Britain’s favourite, unclassifiable, electronic duo FUCK BUTTONS is heading down under to wow audiences at Harvest festival, alongside the likes of Beck and Sigur Ros. CORMACK O’CONNOR spoke to ANDREW HUNG and BENJAMIN JOHN POWER about Cinderella, noise complaints and the accumulation of instruments.
Where did the name come from? I’ve always wondered.
Power: The name was a bit of a joke when we first started out. Andy had sound-tracked a film that he’d made at university, and he played it to a friend of his who was working in the porn industry. His friend was making a porno that had a storyline loosely based on Cinderella and it didn’t have a name yet, so we suggested Fuck Buttons. When the film was never finished, we adopted the name for our music.
You guys met in art school. Where was your life heading in terms of career before Fuck Buttons?
Hung: We both knew each other from our home town but we really didn’t start hanging out before university. We both had jobs before Fuck Buttons though. Ben was an illustrator and I was doing video work. We decided to just concentrate on Fuck Buttons about four years ago.
Will we ever see the original film made by Andy that you guys collaborated for?
Hung: Maybe, I don’t know. I was watching it the other day. I haven’t really got an interest in releasing it. It’s just something nice for me.
Bristol is pretty famous for music and art. Was it hard trying to get a break there?
Power: I don’t think we were necessarily trying to get a break when we were in Bristol. We just enjoyed playing together and hanging out. We used to practice above the pub that Andy used to work in – making a lot of noise and getting a lot of complaints. We never wanted to take it on the road or anything when we were living in Bristol.
You use a wide range of instruments. Take me through a few?
Hung: The thing about our instruments is that they are constantly changing and accumulating and I’m of the philosophy that anything goes. We’re not really afraid – you can make music out of anything. So I think it’s funny to talk about stuff individually.
How do you write music?
Power: We see stuff in textures. We like to concentrate on something and then build everything else around it. The longer you leave a texture to repeat, [the more] you notice sounds inside of it. Most of our songs are quite long. But it doesn’t mean we wouldn’t write something shorter. Dynamic range is important to us.
Street Horrrsing was produced by John Cummings (Mogwai). What was it like working with someone who has influenced you?
Power: I think as far as influences go, it’s not something that we focus on while writing our music. We’re not trying to recreate a sound but rather build something from a detail that we like. Mogwai are a great band and I was really excited to work with John.
How did you guys get picked up by Harvest Festival?
Power: I’m not sure how we got picked up. We just got asked. We were in Australia a few years ago for Mt. Buller and Cockatoo Island and stuff like that. Perhaps somebody from Harvest saw us at one of those. I think the last time we were in Australia was one of my favourite tours ever. We’d never been to Australia before and we just fell in love. The architecture, the wildlife and just the general pace of life [are] awesome.
Who are you most excited about playing alongside at Harvest?
Power: Liars, Beck…
Hung: Mike Patton…
Power: There’s too many. It looks like a great lineup.
How do you translate your sound into a live atmosphere?
Hung: When we’re writing, we write in a live sense, anyway. One of us doesn’t come to practice with a riff or a sound or something. We both sit down together in a room and we just play. We’re not writing into Logic or anything like that. The way we write and the way we play live are one and the same, really.
Fuck Buttons are playing Harvest Festival in Parramatta Park, Sydney on Saturday November 17, 2012