An edited version of this interview will be broadcast on Livewire, the radio station at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and a radio show in Sydney, Australia as well. I've tried my best to transcribe the entire, unedited interview, so bear with the awkward parts and enjoy! The interviewers are myself (Katie), a longtime Phantom Planet fan from Chicago, and Lisa, a brand new fan from Sydney.

May 4th. Islington, London.

It's an exciting time for Phantom Planet. Their success in the UK and beyond seems imminent. The well-known NME and Q magazines have just done features on them. Their live shows have been building quite a buzz around London. They embark on an intense twenty-day sweep of Europe tomorrow. "California" is poised for release in the UK the day after that. Fans have traveled from as far away as Florence, Italy to see them this weekend. The band is about to be whisked from their hotel to the Camden Barfly for the last of a three-night stint of London gigs, but Alex, Sam and Jacques are nice enough to sit down with us and answer a few questions first.


Lisa: We'll start with, I guess, an introduction, since none of our listeners probably really know who you are yet--

Jacques: Why not, huh??

Lisa: --not to offend you guys or anything.

Sam: None taken.

Katie: I did write a wonderful review of the album for the station...

Jacques: Thank you.

Sam: Nice going.

Lisa: Ok, first question. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourselves? In the vein of the Spice Girls, if you had to give each member of the band a character…

Jacques: In the vein of the Spice Girls? This interview is OVER!
[laughter]

Lisa: Noooo, you know what I mean. Five members, that's a lot to handle. Can you just briefly give us a description of each member?

Jacques: Alex is Le Voix.

Alex: Well, if we're…..we're all Sexy Spice, how about that?
[laughter]

Katie: Is there a Sexy Spice?

Jacques: Well, isn't it obvious???

Sam: There should be. Let's see. Jason's crazy, and sort of like Animal from Muppets. Darren is… how do you describe Darren?

Alex: Uh, crazy, like Animal from the Muppets!

Jacques: [laughing] Yes! [pause] Sam is definitely crazy. Like Animal from the Muppets.

Sam: Yeah, I'm a lunatic….like from the Muppets.
[silence]

Jacques: What about me??

Sam: Jacques's the--

Alex: --You're Kermit from the Muppet Babies period--

Jacques: --Thanks!!

Alex: --and I'm the nanny, 'cause you only see my socks.

Sam: Ahh, very true.

Lisa: So the Muppets have been a huge influence on the band then, I take it?

Jacques: Definitely! The Muppet Movie, The Muppet Caper…

Sam and Jacques: The Muppets Take Manhattan!

Lisa: Treasure Island…can't forget that.

Alex: Anything Jim Henson oriented, I think, actually influences the band.

Sam: Yes, definitely.

Jacques: Sesame Street…the Dark Crystal…

Sam: Yep. What else?

Alex: The painful drug addiction that he kept under wraps for years…
[laughter]

Jacques: The dark Henson.

Katie: All right, well, this is your second time in the UK, right?

Everyone: Yes.

Katie: How are you liking it so far?

Sam: It's great.

Jacques: (in fake British accent) It's fucking wicked!

Alex: (at the same time, jokingly) Bo-ring.

Jacques: (still with the accent) It's the dog's!

Lisa: Thank you for giving me severe editing jobs…

Sam: Sorry about that. [laughter] Nah, it's been great!

Jacques: What, we can't swear? Fuck shit motherfucker bitch.

Sam: Uh oh.

Lisa: Yeah, we'll get really bad reviews and I'll just play that over and over again! [laughter] Can you tell us, is there a huge difference between playing to a US audience and a UK audience?

Sam: Very much so, but, it's starting to turn out like a US crowd already. But, basically, the first time we were here, there was no…like we walked out and no one's heard of us or anything like that. And the difference is that they didn't cheer us on or anything, it was sort of like, "who the hell are these guys?" You know, there were crickets in the audience and stuff… But then by the end of the show, everyone's cheering and laughing and having a good time, so…

Jacques: Yeah, instead of yelling, "You suck!", they say "WANKER!!"

Lisa: Don't you have "wanker" in the US?

Sam: No, that's definitely not a word we have.

Lisa: Ahh, ok.

Katie: Have you had any trouble adjusting? Any funny incidents, words messed up? I dunno, when I came here, I was kind of messing up with the different phrases…

Sam: Yeah, but we kind of laugh about that. I like messing up, the differences are great.

Lisa: Ok, the best gig you've ever played. In the US or the UK, just overall, and why do you think it was the best gig?

Jacques: Le Voix?

Sam: Yeah, you answer that one.

Alex: Umm, I think progressively our last show has been our best gig. I feel like we keep getting better and better.

Lisa: What was your last show?

Everyone: Last night.

Alex: We just played the Astoria [Note: The Astoria is one of London's most famous mid-sized concert venues] . With the Goo Goo Dolls.

Katie: How'd you like the Astoria?

Jacques: It was great.

Sam: So many people, it was so great.

Alex: Excellent-looking venue, for sure.

Sam: Yeah, the soundboard was in this like, space-age looking capsule thing, it was really cool.

Lisa: What's been your response to the British music press, because you've had a lot of exposure in NME and Q and stuff…

Sam: Well, it seems they like us, which is really cool.

Jacques: It's been positive, yeah. We're very fortunate.

