Look See Proof Interview

Look See Proof Interview

19 March, 2009
by: Gemma Thomson

Camden Town: London St Patrick's Day, 10pm. I'm standing in a phone box, trying to ignore the kerfuffle caused by the passing drunken revellers in their Guinness-shaped hats. I've just watched Look See Proof's outstanding performance at Underworld and I'm preparing to interview the keyboard player, Jaime Randall.

So it's a telephone interview then? That would explain my current presence in the phone box. But alas, if only it were that simple. It's actually a face-to-face interview and, having just spent the best part of 10 minutes traipsing around the venue and its vicinity desperately searching for a suitable interview location that isn't drowned out by the sound of 14-year-old girls' collective screaming/blocking a fire escape/breaching the rules of the 'no drinks beyond this point' sign, we finally settle on the phone box.
It's not the most ideal of interview venues - it's a bit too cosy with the two of us, it smells of stale urine and there's a rather inebriated Look See Proof fan standing outside heckling my poor unsuspecting interviewee. But no matter, we soldier on nonetheless. Having remarked on the randomness of our chosen location, I check that the dictaphone is working. 'Could you speak into here please?' I ask Jaime. 'Just speak as though you're answering a question.' 'But I am answering a question', comes his quick-witted response. 'This is the most random place I've ever done an interview.' Indeed. Oh good, it's recording. So on with the interview...

That was a pretty good reception you just got there. Do you always get that kind of reaction at your London gigs?

No, never. Never in London. Maybe in Newcastle, but that's about it. Not London.

Newcastle? But you're from Hertfordshire, right? So why do you think you get such a great reaction in Newcastle?

I don't know, you just get random places that are just really good and have people who really like us, and then you get some places that don't ever like us.

Such as?

We've never done well in Cardiff. Actually that's a lie. We've done well once, but usually Cardiff isn't very good.

So where's your favourite place to perform?

Austria.

Is that because you were signed to Weekender?

Yeah, we were for the first album, so we played in Austria a lot.

And how's the second album going?

Good, we're about half way through it. We played the majority of new stuff tonight and it seemed like it was good. The sound on stage was pretty bad and you're always going to feel like you could have done better, but I think it went down well, and my best friend was stood behind me just on stage and he had a smile on his face so I guess he liked the new ones. He studied music with me in Cambridge so he knows his stuff.

You're the newest addition. How do you feel it's been going since you joined?

It's going well. Straight after I joined we did two UK shows and a whole bunch of European festivals, then we played Russia and we did a European tour and that was the first bunch of shows I did with them so it was all go straight away, and then we came back and started writing the new album.

So how do you feel the keyboards are contributing to the band's sound?

I've got the mentality that there's no point adding keyboards for the sake of adding keyboards. You should put them where they're going to be most effective. A lot of bands chuck keyboards in with the obvious doo-doo-doo-doo (he does an impression of a generic-sounding keyboard). I think it's where not to put keyboards that's the biggest choice. And I think as a whole the writing's got a lot...I don't want to say deeper, but the subject matter's getting a lot more interesting. One of the new songs is about 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

Which song?

It's called 'R. P. Murphy'.

Oh of course. That makes sense. I liked that one!

Yeah, we're just trying to keep ourselves interested in what we're doing. We're trying to push it forward in terms of what we can do.

I used to see a lot of your Hertfordshire gigs and your onstage performance was really energetic and crazy - you were jumping around all over the place, but your performance tonight seemed a little more subdued. Is that because you're focusing more on the music?

Yeah - before, with my first bunch of shows, I wasn't really playing that much keyboard because it was all the old songs, so I could essentially just go off and jump around and sing. It was a bit like Look See Proof karaoke for me. But now I'm actually having to play and stuff. I try to be as interesting as possible and jump around as much as I can, but my keyboards have so many dials I have to change for every song so I need to be on my game.

So what are the next steps?

We're half way through the album. That's what we're striving to do next. The rest of the guys are quite bitter towards the first album - they went in to record 11 songs and only finished seven. When they look back at it they don't see it in a good light. We just want to get this new album done and show people that we're good.

At this point the recording inexplicably stops for a while. From what I remember, the conversation mainly involves Jaime apologising for burping and blaming it on the falafel he just ate. Probably best I didn't get that bit on tape...

When do you expect to release your new material?

We're actually recording three new songs this week: 'R. P. Murphy', 'My Albatross' and 'We Can't Win'. We're going to record those with Andy from Get Cape and then just sit on it for a little bit, find someone to put it out, then do a little tour for it.

That sounds great. Well, thank you very much for your time. That was quite possibly the worst place to have an interview.

No problem. Let's go and get some beer!

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Gemma Thomson