House Of Horrors

Last time this scribe caught The Horrors live was at a Laneway sideshow back in 2012 and the always sharply dressed quintet sported matching, crisp white shirts. “OK,” bassist Rhys Webb hesitates, “I don't remember that, but it sounds about right.” So how do The Horrors decide on their immaculate styling before a tour? Webb is quietly spoken, eloquent and his posh English accent charms. He sounds somewhat embarrassed: “Um, well, I don't think, ha ha, er – well, basically I imagine we probably wait til the very last minute, look at our cupboard, see what we had washed and shove it in a suitcase, um [laughs]. Really, we don't think about it too much. But, you know, I think it's important that a band have some interest in the way they present themselves… When we started, all of our jeans cost about ten dollars and our shirts came from school shops. We used to just buy kids' white school shirts and wear them.” He's still a dedicated follower of fashion, though. “I did find this fantastic paisley shirt in Sydney once, which, annoyingly, I left at one of the Laneway shows. And someone promised they'd send it back to me and they never did, so I kind of miss that one.

“Never mind, I did actually end up with a souvenir from that [festival], though. It was just in the backstage room. They had these wooden masks, almost like tiki kind of things, and I brought one home with me. It's now hanging in my bathroom and it looks exactly like Brian Wilson.” Much laughter. “It does, it really does,” he promises.

The Horrors have just released album number four, Luminous, and, to this pair of ears, standout track I See You calls to mind The Cutter by Echo & The Bunnymen. “There's always a song where someone says, 'Oh, it sounds a bit like this and it sounds a bit like so-and-so,'” Webb observes. “With the last record [Skying], there was a track called Still Life and everyone said, 'Oh, it reminds us of a track by Simple Minds,' and we'd never heard it before.”

One of the first bands that Webb experienced live was Blur. “I queued up in the snow for seven hours to get tickets to see them at this small gig in Essex where I grew up: Southend-On-Sea,” he tells. “I remember I was 14. I was right down the front and – it was quite a long time ago – there was this band called Sneaker Pimps supporting them. They were a Swedish band, I think, and Graham Coxon was watching in the audience right next to us. And I remember we were kind of quite excited that he was there.” Although Webb says he was “probably too nervous to say hello”, he muses, “It's weird, because we've met him since, and he's been to see our shows, and we played at Reading Festival and were chatting with him afterwards so, yeah! He's a really great guy. That's one of the crazy things about being in a band; you end up meeting all these guys. That's why it was weird working with Damon [The Horrors collaborated on a Gorillaz track that didn't make it onto Plastic Beach], 'cause I was thinking, 'They were a band that I grew up with and I really loved and still do.'”

Webb also met Iggy & The Stooges. “[Iggy] was playing with Scott and Ron Asheton at the time, who both, you know, tragically are no longer with us anymore. So it was amazing to see The Stooges and to see the Ashetons playing with Iggy,” Webb recalls. “And actually Iggy was one of the coolest guys I've ever met in my life, I have to say. Faris [Badwan, lead vocalist] interviewed him and Josh [Hayward, synths] and I kind of creeped in and sat down and watched the interview that was going, on camera. But not only did [Iggy] engage with Faris, he kind of engaged with the whole room. So we sat there listening to his answers and, yeah! It was an amazing experience. [Pauses] you know, there's an amazing Australian interview with Iggy, which I always watch on YouTube. On Countdown, is it? He plays I'm Bored and he does the most insane performance. Okay, so the interview is pretty insane – but amazing at the same time – and he's kind of being told, like, to answer the questions seriously, but he can't sit still, he's squirming around in the chair. But then when you see that performance and it's just – he's playing to a backing track, he's miming along, but it's just one guy onstage and the way he commands that stage is insane! I think that's what it's all about, basically. It's one of the most amazing performances.”

According to Webb, The Horrors' Hackney studio is “the messiest space you can imagine”: “I think Joe [Spurgeon, drums/percussion] in particular would much prefer it if it was a lot more organised, but it literally is just gear stacked from floor to ceiling.” Is there a bar fridge in there? “Well, you know what? We don't have a fridge. We do have a little selection of bottles on one of the shelves where we've got some gear piled up and – in fact, like, some of the guys aren't really big drinkers in the band. I think some guys prefer to smoke, to be honest. But Josh and I in particular are whisky fans, so we were doing Old Fashioneds as we were doing this record.” Before you accuse Webb of wishing he were Don Draper from Mad Men, he's never even seen the show (“I haven't got a TV and I haven't had one since I was a kid when I lived at home”). Nevertheless, Old Fashioneds are “probably the band collectively's favourite cocktail” and, Webb continues, “I've been making them at parties for years and never doing it very well until recently, and I've cracked it! And now I can do it really well. So I can make you an Old Fashioned if we were to ever meet and I think you'd probably enjoy it.”