Lisa: Is it too much to handle? Like, with The Vines, they're from Australia…but in Australia, nobody's heard of The Vines. And you come over here and they're selling out shows all of the sudden, and I just thought that was really really weird. Is that a lot to deal with? Coming from a relatively…well, I don't even know how well-known you are in the US, I don't mean to offend you by saying that [they all interject: "oh, no no no!!"], but not being like, a huge band in the US, coming over to the UK and getting these good reviews and all of the sudden all these people who've never heard you, like me, are going to your shows?

Sam: It's just flattering, you know? It's great, feels like we're doing something right, you know?

Lisa: It hasn't been too much at all?

Alex: No, we were prepared for this….[laughter]……just kidding.

Jacques: We watched A Hard Day's Night…
Katie: There you go. Any plans to do a Phantom Planet movie?

Sam: Not at the moment.

Alex: No, but I wanted Mel Gibson to play me in the movie.

Lisa: Well, that's a good question. If you were going to do a movie about yourself, what actor would be playing each member of the band?

Jacques: I would want Jay Z to play me.

Sam: Yeah.

Katie: Oh, definitely!

Lisa: Um, WHY?

Jacques: 'Cause I think that if you took a picture of him and me and put 'em close together…strong resemblance.

Sam: Striking resemblance, yep.

Alex: And they both have the same sort of luck with women…interpret that how you will.
[laughter]

Katie: You guys are kind of known for your onstage antics, like Alex always ends up doing some kind of acrobatic manoeuvre --hanging from ceilings, or I saw you do a handstand the other night. So are you planning on incorporating…anybody have any hidden talents or anything that you're going to put on stage?

Sam: Any what? I'm sorry.

Katie: Hidden talents, party tricks?

Alex: When we get some more money, we're going to have a trapeze installed for Sam, 'cause he…it's his first love--

Sam: --Yeah, it was.

Alex: --He actually grew up in the circus.

Sam: I haven't done it in awhile, but I'll practice.

Lisa: How about choreography? Like, you know...boy bands?

Alex: We have, we've thought about it, but it takes all the fun out of the…the sort of spontaneous…spontaneity that a show can only bring.

Katie: You have your single coming out here on Monday, "California". Can you tell us why you have that as your single and what's it say about the band?

Alex: It tells everybody where we're from.

Katie: Is that, kind of, the image you were going for?

Alex: Not necessarily, it's not really thought out that way. It just seems like the right song to put out at the moment, just like a good introductory…song.

Sam: Yeah. And we drew out (?) a lot of our friends and they seemed to think that was a pretty good one. A good introduction to the band.

Lisa: 'Cause from my perspective, you seem like a really American band--

Sam: --Well, we are.

Lisa: --But what I'm asking is, to a really strong extent, do you feel that? That you're a really American band?

Alex: Only when we're outside of the country.
[laughter]

Jacques: That's kind of a weird question, because are there American bands that aren't really American bands?

Sam: Well, I think in America, we get called like, very heavily British.

Lisa: Really?

Sam: Yeah, all of our songs --all of our heroes, I should say-- are British. We all grew up listening to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and--

Jacques: --Handel.

Alex: Handel? Joseph Handel?

Jacques: Franz Joseph Handel.

Lisa: You're from California…do you think there's a California sound? Now they're saying there's like a New York sound, with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes and all those bands…. Do you think there's one for LA?

Jacques: I just think there's really good music coming out of anywhere. You know, like, there's good music coming out of Nebraska, you know, there's good music coming out of everywhere, and for some reason, people love to categorize music…whether or not you're emo, or you're New York, or you're California... I guess it's just easy for people to do stuff like that.

Lisa: You just said there's lots of good music coming out, what do you think is good music at the moment? Besides yourselves, of course.

Sam: The Hives, and The Shins, and The Strokes, and The White Stripes--

Alex: --Go for another "The"! Quick, Sam!
[laughter]

Sam: Uhhh--

Jacques: --The Faint!

Sam: The Faint, yeah. Uhh…The Realistics!

Alex: The Washdown (?), we could go for some more "The"s here…

Jacques: The Like!

Sam: The Like, yep.

Lisa: Has there been an album that you've bought recently that's just blown you away and made you think "God, we'd like to emulate that sound"?

Alex: We're not in our emulation phase at this point--

Jacques: --Not yet.

Alex: --But if anything, I was happy to hear that Fagersta, Sweden, you know, had The Hives coming out of it and had such a kind of crazy, raw sound that you don't really hear that often in such a melodic, maybe… intelligent, way. You don't hear that anywhere, and for a long time.

Katie: So where are you all heading next? What's the plan?

Everyone: We're going to Sweden tomorrow.

Katie: All right!

Sam: Funny, right?

Alex: Yeah, like the segue there?

Sam: That was a nice segue! And then after that we do Norway and then Italy and Germany and Switzerland and Austria and… all places we've never been to before!

Jacques: (to Lisa) And Australia.

Alex: We're staying far away from communist Russia.

Sam and Jacques: [laughing] Yes.

Lisa: Oh god.

Katie: Any plans to come back to the UK?

Sam: I'm sure there's a whole bunch of festivals and stuff that hopefully we'll get invited to.

Katie: And where can people go to get information about that?

Sam: phantomplanet.com

Lisa: For the Australian audience, you just mentioned that you're coming to Australia? When is that?

Jacques: July, end of July.

Lisa: Ah, good stuff. Is that a promo tour? Are you actually, like playing anywhere, or don't know yet?

Alex: We're playing a few shows, I think.

Sam: Yeah, OZ…Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Katie: All right. Well, thanks a lot!

Jacques: Hey, thank you!

Sam: Thank you.

Alex: Thanks for having us.

Jacques: Buy our record.

Sam: Buy our record.
[laughter]