Marmozets are back! More than 3 years after “The Weird And Wonderful Marmozets”, the crazy british band is back with their second record “Knowing What You Know Now”. They spend a day in Paris in late November to talk about this new record, Becca’s knees and growing up between two records. Let’s go!
Hi! Welcome back in Paris! Do you remember if you already did a promo day in our city?
Becca Macintyre (vocals): We did a lot of interview during some festivals back in the days but not a properly promo day like we’re doing today!
How do you fell about that?
Becca: Great! We just feel a lot of love, it’s so warm. People are telling us “I’m coming to your show and I’m bringing 15 of my mates!”. (laughs)
Jack Bottomley (guitar): It’s so great because suddenly you’re going to other countries than England to speak about your new record. It’s so new and it’s amazing. Today we’re in Paris and tonight we’re heading to Berlin to do this again in Germany tomorrow. It’s exciting!
Becca: It’s impossible to complain! We’re very happy to do this.
Do you remember your first and only show in Paris?
Becca: Very well! Do you know the movie “Drive”? Do you see this awesome jacket that Ryan Gosling is wearing in the movie? When we arrived in the morning, I saw this guy with the exact same jacket and I was like “Today is gonna be a good day!”. (laughs) It was obviously an amazing show. We didn’t expect so much people and so much love from them. We were expecting maybe… 3 people, like an open mic night?! (laughs) But yeah, we realize that we were a band and people could love what we’re doing. It couldn’t be any better.
Don’t you think that you were surprised by your success because, you are a band for ten years now but you became famous very quickly after spending many years without many success?
Jack: Yeah, the first five years of Marmozets was just… being a local band I guess. We were just playing small sets in small venues, small bars when we were 14 or 15 years old… We just wanted to play anywhere we could play. Once we were kicked out of the stage because we weren’t 18! (laughs) Our backline was set up, we did the soundcheck, everything was OK but the guy that booked us realize that we weren’t 18 and kicked us out!
Becca: It’s funny now but… We never wanted to given up. There were many scrap times like “fuck this, let’s just get a job…”just to quit our parent’s home. But when you start to meet your fans, you received so much love, you can’t quit this world. So you keep doing it until you build a real family!
You took a long break between your two records, mainly because of your knees injuries. Are you okay?
Becca: Yeah I’m a lot better, thank you! I can’t be as crazy as I was but I’m OK. During the recovery, I won’t lie, it was horrible. You can’t be where you want to be, you can’t do what you want to do but… At least I can walk! It took time to get better. But that needed to be done. Everything is happening for a reason. We were on road for years. And you live in the dark. You don’t live as other people of the same age are living. You only eat noodles or pizza. You never eat home food. We learned a lot through that but it was so nice to spend two years just doing family stuff. It was time to take care of your relationships, to take care of my knees, get healthy again, writing an album, recording an album… It could have been worst!
Weren’t you scared to be a bit forgotten? Music is evolving so fast these days.
Jack: It’s funny because, when we release “Play”, we became bigger that we ever have been like, instantly. People went back on the first record and keep it in the gap. People are taking us more seriously now, maybe because we’re older. But, it’s amazing because we’ve never been as big as we are now despite the fact that we didn’t release our second record and just played a bunch of shows this summer.
Becca: There’s always been a huge respect between us and our fans so I feel like they let us took the time we need to come back properly.
We feel like today, fans are much more tolerant about their favorites band. It’s all about love, respect and ignore negativity.
Becca: Yeah! Exactly, that’s what we’re all about!
Is your health issue had an influence on “Knowing What You Know Now“?
Becca: Yeah maybe a bit. Well, I felt the need to talk about all the emotions that I’ve been through during this time. There was so much anger, frustrations and a lot of other emotions… I really needed to talk about that, not to talk about my health especially, but all of the emotions related to what happened to me at this time. I started to feel a bit depressed. And when you are depressed, you can sit there and just wait for things getting well again, or you can work for yourself. And that’s what I did. I started to wake up and just, painfully walk to the kitchen and cooking. Just that. I had this frustration because I didn’t feel like Becca anymore. I didn’t feel like a rock singer anymore, I didn’t have this confidence anymore. That had a massive effect on how I worked for this record.
Your second record is really about being okay with all the emotions that you can feel.
Becca: Honesty and trust are huge things. If you can have this honesty with people, it’s a win-win situation. When you’re honest through your music, people can easily relate to it because, we’re living the same life! But it’s a harsh thing because, more of the half of the music today are about sex, drugs and getting drunk. For me, it’s not what I want to hear about. It’s not what I want to say and we don’t care about being vulnerable.
I felt that you’re pretty humble about evolving. It’s like “we’re older and happier now, but we’re still the same”.
Becca: Yes. I’m a testimony of happiness now and the message is “you can get to that point”. The album is all about that. Being a better person, together.
This summer you did a small tour with Reading and Leeds Festival in the end. How was getting back on stage after many times off?
Jack: We were so nervous! It’s funny because we just did small venues of 300 or 400 people until Reading and Leeds where we played if front of thousand people. And it was way much easy to play in front of thousand people! We started our set playing “Play” and people, at the beginning of the tour were like “Yeah okay, it’s new, it’s cool!” and after this one, the pressure were more light, we played old songs and it was easier! It was like muscle memory.
Becca: But it was so good to be back on stage and partying with our family. But it’s like a real family. You have your old and kind grandpa, you have your annoying uncle and his daughter loosing her shit in front of her stage! (laughs)
Jack: We even see again people that have actually met each other at one of our show years ago! And now they’re like best friends!
Is that true that the second album is the hardest one?
Becca: Man, when we were on tour, we met many big bands you know. And they were so nice with us, a lot of compliments about “Weird And Wonderful” but, at the end they all said “beware of the second one!”. (laughs) So there were so much pressure on us!
Jack: When we record the first album, we were a band for like… six or seven years. And, the funny thing is that when you drop your first record, it’s like a ticking clock starting. Tours, recordings, promo… Again and again! We took a break and, to be fair, when it was time for us to write music again, we were a bit like “Oh… How do I play guitar again?”. (laughs) So yeah, there was a lot of pressure. But we are good under pressure.
Becca: Totally, when we finished the album, it was like a huge relief. When we finished the recording, if you took a picture of us, we must’d look ill I think! (laughs)
We talked a lot about the ten first years, how do you see the ten next?
Jack: It could go many ways. But we really want to keep things as good and exciting are they are since years now.
Becca: I’m not worried. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world. At least we tried and we did a bloody good job trying.
To finish, our website is called “RockUrLife” so, what rocks your life?
Jack: I think, in the band, we are individually the best as we’ve ever be. Just that and how close we all are and how we’re all doing very good rocks my life.
Website: marmozets.co.uk
