Catching Up With... The Go! Team

“We’re a right miserable band, aren’t we?” laughs The Go! Team founder Ian Parton when asked what new music he doesn’t find absolutely dull. Since its 2004 debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike!, the Brighton-based six-piece has been a gust of funky-fresh air — a breeze carrying double-dutch rhymes and garage band buzz through open windows on radiant summer Saturdays. Paste spoke with Parton in mid-August about his group's new album, Proof of Youth, which comes out Tuesday (Sept. 11) on Sub Pop.

“It’ll be interesting to see how people react to it,” he says of the new record. “I’m fully expecting there to be some kind of backlash, you know what I mean? [With] the first album, I didn’t read any bad reviews. So I’m really not expecting the same again. Some people will prefer it, maybe. I’m kind of past caring. You do what you do, follow your instincts and it’ll drive you mad if you listen to your critics.”

Paste: You guys just played Glastonbury. How was that?
Parton: Really cool, actually. Well, pretty miserable actually, the whole affair, cause it was just raining the whole time. Our show was pretty rockin’, I think.

Paste: On the new album, I know that you guys have a lot of guests. Does that sort of help get around the legal issues of sampling?
Parton: Yeah, it was much more of a collaboration thing. You know, one thing I liked about the first album was that there was quite a lot of variety of voices on there. I like different quality voices and accents and stuff like that. I’m in a position on the second album to actually ask people to actually work it out and stuff. The first album was really...I sort of had a job and it was kind of like a hobby for me at the time. So, there are still vocal samples on this, things I’ve hunted down on documentaries and films and such. It’s a real mix of Ninja, who’s our vocalist, and guests.

Paste: I heard that some of your other band members had a little more influence on this album.
Parton: Um, well, I still write the songs, you know, cause The Go! Team sound has a lot to do with my present tastes, I suppose. I’m the one that can kind of be asked to go to charity shops and look for records. And hunt for that elusive two seconds worth of sample. So yeah, I still write the songs. But it was more of a team effort when it came to playing it.

Paste: In the past you’ve had kids on the stage with you, what was it like actually working with kids?
Parton: It was a long distance affair. I just sent them a track and these kids like meet up after school like once a week or something. I mean they’re like 10, 11 and 12 years old. They just did their raps and I chopped it up and stuck it in the song.

Paste: Same deal with the Double Dutch Divas?
Parton: In that case, I actually flew over to New York. We went over to a studio for a day in Brooklyn. They were totally cool. Like 40, 50-year-old women, which was quite interesting as well. They all had great voices. One of them had a really amazing kind of young sounding voice and a New York accent as well. [Attempts accent] You know what I’m tawkin’ about, that kind of cute voice. Another one had a kind of authoritative, poetry reading voice.

Paste: You seem to have a real enthusiasm for chants and things like that. Did you have much experience with those growing up?
Parton: No, not particularly (laughs). I don’t know, really. I just like excitement. It’s really kind of a sonic thing for me, the excitement of getting vocals, which is what it’s all about, really. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a sucker for kind of vintage Sesame Street episodes where there are little films about seasons, those grainy little films. I have got an interest in that kind of stuff; I like the feeling of it. It’s a lot to do with feeling, I think, and excitement. And plus, it’s a reaction as well against the current indie scene, and how they all kind of meld into a uniform kind of indie sound.

Paste: With the Sesame Street thing, you mean where they’re doing the number counting stuff?
Parton: It’s not really the puppety kind of stuff, it’s more the films where they would be about the seasons or the visit to the butter factory or something like that.

Paste: I saw recently a great Sesame Street skit where they were covering a Pearl Jam song. Instead of “Don’t call me daughter,” it was, “Don’t waste the water.”
Parton: Yeah, that’s kind of one element of the sound, I suppose. I’m quite interested in how you can f— around with the idea as well and take the edge off with it with distortion and things like that. So I’m quite conscious about not being too sickly I guess. Just kind of saccharine. I think this record is more of a high-fi affair. Bit more bass going on, it’s a bit more kickin’. Bit more alive.

Paste: You’ll be able to do a much longer set now; do you have any ideas as far as the live set you’re working on?
Parton: There always was kind of a lot happening on stage. You’ve got to draw a line somewhere.

Paste: Do you draw the line at pyrotechnics?
Parton: We were thinking about that, but it’s a bit White Snake.

Paste: There’s a new song on Proof of Youth called "The Wrath of Marcie." Does that have anything to do with the subordinate, be-spectacled peanuts character?
Parton: Ah yeah, I like the name. I like the combination of the word “wrath,” you know, really angry sounding, with a name you wouldn’t think of as angry.

Paste: Do people dance to your satisfaction?
Parton: Sometimes it totally kicks off. Scottish crowds have the best. Glasgow ones, with superhumanly...sometimes we barely hear ourselves play. When we first played in New York, that was kind of a challenge. We pissed some people off.

Paste: How can you possibly piss anyone off?
Parton: People get annoyed with Ninja, which is understandable, sometimes when she bullies folks. I’m really into the clash of worlds we have as a band, you know, where we’re forcing two things together which haven’t been. It is kind of welding that wave-your-hands-in-the-air approach with the rocky, indie type of approach. Feedback and noise. And I’m really interested in that, but it can jar with some people.

Paste: Are there certain kinds of music you don’t think you’ve brought into it yet that you’d like to?
Parton: I’ve always been a sucker for Bollywood string, maybe work with a string section more. That kind of slightly out of tune string section. Scratching, I think the world of scratching hasn’t been explored in a conventional group too well. We were working with a scratch DJ on a few songs for this one, and some of the noises they can make are just f—ing unbelievable. And I think the sort of Linkin Park thing where you just kind of do the odd token bit of scratching doesn’t go anywhere near [skills like] making instruments like guitars not sound like guitars.

Paste: Which would you be less likely to sample, country music or Enya?
Parton: Enya, oh God, Enya. Some country stuff I’m well into. I like the string sound. I like "Wichita Lineman," that Glenn Campbell song is kind of the blueprint for the perfect song. Quite sort of break beating, lots of groovy chicka-chicka-chicka tambourine. Groovy but windswept, kind of atmospheric. You imagine greyhound journeys and, you know, fields of corn. (laughs). There’s a song called “Patricia’s Moving Picture” on this album which has that midnight cowboy, kind of windswept...

Paste: Greyhound corn sound, which it will now be referred to as?
Parton: Call it stationwagoncore, if that’ll take off.