Interview: Planet Brain

The three members of rock group Planet Brain remain some of the most enigmatic musicians I've met. My first encounter with the band, hailing all the way from Italy, was at a splendid show put on by Function Records at our Student Union in Farnham playing alongside Shield Your Eyes and Munroe Effect, a long way from home for Marcello, Nicola and Claudio.
I find it quite difficult to really state what intrigued me the most. Be it the etheral atmosphere of their music (which captured an entire audience who had probably never even heard of an Italian band) in complete awe, the sheer confidence of their performance in a completely foreign country, or the frankly terrifying facial grimaces made by drummer Claudio Larese Casanova (yep, that's his real name) as he gave every last drop of sweat, and probably a bit of blood into his performance.
It was hard to leave after seeing that without thinking that these three Italians had found a pretty special sound, so I spoke to guitarist and singer Marcello Batelli to find out a little bit more about the band.

You recently made a little trip around the UK, playing 5 gigs in 7 days. How did you feel that went? How did it compare to playing shows around Italy, where people are more likely to have heard of you? How did you find the experience of playing on foreign soil to that of playing back at home? Would you come back?

It was amazing. We had such a great time. It's always a good challenge playing in front of people you don't know, trying to get in touch with them. But doing that miles away from home, in a foreign country, was probably the best challenge we've ever had. Not only because in the UK there's a different 'culture' and attention on rock and indie music, but also because there was a different excitement between us on stage that made every gig special. We hope to come back soon for a longer tour, maybe next year.

How are you finding the whole band experience? Is it a dream come true to be playing in other countries?

In a way, it is. We would love to play more around Europe. We spent all the time in UK telling ourselves "unbelievable, we're here", all the weeks before the tour thinking "how would it be?", and when we came back to Italy we were just saying "when will we be back?"...and then everything happened so fast that...yes, it could be something similar to a dream.

How did you feel British listeners took to your music, considering the popularity of 'indie' music here?

That was the most unbelievable part I think. We were really surprised that lots of people liked our shows and came after the sets to talk to us or buy the album. They didn't care if we were Italians, or if we play a different kind of music from the bands they expected to play that night. They also didn't mind to classify us as 'pop', 'emo' or 'alternative'. What happened was: we came on stage practically unknown, played our songs that no-one knew, in a country that we don't know, and got nice feedback from the people. That's magic!

The group are hoping to return to the UK next year.

If you were forced to describe your music to someone who had never heard it before, how would you do so?

I've never been good at this. I used to start making comparisons, but it always leads to mistakes. Generally, I would say we are a three-piece band, guitar/voice, bass, drums, and we play rock, but then, if I am asked to, I can add some details about the melodic side of our music, the psychedelic and 70s/90s stuff, the emotional and spontaneous compositive process, the improvisation and the feelings above all.

Those who have heard you have drawn comparisons to a little band called Radiohead. How does it make you feel to have such a comparison put upon you?

Too big, maybe, or just too quick and useless. Radiohead had deeply influenced the music of our last decade and many bands took inspiration from them, Planet Brain too. Comparisons are often taken in a negative way, as they seem to subtract the personality of an emerging band. But I don't feel there is anything wrong with them, even when we get compared to a bigger band we dislike. Once you are aware of your influences and you like what you do, you don't have to care about comparisons. Anyway, to be compared to Radiohead is a honor.

Why did you make the decision to sing most of your vocals on the new album in English, as opposed to Italian?

Simple as it is, I always listened to English music, and it is more natural for me to hear English lyrics on a song than Italian ones.

One song title on your new release, Compromises and Carnivals, has me very intrigued: Gash Discipline. Could you explain where that name came from?

I think that Shane or Steve from Lebatol invented that title. When we supported them, during their short Italian tour in 2005, we played that song live twice, but we still didn't have a title. I remember they liked that song since our first soundcheck, and a few days later they came out with that "Gash Discipline" idea. I thought it was great, and so perfect for the mood of the rhythm and the vocals, that we decided to call it that.

Recording an album can be a long and arduous process. During the recording of Compromises and Carnivals what did you take inspiration and encouragment from?

It was, definitely! We recorded guitars and vocals in our own little studio, and it was longer and harder than recording in a professional studio. But the atmosphere was more relaxed, and this helped us a lot. We'd been listening to many bands during the recordings, I remember we told the engineer we loved the drums sound of Porcupine Tree, but that was just to achieve the best sound we could. There wasn't a single band we focused on or took inspiration from, actually. We tried to work on the album as a whole, to preserve the concept of an 'album' instead of the concept of a simple compilation of songs.

You may or may not have heard about it, but there is a lot of talk within the music world concerning the fall of recording companies and the traditional structure, what with massive artists now experimenting with free online downloads for example. How has your own relationship with Function Records been?

The market is flexible and has its own rises and falls. I was just reading an article a few days ago about "the long tail". In a few words, within the global market, major labels sell more but in a short time, by sudden ways or odd strategies. Indie labels sell and earn less, obviously, but constantly. They represent the "long tail" of the music market, what keeps it alive and flowing, not bumping. Our relationship with Function Records is a friendship, before a partnership, and it developed slowly in the past 2/3 years. I think that they 'believe' in what we do as Planet Brain, and that's more important than anything else.

What are your plans as a group for the immediate future?

