These New Puritans interview

THESE NEW PURITANS VOCALIST JACK BARNETT TELLS ROB TOWNSEND THAT THERE IS MUCH MORE TO HIS BAND THAN IMAGE

The British press love a bit of hype. No sooner had These New Puritans turned heads with their hectic combination of beats, guitars, samples and synths which vocalist/guitarist Jack Barnett describes as: “Dancehall meets Steve Reich,” than they were being showered with praise by those in the know at the NME.

Of course, the line between praise and over-hype is a fine one, so you won’t find the band getting too carried away with the media attention. “It’s probably not a terrible thing for the press to like you,” Barnett admits. “But I wouldn’t want us to be ridiculously hyped because I don’t think we could ever really fulfil it in terms of making a pop song that sweeps the world. I’m quite happy with just a bit of praise.”

Just like former tour-buddies Klaxons before them, These New Puritans have perhaps unfairly been tagged as something of a fashion band, with Barnett appearing in GQ’s best dressed list and his twin brother [and drummer] George finding himself in the NME Cool List. However, while the band has worked with French fashion designer Hedi Slimane and produced music for the Dior Homme show, Barnett says that aesthetics aren’t a big deal. “People always think we are one of those image bands, you know, where it’s all about image and the music doesn’t matter. We don’t actually think about it much,” he shrugs.

Indeed, if proof were needed that the quartet are not the scenesters that the uninitiated might imagine them to be, it is that they hail from Southend-on-Sea, a distinctly unfashionable tourist trap in the south of England. With the town’s only other notable export being cartoon goths The Horrors, Southend is certainly not the buzzing centre of indie cool. Therefore, it was simply through their music, rather than because they hung around with the right people in super-trendy parts of London, that These New Puritans got noticed. “I think if you are in London you are in a sea of bloodthirsty people in bands, desperate for success, whereas in Southend there is very little happening so it is easier to get noticed. And it’s right next door to London anyway.”

The group – which is completed by Thomas Hein [bass, sampler, backing vocals, percussion] and Sophie Sleigh-Johnson [synthesizers, sequencer] – offers a sound which is unique because of how incredibly eclectic it is, with Wu Tang Clan, The Fall and Aphex Twin being just three of a host of far-reaching influences. “I don’t have to like music to listen to it. At the moment I am listening to a lot of dancehall, and a lot of it is awful but there are aspects of it that I really like that will come into our next album.”

At the forefront of a thrilling sound, Barnett’s vocal is akin to Mark E. Smith’s, as he spits lyrics which are cryptic in the extreme. “I can’t help that,” Barnett says of his wordplay. “I’ve always been very secretive. When I was little I used to make up my own languages… well, codes, and I’d write in all these codes, so I think it is just a natural thing for me.”

These New Puritans arrive in Australia for the first time on the back of a lengthy stint of touring around America, Europe and Japan, and have supported the likes of Crystal Castles and The Kills. “We were going to be one of the first new bands to do a proper tour of China as well but it turned out to be too expensive. We were also going to do a tour of the Middle East. That was my idea, but security costs became too much. That would have been amazing.”

With their debut album, Beats Pyramid having been out for a few months now, Barnett is now keen to get off the road and concentrate on a new record. “We’ve got a few new songs that will be on the next album,” he says of the writing he has managed to do over the past few months on tour. “We’re not going to play them [live] because none of us can play the instruments that they are written for yet. They are all just theoretical at the moment.”

Contrary to his band’s high-energy shows and chaotic sound, Jack Barnett comes across as a shy, modest character and, typical of the way his band are sidestepping the hype that surrounds them, he seems to be approaching his debut visit to this country with the minimum of fuss. “Yeah, it’ll be interesting,” he says nonchalantly. “Apparently our album has been well-received over there, so it’ll be quite an interesting experience.”