Stereoboard Speak To The Boxer Rebellion About The Band's Ups & Downs So Far (Interview)
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
Written by Alex Mead
In their decade-long career, The Boxer Rebellion have had more ups and downs than a kangaroo on a pogo-stick. Preparing for a short UK tour featuring their biggest headline show to date at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire on 29th September, the show will see The Boxer Rebellion start a new chapter after captivating an army of new fans with the release of their breathtaking third album ‘The Cold Still’. Ahead of their UK tour, Stereoboard's Alex Mead has a bit of chinwag with Tennessee-born frontman Nathan Nicholson...
Hey Nathan how are you today?
I’m great, how are you doing?
Not too shabby, thanks very much. What are you up?
Generally? Or just today?
Best cover off both…
Well today I’m just sitting at home trying to stay indoors, I’ve not really moved off the sofa to be honest. It’s one of those lazy days.
Ah one of those, how’s the telly?
Not that great, lot of stuff for old folks – like Cash in the Attic and those programmes where they fix a place up to sell it on.
How’s work?
I’ve been quite busy, we’re getting ready to go on tour for about three months. So, band-wise, I’ve just been doing a bit of writing really.
It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for The Boxer Rebellion – what with a label closing on you straight after your debut album and all that…
Yeah it’s never an easy thing being in a band, but when things are going good you really appreciate it. Having too much downtime is the only problem – if you’re busy you know things are going right. Overall I’d say we’ve been on a slight incline ever since we first started.
But it must have been tough when Poptunes was closed down. I mean Alan McGee signed you (ex-Creation head honcho) so you must have expected big things?
It happened pretty quickly after we signed, we never really had a relationship with people at the label, Poptunes just felt like a name from Mercury Records. We never met anyone there and so I don’t think they ever really got into us – now we’re doing our own label, we know how much of a difference it makes to have a record label that’s really pumped up behind you. Ever since we’ve had our own label we’ve been pumped!
You’re from Tennessee originally but have been a Londoner for years now, how was the change?
When I was 14 or 15 my mum brought my brother and me over for a holiday – it was the classic American holiday. Discover your roots, know where you come from and all that. It was really exciting city, I guess it’s just the excitement of a big city and all the possibilities of being able to do anything. Then there’s all the history around you. And I loved it, I’ve been here 11 years now and it’s just normality for me.
Not a country boy then?
We recorded 'The Cold Still' (the third album) in Box, near Bath and that was in the middle of nowhere, now I’m older I do start to like the peace and quiet, the green grass and the rolling hills.
How old are you?
I’m 30 now, not exactly knocking on death’s door, but you never know, There’s part of me that loves the country. I love River Cottage, maybe I’ll become the next Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who knows
You like old people telly don’t you?
Yeah, I need to start watching Heartbeat now. What’s that noise in the background? It sounds like you’re in a petshop!
Nope, just a creaky door…
I thought it was a parrot that kept squawking… but now you say it, yup, sounds like a door.
Glad we got that sorted. So, after Poptunes closed you then set up your own label. And the album was a cracker – Union became the first album from an unsigned band to reach the US Billboard 100. You broke America! How did you manage it?
I think we just had a lot more time to work on the second, we had no end date because we were doing it ourselves, so we could fine tune it, weed out any poor bits and anything that wasn’t up to scratch. We were helped a lot when itunes made Evacuate global single of the week. And then there was the film with Drew Barrymore…
(For the non-movie buffs among you, The Boxer Rebellion appeared as themselves in the Drew Barrymore film Going the Distance. In the film, they performed two tracks from Union – Evacuate and Spitting Fire. They also provided an original song – If You Run. So now you know…)
How did the film come about?
A friend of the managers passed our details, the director came to see us play in New York and that was it.
Did you mix with the stars?
Yeah we did a few days shooting with them, it was good, probably something we’d never do again, but cool nonetheless. We got to stay in a nice hotel and have rooms to ourselves, we didn’t even have to share!
Between the first and second albums, while you were setting up the label, you had proper jobs didn’t you?
Yeah, I worked at Office shoe shop for about three years then I was at Ted Baker for a bit. It was random, people would now and again say ‘aren’t you that guy who was in Boxer Rebellion’ and I’d be like ‘yeah, that’s still going on’. But it’s ultimately just what normal people do. Don’t get me wrong, if the band broke up I wouldn’t go back…
What would you do?
Maybe I’d be a cook in the countryside!
As you’re off on tour, you’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, how do you get on?
We see a lot of each other, the guitarist and the bass player live about two minutes from me, so we see each other or bump into each other a lot, we’re pretty used to touring now as we’ve been together for ten years. There are only so many stories you can tell though, and we’ve heard them all, so we’re happy for comfortable silences at the dinner table.
That’s nice. Well thanks Nathan, enjoy your lazy day!
The Boxer Rebellion play their biggest headline show to date at London's Shepherds Bush Empire on September 29th.
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