It’s 10pm on a Friday night and Happyness have just come off stage at Birmingham’s Sunflower Lounge on their penultimate night supporting Slow Club. In the dressing room that’s hidden in the loading bay, I find myself sat opposite Benji Compston (guitar/vocals), Jonny Allan (bass/vocals) and Ash Cooper (drums/vocals) discussing whether they want to answer a set of serious or more light-hearted questions.
It’s not often you get to ask a question like that in an interview– but from my previous experiences of Happyness, they have a tendency to be a little odd-ball about their answers which, in one instance, has lead to them recounting a short story by Monterey Jackson (‘The Salmon by Belinda Carlisle‘) as an answer. The band insist that they can answer “serious questions and give really astute answers” but sometimes it’s difficult.
“We once got asked a question in an interview whilst in Europe and we started to answer it in the way we wanted to and the interviewer went ‘no, no, no’ and stopped us. It was one of those quite annoying and tedious questions that all the bands get– something like ‘do you like touring’ and it’s just such an obvious answer. So we just answered it in a different way.” Benji explains, perched on the arm of the sofa.
“The guy turned around to us and was like ‘shits and giggles aside’ and we were then like ‘no, no, no you don’t shits and giggles aside us’.”
We decide to settle on a mix of both– though it quickly becomes apparent that the light-hearted, non-serious questions still provoke pretty astute answers from the trio. It’s easy to see in the half hour we spend with them why Happyness are quite easily the most interesting and compelling band out there at the moment.
“Seen as this is like a Facebook comments section, I don’t think we should buzz in. I think we should all just go for it, answer immediately… One of us will have a good response.” Jonny remarks as we kick off proceedings.
With a band name like Happyness and the sound you guys have you are, in some senses, an antidepressant. Prozac is another antidepressant, but it’s known to cause erectile dysfunction. Does your music have any link?
Benji: Well, you said this was going to get weird.
Jonny: This is really weird but also a really us question. Does somebody know us? We have one song that might not be entirely about erectile dysfunction.
What’s better: a Kanye West sized mouse of 100 mouse sized Kanye Wests?
Benji: I know the answer to this one: 100 mouse sized Kanye’s as it will make it like a scene out of The Borrowers.
Jonny: And we all know that The Borrowers is a lovely story.
Benji: Take a moment and imagine Kanye West in The Borrowers. It would be beautiful.
Jonny: Also if Kanye could orchestrate it all perfectly there would be 100 little Kanye’s doing what Kanye wanted and then he could…
Benji: Move mountains
Jonny: Tiny, mouse sized mountains.
Ash: He’d move molehills.
Why do you guys think the word abbreviation is so long?
Jonny: I feel like someone read that question somewhere. That’s the sort of thing someone saw on the internet and thought ‘oh great question’ and put that in. But it’s true, it’s a good question. Can the word abbreviation be abbreviated?
Ash: Yeah, it gets shortened to abb.
Jonny: Well, there’s the answer then. So many of the abbreviations we now use in the English language comes from a longer word. So of course words have to start our long so we can go ahead and and abbreviate them.
Ash: Some things start out long and end up being short.
Well that sounds deep. I’ve read that you guys are somewhat into your films so this one should be really appropriate. If Buzz Lightyear doesn’t believe he is a toy then why does he stop moving in front of humans like his fellow toys?
Benji: When you’re driving somewhere and you know that you’re driving exactly how your driving instructor told you and then a police car pulls up alongside you, you still end up getting nervous and agitated. You might know you’ve done nothing wrong but there’s still a police car there and you will still slightly change your behaviour. It’s the same for Buzz Lightyear.
That’s a really good way to look at it. I hadn’t considered it that way.
Benji: It’s the truth though, isn’t it?
Jonny: It’s not all about the truth but also about the perceived truth. To add another level to that answer it shows that peer pressure exists. Think about it, if all your friends stop moving and you’re the only one still moving– it’s quite frankly embarrassing.
Ash: He doesn’t do it for all three films though– he works out he’s a toy doesn’t he?
He works out he’s a toy by the end of the first film.
Ash: Oh yeah, he figures it out when he isn’t able to fly.
Jonny: The thing is I think he finds out that he is both a toy but, at the same time, he is who he thinks he is. It’s a bit of a paradox. Maybe George Orwell was Buzz Lightyear– do you know what I’m saying?
Benji: Double think.
So if Teflon sticks to nothing– then how does it stick to the pan it coats?
Jonny: That’s really, really good… How does it?
Benji: Well presumably it’s the Teflon side that is sticking out so it’s another non-Teflon side sticking to the pan.
Ash: But then the Teflon is sticking to something else to then stick to the pan?
Jonny: I’ll tell you why, it’s because God is testing us.
You do sing about Jesus a lot and you’ve previously brought him along to your shows– including Electrowerkz last year.
Jonny: Let me tell you, his rider was bullshit.
Benji: He would’ve been that guy that would’ve have taken Slow Club’s hummus and ate it all.
Speaking of Jesus and your lyrics, they’re pretty unique and cover a lot of unusual topics. Where do you take the inspiration from?
Ash: It’s literally things we see.
