Fusing electro and indie to create a compelling yet dark sound, Wonderfully Courteous Gentlemen are a force to be reckoned with. With effect laden vocals the synth fuelled tunes are also dangerously catchy. We took time to talk with them to find out more.

You played the dance arena at this years Glastonbury. How did that come about?

Bridge:  We applied to the Pussy Parlure (500 capacity) and got rejected, then I think they may have left the CD lying around and someone else from the Dance Arena office heard it and booked us on the Dance Lounge (2500 capacity)-woohoo! or perhaps Jimmy Fixed It….I don’t know, either way it’s the highpoint of our lives thus far.

What else is going on for WonderfullyCourteousGentlemen in 2009?

Bridge:  Well….in the unlikely event of Eavis not booking us to play every week at the farm from now on, festival or

not…..then we shall continue with writing, playing and generally getting better at what we do. We’ve got a good following in Bristol and are starting to play across the country- we had our first London date at the end of July. We are constantly changing our setup as well, if we stay on the same thing for too long we get bored. In fact three weeks before Glastonbury we completely overhauled our setup, using samplers instead of sequencers, it basically makes it a lot harder for us, and the likelihood of mistakes much greater. The outcome is worth it though, more energy and more improvisation.

What’s the scene like in Bristol?

Bridge:  For the past few years its been quite dance-orientated- Drum ’n’ Bass, Dubstep and the infamous TripHop which is what we’ve grown up with…but electronic dance music is over twenty years old now, its not a new genre and its inevitable that bands are starting to merge with it. Despite that we still occasionally get questionable looks from other bands when we pull get out a laptop. I think they assume a laptop equals a backing track….it doesn’t. The good thing about straddling the ‘ole dance/indie fence is that we get to play club nights and band nights equally well so we see both sides of the scene in Bristol.
 
Is it an easy place to play?

Bridge:  Yes, it’s actually quite small so everyone playing and

promoting gets to know each other pretty quickly. It has Unis as well so there’s a fair amount of passing student trade… though of course with Brunel’s formidable engineering achievements there’s a lot to live up to.

Who did you work with on your debut EP, You Can Can?

Bridge:  We did it all alone. We all have experience in music tech and studio recording so we did the whole thing from start to painstaking-sometimes-laborious finish. A friend did the artwork and we got it pressed ourselves-., in fact out of 1000 we still have about 956 so if you want one…We are very pleased with it and we haven’t had a bad review yet. To be honest though, as epic as it is we’re already getting tired of it, we’ve got bigger and better things on the horizon. Though we didn’t set out to be DIY, it has happened that way. We’ve never sent it off to labels, everything just seems to be happening pretty naturally on its own.

What was the experience like?

Bridge:  Long. It took about 6 months to record 23mins of music. A bit of arguing, I am a lot less patient and will put up with things sounding a bit rough, whereas Nick and Dave are much better at tightening everything up. Between us we strike a good balance. The space in which we practice and record also provides film studio space to adult film-makers which means your day is sometimes lightened by seeing ‘actresses’ in dressing gowns.

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