From Springfield with Love...
Being as easily amused as small child at Christmas, I’ve always tended to love bands with faintly amusing names – ‘The Yummy Furs’ (snigger), ‘Japandroids’ (guffaw), ‘Roy Division’ (somebody stop me). Presumably the exact same strand of my uncomplicated DNA encourages a partiality to hummable, easily digested power-pop.
Imagine then how palpably excited I was upon learning that Springfield, Missouri tykes Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin had returned with a brand new record, the ripsnortingly catchy ‘Let It Sway’. Excited enough to hunt them down and ask them about it (and a bunch of other things), that’s how.
Important matters first: what’s in the name? I’m sure you get this one a lot.
We were teenagers. We thought it would be good idea to have a really long band name. Boris Yeltsin was in the news a lot because everyone was making fun of his alcoholism and political ineptitude. We used his name without thinking anything about it. He was a terrible president, so I'm sure we've offended a lot of people.
You guys are originally from Springfield, Missouri – is there much of a burgeoning indie scene there? Do you think you found it tougher not being East or West coast boys and tied to a big city?
In the 1950s there was a nationally televised music show in Springfield called The Ozark Jubilee. Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash appeared on it regularly. Also, Jonathan Richman recorded an album here with a Springfield band called the Skeletons in the '80s. It's called 'Jonathan Goes Country' and I recommend it highly.
Anyway, I think the internet makes it somewhat irrelevant where you're from. My life has been too busy lately to think about the scenes in Brooklyn and LA. I'm sure they have cooler jeans, but mine were really cheap.
There have been some positive reviews flying around for the new record – what do you classify as ‘success’ for the record’s performance (either critically or commercially). Please don’t say “we’re just doing this for ourselves and anything else is a bonus”…
It would be really great if this record could take us to new places like Japan or Brazil. Or even back to Beloit, Wisconsin. We really like playing there. Also, it would be cool to play at a festival with bands we like. I'd like to tour with Free Energy, in case they are reading this. Success would also mean hiring a robot to do all of our social networking for us.?
Is it still day jobs and driving your own tour bus, or have things moved on from the early days?
Yeah, we still have to have real jobs when we're at home and we drive our own bus. I think that's the scariest part because we're all bad drivers. Hopefully we'll hire a different robot to drive us everywhere when our next album comes out. Or the robot can give you a ride to Springfield and we'll play a show for you here.
Who are your fave bands doing the rounds at the moment? Any Missouri starlet we haven’t heard of yet?
I was hoping you would ask! My new favorite band is called New Monsters Collective – my sister plays keyboard and writes all the songs for them. They have a new album out which is better than ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’. And I loved that album with all of my heart.
“If our new record were the equivalent of one ‘classic’ record from the past 50 years, it would be...”?
‘Rocks’ by Aerosmith because they both start out with ‘Back in the Saddle’. I wanted to call our song ‘Back in the Saddle by Aerosmith’. I figured we would get a lot of hits on Google and iTunes. But nobody else in the band thought it was a good idea and our lawyer said we could get sued.
Bummer.
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's new album 'Let It Sway' is out now on Polyvinyl. The band will be playing Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen on the 11th of October.
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