but...i miss Melody Maker, I loved Melody Maker towards the end. I hated it for years and then all of a sudden it became brilliant, maybe that's what happens when you produce a corrupt publication, you get shut down. But Rock Sound's really good, Rock Sound seems to have the fanzine attitude, I don't care what it is. NME, it's like Hello, if you see a copy you're gonna read it, even though you'll hate everything in it, 'ooh Kylie Minogue bought some shoes', why do I care if Kylie Minogue bought some shoes?!? you're finding it really fascinating in a grim way, it's almost necrophiliac, this obsession with 2D characters, the whole tabloid culture is so bizzarre, because it's not real. But these people are real, that's the thing. You know i'm fucking indie wanker nobody and people talk to me like I'm special. 'I can't believe I'm talking to you,' what do you mean you can't believe you're talking to me? I'm real. 'but I've looked at pictures of you'. I've looked at pictures of my mum but I'm not overawed at the dinner table.
Well perhaps if it'd been pictures of your mum....
S: Yeah, if it'd been pictures of my mum.....but that's another story. Yeah, it's really strange, you know these people are real. Oh look, Kylie Minogues bought some shoes, Kylie Minogues buying shoes..why is that? Everyone buys shoes or you wouldn't have any shoes, unless you nick them. That'd be better 'Kylie Minogue nicks some shoes from a tramp,beats him round the head with a umbrella, then urinates in his face, then gives him some coffee.' I love pop music, I have no problem with pop bands, as there is a time and place...Britney Spears isn't the enemy, Travis are the enemy....
You pushed Neil Primrose into that swimming pool!
S: Shhh! I'll get found out! But as far as I'm concerned, pop music's great, if you don't like pop music, you don't like life. A lot of it's shit, Boyzone, fucking Gareth Gates, Will Young, that's all wank coz it's dull and bland, that's the enemy of pop but Britney Spears, people actually produce great pop music, like Take That, they were fucking wonderful band. You hear Take That in a club and you're like 'yeah, love this song!'. You should love them really, everyone loves them coz they were great. They're not the enemy , the enemy are people like Travis and Starsailor and Stereophonics, people who produce music that's like functional coffee table status. They're the ones that have to be worked out, they're the ones that are dragging people away from decent music. And Limp Biscuit, the whole nu-metal scene is the most patronising thing ever, that whole repackaged hatred, they're the enemy, 30 year old men whinging about their mums coz they made them tidy their bedroom, is fucking sad. Jonathon Davis I wouldn't care if he was run over by a bus tomorrow, I'd laugh, then he'd have something to fucking whinge about. Fucking hate them all, whinging fucking Americans! But you know, I think it's amazing that people think it's a novelty that we say anything that matters.
Why should people buy the album?
S: Coz it's great! Because it's the best album....it's fucking great. And it's what the world needs right now and it's gonna cure all the ills of the world and make it a beautiful place for our children and if you buy it, it'll make you the most popular person in the world and you'll have loads of friends and people will want to have sex with you. Random strangers will just walk up and try and knob you.
That'll be a good quote for the posters!
S: Whether you're a boy or girl, its gonna be beautiful.
How diverse are musical tastes with in the group?
S: We're all into everything, they take the piss out of my music tastes, I'm into people like Strange Love, and they all really like the Manics...
That's never been done before, a Manics reference in a MBA article...
S: It's a bit of an over sight really, the things about the Manics comparisons, they're the only other band that will say what they believe with a passion, it's sad that other bands don't do that. Apart from Bono, but I'd hate to come a cross like that. U2 are a big influence. Obviously with the guitar stuff we like the Pistols, as they were, before that cunt Rotten....before they pissed on everything they created and said 'we don't care, we were only in it for the money'. Wankers, no you fucking weren't. Destroyed everything that punk was supposed to stand for. Not that punk was supposed to stand for anything, that whole attitude of just fuck everybody....i really hope I die before I get old and stupid, and they're really ugly too, put it away. Anyway, The Clash, I think that whole punk rock thing we're really into. We met at a drum and bass night, Gish djs drum and bass, Neil does hiphop, Gish has a side project which is like Aphex Twin. My Bloody Valentine, me and Gish are well into Radiohead, Tori Amos is my big hero, PJ Harvey, Le Tigre, Suede, any one particularly fabulous. When I first started writing songs I wanted to be like Tori Amos with guitar, coz she's fantastic. I wish I could touch people like she touched me coz she's saved my life more times than I care to think about.