We are rehearsing and recording new songs at the moment. We would love to have some stuff out next year, maybe an EP, and to play live as much as we can.

What was your favourite album release of 2007? And are there any bands, perhaps from Italy, who you would encourage readers to check out for 2008?

Hard to answer! I would probably say 'Frames' by Oceansize for 2007. But I also loved 'Heima' by Sigur Ros, especially the film. And for 2008...I don't know, really. All the majors will be closed by that time, we will have 400 GigaByte iPods, just to listen to the first minute of each song! But I'm optimistic.

Thanks for taking the time out to talk Marcello. I wish you guys the best of luck and hope to see you back in the UK soon.

Cheers Mike! All the best Ciao!
x



I really recommend you purchase Planet Brain's debut album 'Comprimises and Carnivals'. It's a fantastic sounding album, and one that shows a lot of promise for the group. You can get it from iTunes, Emusic, mTraks, Audio Lunchbox or direct via Function Records.

Freedom? Yeah Right.

Up until last night I had never used iTunes to purchase a song. Having a Creative mp3 player I knew the songs purchased there would be useless to me, and at any rate nothing beats owning the proper, physical CD. Furthermore, I wouldn't even consider using iTunes to organise/play my music. Put simply it's terrible.

However, last night I was forced to break my iTunes store virginity in order to lend my support for Reuben's Christmas cause (see this post for more info). Now I know why I abstained.

Things did not start out very well, and so began a torturous proceedure. Upon opening the program I was informed I had to update it. Fair enough I thought, until I realised that this meant visiting the Apple website, re-downloading iTunes, uninstalling the old iTunes and finally installing the new iTunes, which in turn led to last.fm popping up in my way to tell me to re-download the plugin for iTunes, which I wasn't interested in.

Nevermind, I thought. Not every program can have a simple auto-update feature. I'll let it pass I thought. So then I venture onwards, opening iTunes up in order to buy a single two minute song. Naturally, it doesn't open. Despite repeated clickings, nothing happens except for the immediate and complete slowdown of every other program open (Firefox, Live! Messenger and Windows Media Player). Rendering the computer absolutely useless, and with Task Manager deciding it didn't want to play ball and show up on command, I give in and restart the computer.

So, once Windows had sorted itself out, and I'm all ready to go again, I load up iTunes. This time it appears, but all it seems to want to give me is a white box with a blue frame around it. I know Apple likes their white decor, but I was under the impression that this wasn't a feature.

After repeated openings something must have clicked, and iTunes finally revealed itself to me. Things went fairly straightforward from there and I managed to find Reuben without anything blowing up, or being insulted for my taste in music, which I suppose is a nice change from the mindless dirge of HMV hippies eyeing up every purchase you make.

Having brought the single, I was fairly impressed with the ease it downloaded (yet less impressed with how it took my money, but I don't think I can really complain about that one). But then I hit the most frustrating snag of all. I was well aware my Creative Zen wouldn't handle the iTunes torture, but I was not expecting the song to be rendered useless in Windows Media Player. I mean, yes yes, I know Microsoft hates Apple and so on, but what a kick in the tits for the consumer.

I've never really jumped on the whole DRM anger bandwagon. I don't agree with it, but being a CD collecter I don't consider it a major problem. I can understand that all those tracks sold on iTunes need to be protected in some way, and at the moment DRM is just a solution to that problem, albeit a controversial and problematic one. But I am angry at not being able to play it on a choice of media players. Copyright protection is one thing, but media player usage protection is another kettle of fish.

I wouldn't mind if iTunes was a decent piece of media organisation kit. But having used quite a lot of players out there (including MediaMonkey and Songbird) I found it slow, unorganised, unreliable and quite frankly bloody terrible. It's a shame that there is not much else anyone can do about such a problem except for (rightfully so) break the format lockdown and then rant about it, just like yours truly has done. In the meantime, if you share a similar opinion to me, or want to find an alternative to online downloads which will play in any media player, then have a look at eMusic or allTunes, both of which provide music which is playable anywhere, anytime.

Much better.

Yeah, Christmas is Awesome.

Given that us British people manage to find a shit tradition for nearly every religious event (egg painting competitions for Easter, consuming illegal amounts of maple syrup on Shrove Tuesday) it seems unsurprising that the worst of them all comes at Christmas.

I am of course, referring to the tedious race for the cherished Christmas number 1 spot. Previous winners have included Neil Morrisey's pitiful career choices, a load of patronising bastards asking if someone knows whether it's Christmas or not, and Cliff Richard. Four times over. Christ, it is really quite depressing to be typing that.

But with all that X-Factor and Spice Girls rubbish, there are a few bands out there getting into the spirit of things and attempting to give the number one spot some nice meaty balls. One particular band who have got my support and encouragement this year are Reuben, with their appropriately titled single 'Christmas is Awesome'. Having never been really impressed by the threesome who hail from Aldershot in the UK, my opinion was completely changed after hearing their third album 'In Nothing We Trust', an album that is certainly worth a listen if you're looking for some passionate, fairly angry music, with a sprinkling of entertaining lyrics to sweeten the deal.

Do these hard working lads a favour and choose them over a sheep.

There's little chance that the song will get anywhere near number one this year, what with tough competition from a sheep, but it's always worth a try. The single is released on December 17th and is available through iTunes.