Mon
23
Jun
2008
Rotary Ten
Tell me about the debut Rotary
Ten album.
Rory: It’s called ‘These Are Our Hands’.
Stephen: It’s got the older ones that I guess people will know from the singles we did before and the demos we did before, but it’s got lots of new ones as well. I
think people will enjoy it…
Rory: I hope people will enjoy it!
Stephen: We finished a first version of it in July last year. Then we got offered the deal and we wanted to change some of it, because we thought if this is going
out in public, we had better make it a bit better!
As for people enjoying it, what reviews have you picked up so
far?
Stephen: We try not to read it. It’s the first time we’ve ever had a lot of press and a lot of reviews, and its like, you
can’t really buy into it. If you start reading all the good ones then you think “oh yeah we’re great, this is great!”. Then you get a bad one… you can’t buy into the good ones and not the bad ones.
So it’s just best to steer clear of the whole thing. It’s kind of like the worst interview cliché ever of the indie band, that we make music for ourselves and if anyone else is into it then that’s a
bonus. But at the end of the day, we’re not twiddling synthesisers in a shed. Like, we want to play to people, and for people to get into it.
And Rotary Ten have been around for how many years?
Rory: As Rortary Ten, probably two and a half, three. But we’ve been in a band together longer.
Stephen: That’s stretching it a bit! It’s four, it’s four at least!
So why an album now?
Stephen: Because….someone said ‘do you want to do an album?’
Rory: Because we got the chance to do one!
Stephen: I guess, like, we’d done two singles and it felt like the right time to do it. Whenever we’d write a new song, we’d drop another one. Then we got to the
point where when we wrote a new one, we weren’t dropping any of the old ones, so we had, like, fourteen or fifteen songs. So it just seemed like a good time to cut a record.
You said you got given the opportunity to do one. Who by? And how did that come
about?
Stephen: Initially it was through the Japanese label. They dangled this opportunity in front of us, and that’s when we did
the first version of it. And then Xtra Mile came in to do it in the UK. But it was the Japanese thing first. Which is kinda odd, since we’ve never even been there.
How has this deal come about, because people will have seen you come through as a ‘local
band’, to now getting a national record deal… what kind of advise would you give to anyone who are in your shoes three years ago?
Stephen: Just keep doing loads of stuff! Do loads of gigs! Just don’t, like, don’t change it if someone says ‘change it’.
We did that at one point and it set us back a lot. If you work hard at it, there will be some sort of reward, even if it’s only very minor.
Rory: Yeah. Just don’t fall into the trap of making what you think other people want to hear.
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