Recent Nightshift cover stars International Jetsetters are something of a local supergroup, featuring Loz from Ride, Mark Crozer and Fi McCall, who has guested with the Jesus & Mary Chain.
1.What do you think you sound like?
The Rolling Stones fronted by an angry Karen Carpenter trying to sound like The House of Love
2. What do you do when you’re not making music?
We all do different things. Bert is a big star on the science circuit in Germany as his alter-ego Professor Neuberger; Paul is heavily into Morris Dancing; Loz is studying to be a classical composer; Fi makes sculptures of 1970s Children’s television characters out of papier-mache and I like to garden dressed in a full suit of armour. Only two of these facts are true but I’m not saying which ones.
3. Recommend us a good band or album and tell us what’s good about it.
Well, I’m totally besotted with anything and everything that Bat For Lashes does. Haven’t bought the new one yet but her first album is one I listen to all the time. It’s got handclaps (which I sampled and used in a couple of tracks actually) and minimal instrumentation and her voice just gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I also heartily recommend Paul McCartney’s recent Fireman album. It is ‘well wicked’ as the youngsters say. Oh and Fleet Foxes album is bloody great too. That’s three in case you lost count.
4. Where did you get your band name from?
I came up with it ironically as at the time of conception the band (me and Bert) never went anywhere beyond the Kirtlington village boundary. Very quickly though the irony deepened as we started flying all over the world for one thing and another.
5. What do you like and dislike about Oxford and its music?
I love Oxford for its flora and fauna and loathe it for its pissed-up rich kid students who seem to think they’re the height of original cool when they are vomiting on your car bonnet or throwing bags of flour at each other. Musically speaking Oxford is the bees knees for its eclectic and exciting music scene. In one city alone we have more great bands than most of the others put together.