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Help She Can't Swim Interview |
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Words: Lauren Strain
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Photography: Simon Fernandez
“It’s hard to breathe when you’re always wearing a
maaarrrrrggghhhhskk!” scream ‘n’ strangle Tom vs
Leesey of Southern screechers Help She Can’t Swim
on new record The Death Of Nightlife, gargling a
mantra that summarises precisely what this gaggle
of feisty spittle kids (they’re twentysomethings, but
as giggly and charming as pre-teens on Fanta) are
about. They want conviction, opinion, individuality,
and my, they are loud about it. They want,
“DANCING!” bounces Leesey, with orange hair,
aqua eyes and turquoise legs. “Extreme dancing.
But you don’t get that much anymore. It’s just,
‘How po-faced can I look?’”
“I think it’s nice when the audience don’t look
like they should all be at the same gig,” says Tom,
sparkly eyes and alabaster cheekbones. “You’ll have
50 people looking really pissed off and then little
clumps of people who actually know who we are.”
“Going ‘EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!’” squeals
Leesey. “When I was 15 and saw Kenickie and Bis,
talking to them was the best thing ever. Now, when
girls come up to me going, ‘I felt like that’, it means
so much – that’s what I do it for.”
“It always makes me feel bad when people say,
‘We’re here just to see you!’ I think, ‘I’m sorry’.”
“You don’t really think that, you think ‘Come to
meee, come to Tom Denneeeyyyy,’” Leesey teases.
“Yeah, I just want them to stroke my ego.”
“They stroke your legs.”
“Which is the next best thing.”
Anyway. We’re in London, discernible from
drummer Lewis’ excellent imitations of various
borough-based accents; specifically, in a cream
box at The Forum preparing for some weird Rizlasponsored
affair in support of CSS. Last week,
they took their tumbling toy melodies and boy-girl
sparring to a house in Coventry with fairylights
and a jazz piano: here’s a band able to swap huge
theatres with the Brazilian buzz mob for three quid
gigs, lose a member, then rework 40-odd quartetfriendly
tracks. “It feels like this is only our fourth
or fifth gig,” Tom marvels, “because it’s like…Yes
Leesey, I’m still playing the same old shit …But
we’re almost a new band.”
“It’s bad for me ‘cause I’m having to play loads
more,” Leesey mock-moans. “There’s only a couple
of songs now where I only have to sing; otherwise
I’m multi-tasking to the max. Which is clearly not
my forte.”
“This album’s a lot less bratty than the first
one?” Tom suggests.
“More matuuooiiiire,” snorts Lew as Leesey
shrieks with incredulous laughter.
“But I think that’s what it was,” Tom insists.
“It was us working out what sort of band we
actually were. On the first, we were more…well,
yeah!” he laughs, as Lew yowls like a cat, dying.
“We were just taking the piss out of stuff. This
album’s a bit darker.
“I think it’s more about…”
“Bush,” deadpans Lew.
“No, not Bush!” Leesey splutters. “It’s very
much a personal politics thing. More open. With
the first it was just, ‘Yeah, fuck you, fuck you and
YOU TOO, y’know? We were lazy little shits.”
“With this one, it’s more, ‘Fuck me, I’m
rubbish,’” laughs Tom. “We were sat in my room
and realised we had to write lyrics for tomorrow,
so we went, ‘Let’s write a song about stuff we
actually like!’”
So! Reasons why I firstly liked and now giddily
love Help She Can’t Swim:
1. While you hurtle into walls like a legless
elephant to their glucosamine tirades of snotty
guitars and screwed computer-carnival keyboards,
a wry lyric’ll smack you in the face and shock you
to stasis: “The organs are exposed/In a game of
Operation/And the buzzer always goes/When you
put the tweezers in” as an analogy for fragility,
anyone? How about “I’m sick to death/Of
Christmases by hospital beds/Holding thin hands
or kissing hot foreheads”? Nothing like a rancorous
confrontation of loss set against shouty jumps of
abandon to plague yer body.
2. Their merchandise consists of FELT OWLS!
3. Their ridiculous tour stories include playing
a community centre booked by a 13-year-old
where, “There were kids selling Smarties at a
counter, like a tuck shop” (his parents laid on
a buffet); and urinating (on people, in Germany)
– “not in a sexy way” – but we shan’t delve, yeah?
Reasons why you should cut straight to the
‘giddily love’ part and not bother with ‘firstly liked’?
All of the above.
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