The Young Knives are not the most conventional rock band. For a start their bassist is nicknamed “The House of Lords” (as far as rock star stage names go it’s not exactly “Bono”, is it?) Then there’s the (assumed) penchant for tweed, not to mention singer Henry Dartnall’s striking resemblance to David Mitchell. But Thomas Dartnall, a refreshingly candid interviewee, is quick to assert that this wasn’t a deliberate attempt to create an ‘anti-rock’ image. “It wasn’t that we were trying to be anti-rock…we just weren’t very pro-rock,” he explains.”When The Libertines first came out, and The Strokes, it was all leather jackets and Levis, a total cliché…Everyone sort of looked at them and went ‘Wow, they must be cool.’ We just wore what we’d always worn, charity shop stuff. I never have carried off a leather jacket, all that posturing. I would have felt like a fraud.” Dartnall is even quick to dispel the tweed myth. “At some point people started writing that we were anti-rock and that all we wore is tweed, which wasn’t true. I don’t have any tweed! I think our press people encouraged it because it gives people something they can write about a band. Saying ‘they’re an indie band’ or ‘they’re a pop band’ or ‘they’re an anti-rock indie pop tweed band,’ – it’s a good tagline!”
The Young Knives have never been people-pleasers. The Oxford based three piece have been around on and off since the late 1990s, having gone through various name changes, before settling on Young Knives. It was winning the “Road To V” competition in 2006 that finally brought the band some mainstream attention, followed by a well deserved Mercury nomination for their first full length album Voices Of Animals And Men.
Part of the reason for such delayed success must surely be due in part to their reluctance to enter into the media circus. Discussion of that Mercury nomination uncovers Dartnall’s scepticism about the machinery of business. “I think if you can put ‘Mercury nominated’ on the poster then they might sell a few more tickets off that or something…” he muses. “It was funny, when we got nominated we were pleased and then when we got there we realised that it was a bit of a… it was a bit of a weird thing. You see it’s voted for by a panel of music industry judges, and it’s just their opinion. And a lot of the bands were new bands, and it seemed to be that it wasn’t the best album of the year, it was the best album by a new band of the year that fit into this category of music. And a whole load of people weren’t up for it because you have to pay to be up for it. It’s a funny sort of institution. Everybody takes it very seriously and puts a lot of importance on the Mercury like it means something. It kind of means something, but it also means nothing as well. But it’s nice anyway, someone saying that you’re good. You have to look at it like that, I suppose.”
This reluctance to court the industry has perhaps held the band back. Despite their defiantly un-rockstar appearance and persona, The Young Knives have written some cracking tracks. Their super powered, punk pop makes for dynamic listening, Dartnall’s staccato, half shouted vocals giving a perverse power to surreal lyrics such as “and if all else fails/ I am the Prince of Wales.” The new record Ornaments From The Silver Arcade feels like a slicker proposition, with single ‘Human Again’ an infectious hit that suggests a glossing over of some frenetic eccentricities from their earlier material. Not that this is a criticism, there’s always a place for The Pixies-esque alternative pop, and as Dartnall’s candid manner suggests, The Young Knives are hardly slaves to the charts. Dartnall agrees that they were aiming for something more contained than their sprawling early work. “We just want to have well written songs and not add anything more. Not put in crazy solos where we didn’t need them… just songs that people can get straight off the bat, and know that’s the hook and that’s the lyric and whether it’s good or bad…Before we were always like. ‘let’s put in a crazy solo here, or extend this by another 16 bars, or put some extra weird lyrics in here…’ We just didn’t bother this time round.”
I wonder if the band were worried they might alienate their fans with this “pop conversion”, but Dartnall remains defiant. “I think we probably will, but it doesn’t really worry me very much. The bands that I always like are the ones that push themselves to do something new. There are certain bands that just end up repeating the same thing and there comes a point after ten years when it just becomes dated and they drop off the radar. I think of a band like Supergrass, for example. I mean, they were amazing when they first came out, and they did do some good things, but they never seem to do anything new and now that they’ve split nobody’s interested. Whereas a band like Radiohead, for instance, they completely changed their style and they did alienate a lot of their fans doing that. But they’re still massive, partly because people are excited by that. Like Picasso, he must have gone through a thousand different styles, some of which are good and some of which are bad, but he kept inventing new stuff that people were surprised or outraged by. I’m not saying we’re like Picasso. but…” When I remind Dartnall that he’s just compared his indie band to a cubist genius, his chuckle is of grim resignation; ever since NME said they looked “like paedophiles” you get the impression that band couldn’t care less what is written about them.
A similar ambivalence is detected towards the stigma attached to indie-bands-gone-pop. “I only use the term, not as in what is commercially successful, but just as in the idea of popular.” says Dartnall. “A concise song with chords and singing, you know, not like some jazz odyssey. Songwriting! That’s what I mean. Just writing a song that people will like… The things that I really like are bands who do indie pop but push the boundaries with it. People like Talking Heads who do pop music but they’re really inventive with it. They probably inspire people in other directions but at the end of the day it’s just a pop song. Just, what can you do with a pop song?”
The Young Knives’ career has been turbulent, but Dartnall seems to have no regrets, despite the lack of lasting chart success. When I ask what the best thing about his career so far has been, he makes it clear that it’s the little things that make an impression. “We’ve had certain nights when you play a concert and it’ll go really well and you think that’s probably it. More so than playing a big festival, like Glastonbury, or a TV programme or something. Those things are good, but they’re not as fulfilling as when you write a song and play it in front of people and they like it; when someone comes up and they say some weird B-side is their favourite song. I remember some guy who came up to us and said that when he finished his pizza round, there was this one B-side he used to listen to in the car. He used to smoke a joint and listen to it on the way home. That and The Entrance to the Queen of Sheba . I thought that was really cool. Those are the things that make it worth it. It’s part of their musical identity in some way and you’re part of that.”