Internet Forever are three piece from London who make very lo-fi, personal songs that veer very close to the dangerous sounds of twee indie pop, yet get riegned in by layers and layers of noisy noisy keyboards. They're having talks with Art Fag Recordings and all questions are answered by Laura Wolf (LW) and 'Heartbeeps' (HB):
-Firstly, how and when did Internet Forever get started, why did you decide to create music together? How would you describe the results?
LW: Me and Heartbeeps started making music together just over six months ago. We had a mutual appreciation of each other's music and shared favourite bands so we decided to give it a go. We had never met until the day I went to Cambridge and we wrote the basics of what would become 3D, previously we had just spoken on the internet. I think the results have been surprising and better than I thought.
HB: We were originally just going to make one song together, but once we posted it online people started saying good things about it, so we decided to take it from there. I had this idea of forming a band called Internet Forever, and pitched it to Laura over comments in her mp3 blog. Once we realised we would eventually have to play our songs live, we drafted in Christopher Alcxxk because he is a much better musician than both of us.
-There's a paragraph on your myspace page hinting that you prefer to record and produce at a fast rate, would you agree with this? Do IF swing to more of the Ryan Adams rate of releasing music rather than the Axl Rose side of things.
LW: I like to think so. I think we both like the idea of doing things quickly and allowing people to listen to them almost instantaneously and to get their feedback. It's better than being a perfectionist about 'your art'.
HB: That paragraph was originally written by Laura as the introduction to a zine she made, where everything was created over the course on one day. I thought it perfectly suited what we were about as a band. We're by no means prolific, but once we have an idea for a song we like to run with it, and it feels more organic this way.
-As three individual songwriters do you sometimes find that you can all be quite opinionated about how a song should work or are you more open to each other?
LW: To be honest we don't spend much time thinking about how songs should work out because they are all quite simple in structure. They start with an idea or basic track from me or Heartbeeps and then the rest of us add to them until we're all happy. We're pretty easily pleased, I think! What takes longest is me writing the lyrics, and Heartbeeps and Christopher are more than happy to let me emo myself to oblivion on top of our music so that's cool with me.
-What equipment do you use to make and record your music? Is there any specific instruments that you always end up using?
LW: We recorded the first few songs on garageband, sending each other parts over the internet until they were complete. We always use Casios! Nowadays we record everything we do on an Argos tape recorder.
HB: I use the same £60 guitar I've had since I was 17. I don't own an amp or any pedals!
-Your videos are amazing, who makes them?
LW: Heartbeeps is the genius behind them, he has a penchant for film and lomo photography.
HB: I just put those videos together in 10 minutes using various old footage from the 1970s and 1980s that I had on my hard drive.
-You're having a sudden surge of live activity soon, do you have any preconceptions about how people will react to IF as a relatively new band?
LW: I just hope that the people who have enjoyed listening to our mp3s also enjoy us live!
-How does playing live usually work out?
LW: It's been a long process getting our live show together because the way we wrote our songs meant we never played them live before. So it's exciting to sort things things out. We have loop pedals with beats on and also some live drums, two keyboards and guitar. We all switch around live which is something I enjoy, since I can play most things a bit and nothing particularly well!
-You must be quite proud to be associated with the fantastic Art Fag Recordings, will you be releasing anything with them? Certainly a lot of your peers, Pens etc, have some kind of connection with the label.
HB: We're talking to Art Fag about putting something out in the US, which will obviously be awesome, but first we have a single coming out in the UK in May. Pete Gofton (ex-Kenickie) is producing, which is super-exciting!
LW: I was really excited when we started to talk to Art Fag about releasing stuff, I like loads of the bands they already work with. We'll hopefully be releasing something with them in Spring.
-Management seems like an odd thing for such a personal and lo-fi band like IF to have, why decide to hire a manager, is it something that you all felt was needed for the band?
LW: I think it is totally an odd thing, I completely agree. We've never really 'hired' our manager, he just popped up and gave us a load of super good advice so we stuck with him. We felt a bit out of our depth when things we didn't understand started happening with the band (meetings at publishing companies etc.) and Mike was recommended to us as someone who could give us advice on this stuff. My instinct was to avoid it all but having been in bands for years I knew that not everyone gets the kind of attention we were getting so I think we decided to run with it rather than from it, to a limited a extent, whilst not doing anything that we feel will compromise anything we believe in. Notice this is the longest paragraph because I have spent a lot of time justifying this to myself!
-Would you like to namedrop (in a nice way of course) any influences of IF's that you feel people should know about: be they bands, writers, artists, people etc.
LW: My favourite band ever is Beat Happening and I think this has been an influence on everything I've done because I think everyone should realise you don't have to be a great musician to be in a band . I love labels like K and Kill Rock Stars, but we all have different influences...
HB: My two favourite ever bands are Pavement and The Unicorns, but I also really admire the careers people like Jon Brion and Momus, though I don't think I'm a good enough songwriter or musician to be able to translate any influences into our sound. I just play what I play and that's all I can do. My favourite photographers are Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever
