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Interview
by SashaS
9-7-2004
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More on: Young Heart Attack
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| YHA: quintet digs/blasts sexy rock music |
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Pulp faction
YHA - reclaiming rock's old feelgood
On the way into the venue we spot the Young Heart Attack’s mainman, Chris Hodge, walking out; their tour manager, upon informing him, goes into a mild panic attack but we don’t complain because we can talk with the other vocalist, Jennifer Stephens. The slight snag is that she is tired and would rather spend her pre-soundcheck period asleep... Finally, but reluctantly, Jen agrees to a talk but, unfortunately for us, it turns out to be a short spell.
“Rest is… never enough,” she confides huskily from the bench, “because we play energetic shows, get up early, go to bed late… And, it is been going on for three years, almost non-stop. But, once you are on stage, it is great and getting better. More people come to the shows and know all our songs, there is a rapport…”
One’s impression at your shows is that you enjoy it as much as the audience?
“Yeah, we love it,” she lights a cigarette. “We are having good time and enjoying ourselves as well as laughing at ourselves… It’s fun, you should never let it get too serious, a job.”
“There is no middle ground with us,” Hodge adds later, “we are totally into what we are doing. We share joy from stage and the operating word for us is - L-I-V-E. The turning point for me was seeing Otis Redding’s performance, on video, and realised - ‘Oh, my God! He is a real badass!’ Also all the Motown live records, they all were having fun!”
We then mention Ray Charles whose death was announced earlier in the day and he says that he had listened to him because his father was a great fan.
The ultimate impiety
Nostalgia vs. retro-futurism: The Darkness, to whom this band is often compared with are laconic, just for fun, Rock’n’Roll’s ‘Pink Panther’; YHA is a serious salvo of rock missiles that awakens long dormant sense of rebellion. Cloning vs. capturing [spirits]: proud lineage of MC5, Velvet Underground, Iggy & The Stooges, Thin Lizzy…
And YHA appear to know (instinctively?) Thomas Wolfe’s maxim that you can’t go home again! Their debut album ‘Mouthful of Love’ contains no compromises, no false pretences, no gimmicks, no tokens to showbiz: the female songstress has voice, power and presence combining looks of young, as we mentioned in our gig review, Olivia Newton-John with Jayne Mansfield-type proportions and Janis Joplin‘s calibre talent and projection.
Reviewing your previous London show I remarked that you’d be a perfect casting for Janis Joplin’s biopic, instead of Pink?
“Yeah, I’ve read that,” she smiles broadly, “thank you very much. I admire Janis, she is the first idol I’ve ever had, just amazing. It would be nice to play her but nobody knows me in Hollywood.”
“Jen would be good,” concurs singer upon his return. “They usually get some hot young thing and Pink is hot right now… But, Jen looks much better than Janis…”
The band’s techs start loud set-up and Chris and I leave Jen, to get back to her resting, by heading for the empty bar area.
“We are all about raw power,” Hodge decides not to eat food he went out to get, “that’s where it’s always been with me. I’ve always been into aggressive bands, punk and hardcore but also my parents and brothers’ collections… Like Kiss, I’ve always liked that band, or Bad Brains, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC…“
It can easily be heard in your music, an encomium rather than a pastiche?
“I hope so,” Chris says obviously aware that ‘Encomium’ was the title of a tribute Led Zeppelin LP. “It all reflects in our music and we don’t hide it, we celebrate the greatest Rock’n’Roll.”
Rock cathedral
YHA = Youth’s hard-nosed association; Youth helping aggression; Your haven a-Live! Young horny asses…
The Austin five-piece’s live show can cause a heart tremor because it hits you like the 21-gun salute! Good-time rockers, not a guerrilla unit, but still managing to bring the industrial barriers near its original level of passion. Their gigs overflow with rockism, never falling short on lust-for-rock, invested with every ounce of riffs, shouts and general noises of bonhomie. And, that’s only the band!
Their crime is trying to evoke the emotions our grand- and/or parents knew so well but it got lost through the rock’s self-indulgent phases. The sound of the metropolitan decay, the last days of Rock-Babylon.
“When you come to our show you enter a sonic bubble,” Chris continues to expend on his rockology, “it takes you in, makes you forget everything but what is inside the bubble, that is our religion. That‘s what is all about…”
Still, you get grouped in with ‘retro-rock’ crowd, such as The Darkness?
“People get pre-conceptions about acts,” Hodge reasons, “and it is up to the artists to change that. We hope we rejuvenate the genre and are not just copyists… The only way for people to check it out is by coming to our show and listening to our records; back home in Austin, people thought we were just retro-rockers as we’d used to play southern boogie type of music but when people heard the album they realised it was something else.”
You collaborated with Lemmy [Motorhead’s mainmain is a major fan] for your B-side; whom would you really like to jam with?
“Jimmy Page,” comes a reply after a prolonged silence, “but as he was back in the 1970s. I’d also like to work with Paul Stanley, because he and Kiss have always been a major influence on me. When I was at school we’d have a field-day at the end of the year and I’d always have face painted like Paul’s. I emulated a lot of Kiss… My dad used to film me miming, with a cut-out guitar, to Kiss and The Beatles… My parents bought me a drum set in the third grade…”
Wouldn’t it be funny if you were to duet with Robert Plant, it could be like father and son?
“A lot of people say I look like Plant,” Hodge shakes his golden locks, “or Peter Frampton. It’s not something I can do a lot about…”
YHA were due for a break before touring Australia with MC5 [“MC3”, joked Chris] before returning for dates at Carling Weekend at Reading and Leeds. Your hormonal awakening is guaranteed!
SashaS
9-7-2004
Young Heart Attack’s single ‘Starlite’ is released 05 July 2005 by XL Recordings
YHA’s album ‘Mouthful of Love’ is available now on the same label
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