Liverpool has no shortage of great artists and another one to add to the list is Outfit. They released their debut album ‘Performance’ and are due to release the next single via Double Denim Records. We caught up with the five piece ahead of their set at the 6 Music Festival.
What gave you the idea to form a band? We’ve all played a wide range of music in other bands before, from noise to techno and with a fair bit of off-kilter pop music in between. We formed this one in the hope of generating a kind of emotional resonance that we weren’t getting from our projects at the time, but ultimately people form bands because of other bands – the desire to make something a listener can inhabit in the same way you do those first big albums you grow up with.
Is there a story behind the name? It’s a purposely open-sounding name, linking in to ideas about identity and self-presentation that we explore on the album and in our music in general. On the one hand it suggests artifice, while on the other it’s a broad and generic name for a group – basically both the big perils of naming your band.
How long have you been making music together?
With Outfit, three years but there are some long musical relationships from past collaborations, and me and Andy are brothers so we had a head start. Chris was the latest to the party, but there was around four years where the rest of us lived and worked together on a lot of different things, so we’ve built up a clear sense of how we gel together musically. We know each other so well that sometimes I get annoyed by the way Tom breathes.
What’s the funniest thing that’s happened at a gig/on tour? Leeds festival wouldn’t let us in, so Andy had to log on to our facebook to prove our identity. Then we played at the same time as The Cure, and they played The Cure before we went on. Thinking about it, I’m confusing “funny” with “humiliating”. Happens.
What’s your favourite track to play out live? The live version of Elephant Days is a bit more foot-on-the-monitor rock-out than might be expected from an Outfit set, as a closet metalhead I find that gratifying.
Can you tell us a bit about the music video for ‘I want What’s Best’?Andy sought the golden cowboy in the depths of Liverpool, once found his story was too good to miss – redemption through spraypaint and robot dancing, with a particularly cinematic pigeon. Check it out.
What are you up to in 2014? After this tour we’re going to hole up indefinitely and write a perfect album. The airwaves are clogged with enough mediocrity as it is – people should make less music, and listen more selectively.
Originally posted by Kyle Wilson in Through The Wire