Could you please introduce yourself one by one ?
Bone - Guitar, vocals and mouth harp
Memme - Drums, eardrums and maracas
Potlood - Guitar, cigarettes, stylophone
Where did the band name come from ? Has it a special meaning ?
An anomaly is something strange, unusual or unique. That kind of describes our appearance, characters and our music.
How did the band get formed ? How did you meet yourself ?
We all met in De Diepte, which was a local rock 'n roll / punk / garage bar in the centre of Amsterdam. It was a meeting and drinking place for misfits who loved a certain type of music. Bone and Memme met there first and started The Anomalys as a duo after a year or so i joined the band as a second guitarist.
How do you compose your sounds?
Totally spontaneously, in the practice room. It can start with a guitar riff that sticks in someone's head or a certain drum beat or lyric that someone in the band comes up with, then we just start to jam and see if we can make a song out of it together.
What do you talk about in your songs?
Love and hate
What are your main influences?
Surf, rockabilly, r&b and 60's garage bands with a dark edge, like for example The Sonics mixed with a 70's punk vibe.
A list of current favorite tracks?
If you mean tracks by other bands, i just found out about an American band called Slab City, the name of the track is Milwaukee's Beast.
If you mean tracks from our own new album? Then i'd have to say See Me Bleed, Sorry State, Kiss 'n Run or Rock 'n Roll World. 'They're all good actually ;)
How do you prepare for gigs?
Well stretching some muscles is always smart, cuz we have some acrobatic stage moves. Our drummer always goes jogging around the block just before the gig to get his muscles loosened up.
How do audiences reply to your music?
Most of the time they get really into it They get wild and crazy, like good rock 'n roll should do to a person! We have a lot of up-tempo, fast songs, so sometimes people find it hard to dance to it. But it's always a swinging beat, so I try and show them by dancing while playing guitar on stage.
How did you meet your label?
Memme knew Pete Slovenly from a long time ago and are old friends. In 2006 he released a 45rpm single of The Anomalys and kept bugging us about bringing out a full length album. So after 4 years we finally did it!
What can we expect in the near future?
We're going on USA west coast tour for 3 weeks in august. Alot of shows, alot of cities and a couple of cool festivals. Check our myspace and facebook for the dates.
After that we plan to release another single on Slovenly.
What do you think of the Dutch punk, garage, rock 'n’ roll scene?
It's very small, but there's a couple of really good bands like Sixtyniners, The Works, Local Spastics, T-99, Green Hornet, Low Point Drains and more. I just wish there was more cool places to play.
Crazy story?
Man there's millions... let me tell you one. One time we went all the way to some weird festival in the Czech Republic to play. After a hellish 12 hour drive with constant rain we finally made it. There was heavy drinking in the audience and by the time we had to play, most of the audience members where lying on the floor, completely shitfaced. The festival terrain was literally covered with sleeping, drunk Czechs. After the show Bone decided he wanted to party all night and he brought some herbal speed pills to stay awake on the road. He thought instead of swallowing a pill, that snorting the stuff inside the pill would work faster. So he opened the pill and brown powder came out. He didn't read the ingredients and it had cayenne pepper in it! So right after he took a snort, he started sneezing his head off, jumping from place to place. Before we knew it Memme also took a hit and did the same thing. So there were red-faced, sneezing, jumping Dutch guys on a festival covered with drunk, sleeping Czechs. The Czechs who were still awake, didn't know what they saw!
Last words:
You can buy our new album on http://www.slovenly.com available on LP, CD or digital download. Check out songs, merchandise, photos and tourdates on:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Anomalys/1378073
59586379
or
http://www.myspace.com/theanomalys
Thanks!
Gilian
