At the last Laissez Faire Club night at The Legion I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview The Vanguard. For those who dont know The Vanguard are a American band who played their first ever gigs in the UK a couple of weeks ago.

I strongly advise you all to take a listen to the music on the Myspace page (The link is at the bottom). The band consist of Aaron, David, Luke and Rasko.

01. This being your first time in the UK how has it been for you being in a country you have never been to before?

L: For some of us it is our first time in the UK and we didn’t know what to expect and its been wonderful absolutely wonderful. The people are really nice. The places we have been playing have been excellent. Laissez Faire Club has been wonderful to us booking all these shows together.

R: It’s great.

D: To summarise he’s been sleeping like 13 hours a day so it’s been great for him.

A: It’s great weather for sleeping really good weather.

02. Who would you say your musical influences are?

A: Mine change every week, but we like going back and forth.

D: There’s been a lot from oldies like The Beatles.

A: Zepplin.

D: What I mean I almost don’t listen to any of that stuff. Now I listen to Cut Copy and Hot Chip those are my influences right now.

03. If you were to collaborate with anyone dead or alive who would it be and why?

R: Jay Z for sure.

L: For me it would be Sigur Rós. I would just love to get in a studio with all of them.

D: Ringo (Starr).

04. What made you want to start a band?

A: That’s a toughie, maybe I don’t know if this is the right answer but I didn’t know what else to do really.It’s like the only thing I’m good at.

L: We all just have a passion for music and it’s kind of undeniable. We met and it’s been really good since.

05. Describe your music in 3 words?

R: Crazy, sexy, cool.

L: I say fun, uplifting.

D: Groovy.

06. Where do you get your inspiration from when writing songs?

L: A lot of times people are in the studio up late and they’ll come up with a little tidbit and that later on gets jump around from person to person and then it becomes a song later on.

D: We generally rehearse a lot. We come out with a bunch of ideas and I record them and we just turn them into songs.

A: Once a song is done it’s like ahh.

L: Next.

A: Whenever we nail that melody, the melody is there and it becomes like a little button and we go from there.

07. Favourite song to sing live and why?

A: I think Both Sides for me. With that we can bring people on and it kinda creates a fun, positive, party atmosphere. So people know it and they can sing with us or dance to it

D: We have a great video to it too.

L: For me it’s Take You Out. The song is completely different from our style and when we play usually people at first are you can see they don’t expect it and it’s nice to see when they all get into it. It’s not like a dancy, party up song. People just kinda fall into it  and start dancing along and it’s really nice.

08. What was it like to play at SXSW?

A: It was crazy it was kind of like a game change at that place. All these different bands come from all over the place and they play on one little strip. Everywhere you look is music. You walk in the middle, you cant really talk on the phone because there is music coming from everywhere.

D: There’s just a full shoot of people going by non stop. Non stop for hours and hours. No cars just people, people, people, people and you have bars where music plays. When  music is played people just stop by and hear them.

L: And the best thing is that it’s bar next to bar next to bar next to bar. There are so many bars next to each other and every single bar has a band playing. Sometimes there are bars that have a terrace as well so there’s bands up on top of the roof playing as well as inside. So you just walk a few steps and you hear different styles of music.

R: Basically it’s like a big party. The whole city is a big party for four days.

09. Who is your favourite singer or band at the moment?

D: Cut Copy.

A: The National.

R: Jay Z.

L: Friendly Fires.

10. What tips do you offer to any one wanting to start a band?

L: If you are really going to do it put everything and every single gig no matter what even if there is only 2 people there play your hearts out.

D: Make sure you find the right band mates that you really want to play with, you really want to hang out with and party with because you are going to spend a lot of time with them.

11. Tell us a little about the new EP Playtime?

L: We went through hell and water to get it done, recorded and mastered. Ben Fox was our engineer.

D: We did the design, everything for it.

L: We made the little dolls and there is 6 songs on there. We are very proud they are our little babies.

A: We are really happy with it. We are so happy with the way it came out. I’m happy with everything about it.