Why do you think the UK is lacking in intelligent, inspiring bands like you and the manics who aren't afraid to say what they think?
S: Coz it's not cool to care. People are of the opinion that saying something somehow dangerous, it's an understandable attitude coz we're brought up with it. You start out wide eyed, wanting to change the world, most people are dead by the time they get to 16, they're had the ambition sucked out of them, they don't feel they can do anything they want to do. You ask a 5 year old what they wanna be and they say dancer or circus performer, scientist, time travel or astronaught. By the time you get to 16, you're in stacking shelves, coz that's what you been led to believe they can do. That's why people stay quiet coz they don't know how to voice it or think they should just stay quiet . We aim to redress the balance, I don't know if we'll manage. I don't know if we'll be the next big thing, obviously we got into it to be gigantic, I don't know how it'll go for us but we've got nothing better to do it the meantime.
Would you sign to a major label?
S: To a major indie one yeah but not a major, if we were going to sign anything we'd have to make sure we'd not be ripped off and we could do what we wanted, but we know it wouldn't happen if we signed to a major. We wouldn't want to be touring massive venues we thought were shit, or releasing singles we though were shit or working with producers we thought were shit. We don't want that, we have to believe in what we're doing, and at the moment we do believe in what we're doing, so even though I can't afford to go to the pub to buy a pit of beer, or buy a record or buy anything and I'm sleeping on our bass player's floor, and eat whatever..it's still better than having to do something I hate. Otherwise I'd be working in a bank or there abouts.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
S: JESUS! any where really, Tori Amos..as much from things I love as things I hate, you need to know what you hate...I talk about hate but I dunno if I really hate anything or any one particularly....actually I hate about 3 people, I think the biggest inspiration just came from total boredom from living in Bury St Edmunds and being told we weren't going to amount to anything. I remember Gish being told by a teacher when we were 12, that if he hung around with me he'd never amount to anything and he should avoid me. I was a hyperactive child so fair point, but that whole attitude, it's soul destroying, you can understand why people don't care, but there is another way.....and that way is the Lord. I love taking the piss out of Jesus, I bet he would have been the best drinking buddy in the world, for one thing you'd never need to buy wine, 'eh eh Jesus, there's some water', it'd be like getting pissed with a jedi, 'oi Skywalker, do that thing where you make the ship float'. Brett Eastern Ellis is my favourite author, his books are like life changing landmark moments, I read The Informers and it was like being slapped round the face with a big frozen fish, it just made you think Jesus! Fight Club, saw that, saw Fight Club and American Beauty in the same week, a good week for movies, I saw American Beauty and cried my eyes out for about half an hour afterwards. Everything. That's inspiration. The air that I breath, children playing in the meadow. And loads and loads of booze.
What would you have on your epitaph?
S: we're doomed, let's fuck.
How would you describe Miss Black America and how are you going to set the world alight with your music?
S: I'd describe Miss Black America as like a collision of planets made of sound, a sort sharp shock, the tunnel at the end of the light, a big biscuit covered in homous .
Gish: A chocolate biscuit or something savoury?
S: homous is the ketchup of the Greek world, it goes with anything. We're a wake up call to the people that have been sleeping in late every day, we're, I don't know! We're like an absinthe enema.
G: We're a bunch of stropy kids from Bury St Edmunds that have got nothing better to do than go out and piss off everybody else.
S: That's it's really. We're like U2.....
G: Without Jesus as a front man.....
S: And probably collectively bigger cunts. We're cunts. There you go. Put that. What's the next bit? How are we gonna set the world alight?
G: Cover it in petrol....
S: Mearly by being fantastic.

So we end and Seymour disappears to see how much he can get for an album promo, 'Some guy wanted to buy it...shall I try and make £50? We could throw in Mickey as well for that price...' Miss Black America, hard touring, hard drinking, Jesus lovers. God Bless them indeed.

The album, 'God Bless Miss Black America' is out now on Integrity Records. Check out www.missblackamerica.net

Feeling lost?