You all live round here and there are a lot of bands from Moseley, why do you think that is?

Matt: I dunno…slack DSS office! You have pockets in certain areas of towns and cities where artists and creative people gravitate towards…
Max: Safety in numbers…
Matt: Moseley has been like that long before we moved to Birmingham.

If could pick one musician or singer, live or dead from throughout music history to join pram, who would you choose?

Max: John Entwhistle!
Matt: Bill Wyman!
Max: Jimmy Pursey…to duet with Rosie (laughs)
Matt: Like it!
Sam: Alice Coltrane for a bit of harp
Max: Can we have two?
I'm not sure about that?
Max: Hall or Oates? It's a hard one….that's like saying Cannon or Ball!
Matt: John Coltrane…but we're not really a saxophone band…we're more of a trumpet band
Matt: Who would you have Laurence?
Laurence: Someone a bit more classical maybe….someone like Mussorgsky....
Max: You can't name a musician that you can't spell!
Matt: How about Raymond Scott...

I know Grandmaster Gareth from Misty's Big Adventure is a big fan of his….

Matt: Ahh…great minds think alike.

Do you know all the other bands round here? Because you always get mentioned in the same breath as them, it's always Broadcast and Pram…you're a bit like Cannon and Ball….

Pram on stage (picture from www.capsule.org.uk)

Matt: (laughs) Yeah we know those guys…wicked band.
Sam Grandmaster Gareth did a little bit of arrangement on one of our tracks.
Matt Yeah we've worked with Gareth…their album is a killer.
Max: Actually there was a story about how he once got turned away from one of our gigs because he was too young.
Sam: Wasn't it one of his own gigs?
Matt: Pharoah Sanders! If I can have another one…a bit of sax and a bit of flute...
Max: Enough already!

I'd say that your music is quite sinister and spooky…I don't know if you'd agree with that?

All: Yeah

Have you ever thought of soundtracking a horror film or anything? You did do a soundtrack for a 10 minute animation….

Matt: Yeah…'Keep In a Dry Place Away From Children'.
Sam: It was very dark. Even though it looks like something quite childlike, it's got a really dark message to it…

Do you deliberately try and unsettle people with your music - is it a conscious decision?

Max: There's definitely no gameplan - we're not that organised!
Matt: But would you ever set out to make happy music?
Sam: We tried to, but we just can't do it! (laughs)
Matt: It's a weird one, the sort of sitting down and making something to cheer people up…it's a totally alien concept. I couldn't sit down and write a chirpy song to make people happy… miserable perhaps. I think were all going in the same miserable direction though, towards sweet oblivion…some kind of melancholy, reflective and unsettled state…it's sort of more interesting. Happy music is for discos…

When you've got an idea for a song - how do you go about putting it together, what's the writing process?

Pram on stage (picture from www.capsule.org.uk)

Matt: A number of ways. We work in very disparate undisciplined fashion. It might be loops or electronic bits and pieces, songs written on a keyboard or a piano….on any instrument at all. And then it's a democratic free for all.
Sam: We usually do that live in the sense of jamming if we've got ideas. We try and play stuff live before we record it.
Matt: It's organic…..God that's sounds like such a toss thing to say!
(Laughter from the rest of band)
Matt: It's an organic process…like genetically modified food...

You use lots of different instruments, are there any you'd like to bring into Pram in the future?

All: Trombone!
Matt: Trombone is a much neglected instrument…that would be fantastic…if anyone checking out the website can play all these things…trombone, trumpet….a range of brass instruments and feels like they can contribute, then please get in touch!

You used to have a Theremin player too?

Matt: Yeah he left a few years ago. He now works in bomb disposal…..seriously!

Your music has been in a couple of adverts recently...

Matt: Yeah, a VW Golf advert.
Sam: Warp Records recently celebrated their 10 year anniversary. They contacted a load of their favourite bands and asked them to choose something on Warp to remix. Rather than do a straight remix we did what we've done quite a few times with remixes before and took a tune and built a whole song around it…it was actually two tunes, one from Aphex Twin….
Matt The other from LFO…we lifted a melody...
Sam: But we put everything else ourselves bass, drums, clarinet solo…and they've used it for that advert without our knowledge…
Matt: It's great to see it on TV…if you can call that TV.

So you don't endorse the car?

Matt: We'd endorse a free one!
Sam: We wouldn't have chosen to promote the car. We were on the BT directory enquiries advert too…we didn't see the harm in that one
But we didn't have any choice or knowledge of the Warp one.

What are your plans for the rest of the year?

Max: Istanbul, Moscow, St Petersburg and maybe Poland, but we don't know yet.
Matt: Oh Dublin, we're playing Ladyfest in Dublin.
Sam: We're quite busy up until Christmas really…then I guess we'll be writing.
Matt: We've got to get our asses in the studio and record some of these tunes that we've written….But yeah, we're going east for Christmas!

Pram support To Rococo Rot at The Custard Factory on Sunday 10th October.