Benji: You see fridges. You see brains.
Since when do you see brains?
Benji: Okay so maybe we don’t see brains. But in that case how about we say our inspiration is brain food. Like pulses, chickpeas and all the other good, healthy foods.
Jonny: We’re really inspired by pulses, grains, hair loss, alopecia, erectile dysfunction… But we can’t talk about our inspiration about fridges here– not in front of them (referring to the fridge in the corner of the room). They might turn on us. Wait, we’re derailing this interview– next question!
If you hadn’t noticed this interview has been derailed from the moment I asked about erectile dysfunction and it hasn’t gotten anywhere else since.
Ash: Let’s just keep digging deeper into our hole!
We’ve got a bit of a politics one for you now given everything that’s happening in the country now. Okay so if Happyness were to start a political party, how would you guys combat knife crime?
Ash: We’d sell only blunt knives from now on.
Jonny: We’d also introduce free but compulsory alopecia cake for everyone.
Dare I ask how making everyone bald would help with knife crime?
Jonny: Everyone knows that alopecia is really in at the moment. And we all know that the only reason we have hair is for grip. So if you don’t have hair, you can’t grip a knife.
Benji: We’ll start putting alopecia in the water supplies. Do you know anyone with alopecia? I bet people with alopecia are now going to be like ‘these guys are fucking terrible‘.
I’ve only met one person with alopecia actually…
Jonny: Did he ever knife anyone?
No
Jonny: See! Problem solved.
Let’s change the tone for a bit, I’m not going to ask the obvious as to whether you like touring, but instead what have been your best and worst live moments?
Benji: We’ve been quite lucky as a band—especially lucky for a new kind of small band. We’ve had some pretty fun shows in loads of different places and it’s worked for us. So maybe this isn’t our worst live moment but it’s our weirdest. We played this tiny venue in the middle of Cornwall…
Jonny: No, this is probably our worst live moment.
Benji: Okay, but as a disclaimer the venue was really nice to us. They looked after us, gave us food and all that. But I think they thought we were famous. Well, obviously we are famous but they thought we were very, very famous.
Jonny: Every sentence they kind of said to us came with a disclaimer statement like ‘obviously you guys are very big‘. And well, because of course this means everything, but at the time we only had 110 likes on Facebook and we’d only been a band for a couple of months. They seriously thought we were bigger than that, I mean just before we went on a UK Top 40 DJ played though I don’t know who that was…
Benji: So yeah basically we did this show and it was just full of families eating their fish & chip dinners. And in the middle of the show there was this guy who had been standing pretty close to the stage with a bunch of his mates drinking and he turned to me and goes ‘do you know anything a bit more upbeat? Like ska or reggae?’
Jonny: So we said yeah and played ‘Refrigerate Her’ which is the ‘ska’ song off our album. Nobody clapped after any song. It’s probably our worst. However we did get offered sex by most of the people working at the venue which was nice.
What’s next on the horizon for you guys then?
Ash: The greener grass on the other side.
Jonny: Aside from that green grass, we’re shortly off to America… We’re doing the SXSW Presstival.
Benji: And then we’re touring the rest of America. People have given a list of places that we have to visit whilst over there like Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop and Mission Burrito which sounds fucking amazing.
Jonny: I’ve been told to go to the Redwood Forest and also see some albino Flamingos.
Benji: After that we’ll probably do another album at some point, I guess?
What about in the UK festival season?
Jonny: We’re doing the Great Escape this year and in about five years time we’ll be headlining Reading.
You’ve already had a good crack at headlining Reading from the performance on this year’s BBC Introducing set there from what I remember.
Jonny: Yeah, we can’t remember a lot of that either. Were Chvrches playing there this year?
I’m not too sure.
Jonny: Do you know how much we know Chvrches? Fucking none. Chvrches can fuck off. Actually can we have that as the headline for this interview– make it sound like we’re turning into a punk band?
I have one final question to top off your punk band reputation. Hypothetically if every time you masturbated a single rodent sized sperm was created and it went around causing havoc and you would then have to battle and kill it—would you still do it?
Ash: Yes
Benji: Nonononono
Jonny: Obviously not. Would that have to squeeze its way out of my junk as well? If it had to squeeze its way out and it hurt and then I had to kill it… What is my policy on killing vermin. Wait this is a shrouded question isn’t it? This is all about pro-life…
Benji: I feel like we may have just entered a whole new realm of seriousness that this question was not supposed to be about.
Ash: Well, I’d say yes I would. I would quite like the challenge of defeating it.
Jonny: Yeah, I guess you probably would… At least once just to see.
Ash: I’m sure I’d be able to handle it.
Jonny: My sister had two rats when we were younger and they were pretty tame and pretty chill.
Do you not think then these rodent sized sperm would cause havoc then?
Jonny: Probably not.
Ash: In your scenario do they definitely have to cause havoc?
Yes.
Ash: Yeah, I’d still rub one out and then go and kill it.
Benji: I’d probably just rub one out into a hamster cage to be honest.
Jonny: Wait a second. I’d probably do it because otherwise this thing would be running havoc inside me. And ain’t nobody got time for that. Full stop. The end.
7bitarcade - Archive 