So we’re in Hoxton square with another bottle of vodka that isn’t quite as full as it was quarter of an hour ago, we Organs and MayKay (Mary) sitting on the grass in the square as Hoxton goes on all around us. 

MayKay is the feisty do-not-mess glitter pants wearing front-woman of Dublin’s Fight Like Apes and they’ve just come off stage after an extremely well received middle of the bill slot and their first Hoxton experience. MayKay glowing and controlling in the middle of it all Pockets (Jamie) off his crutches just while he's on stage then back on them again  after a recent ghost-hunting accident, Tom and Adrian rhythm section throwing instruments and smiles at each other.... four people and perfect pop chemistry... 

Now FLApes are a band we’ve been shouting about lots for the last year or so around these Organic parts, the original version of Jake Summers (released on Cool For Cats) was the Organ single of the year last year, it graced our radio show lots, as did many of their early tracks (and lots of grace those tracks have....). Things have been building all Summer from the strident Irish band - festivals, tours with We Are Scientists (they won lots of new friends in the open air over at Somerset House here in London a few weeks back), singles on the radio... 

So we’ve dragged MayKay out of the bar to sit on the grass in the square and tell us what she’s making of it all.... 

 Mind the dog poo.... 
  There's no dog poo, this is Hoxton!
     (Whispers...) wow man, there probably isn't, Hoxton is so f’kin’ weird 
     Yes it is, even us people who live here in London think so....
                 Well if you think so than imagine what this is like for us people from Dublin coming here for the first time.. and to me even Dublin was weird, I’m from a farm in Kildaire - out in the countryside, this is like "what are they all doing?! Stop everyone! Calm down the lot of you please, calm down, enjoy yourself, don’t worry... Jezzzzus...." and I have to say, my first gig in Hoxton and I have to be very honest, I f’kin’ loved it! It was... oh, I just love the idea of playing in a place I’ve never been before anyway, but this is extra good, I just loved having all these people just f’kin’... just looking at me up there, me! And I know that sounds so vain but that is how it is...
   Isn’t virtually every gig you play and every gig you do a new place right now though? 
           Well in the UK yeah...
    Word is really starting to spread now... 
 In the UK totally yeah, at home we’ve got some really great crowds and a healthy following now, last weekend we played these two festivals in real country towns and the reaction was amazing
          Were the people there for you? 
  Really hard to tell, I wish we could do a survey, but really big crowds and brilliant reactions and then we come back to the UK and it is exciting but in a way we find it a real come down. Back home we have a crowd that knows us and know what we’re about and know the songs and then we come over here and people just stand and they’ve maybe heard one song a couple of times on the radio and you’re suddenly playing to a crowd that isn’t sure of you and looks like they probably want to hate you which is what I felt a bit tonight before we went on...
      Oh no, that was good tonight, the crowd were all watching, we’re all too cool in London, that was good, I was watching them tonight, far more people singing along and knowing you tonight, far more that I’ve seen in London before, that had a buzz in there tonight
         Well I’m trusting you on that one, but that’s the thing though, in London things are so strange, they don’t tap their feet or shake their arms or anything
     Oh we were a London audience having good fun tonight, people were smiling and they were singing.. that was good...
         Oh I’m just not used to all this OK, I’m just a farmer’s daughter from Ireland and I’m not used to people not expressing themselves. If I go see a band straight off, even if I’ve never heard of them before, if I like them then my body will just move - it isn’t like a decision I make, it will just move and if I already know their songs then I’ll sing them louder than anyone, it isn’t a case of thinking about it and it isn't, Jesus, let me see, will I give them the time of day or not? 
        We’re spoilt in London, we get good gigs almost every night of the week...
  I find it all so so strange, I love London, and I don’t want to sound like I’m bad mouthing it, and I appreciate all that’s happening very very much and I love that people made the effort and came out to see us tonight and this is a pinnacle of so so much in terms of music... but.... it is fuckin’ hard... why do you all stand there with crossed arms guys!?  I’m sure you can do the superheroes dance like the rest of the world if you try. Come on! Try it, you can dance, you can do the superheroes dance, you can even do that old rocker dance, you can do any dance you want! All you ever do is the oh-who-are-you-folded-arms-standing-still dance! But hey, I love it here, isn’t it the best place to play though? This is how you know how you’re doing, if I want to gauge how we’re really doing.... I want to get a reaction and fuckin well get it here in Hoxton
       But can you gauge any of it right now? I mean things are changing daily, that gig you did at Metro in Oxford Street a couple of months ago, that’s when it really started to happen in London...
          Well I’ll be really honest here, we had four Irish bands on that bill that night and I reckon a lot of those people were maybe Irish and tonight it felt different, tonight it wasn’t our friends coming to see Mary or Jamie, it was people who were ooohhh, I’ve heard Fight like Apes on the radio or I’ve read something about them, I’ll go check them out and fold my arms and judge the fuckin’ shit out of them and not let them see me tapping my feet - and it really is hard to work out! And tell me this, this is fuckin’ funny, Barack Obama - and what fuckin’ genius thought he could get away with this one - Barack Obama had just announced that he’s worked out he has Irish ancestry! I would love to have the nerve to pull that one off! I would love to say “hello Hoxton, I’ve got Hoxton ancestry, now listen to my fuckin’ band!”, but I don’t OK.  I have to go, “here’s what we are and here’s what I am and let’s go play here” and hey, it seemed to go well and they did seem to like us and that’s wonderful, that’s all I can ever take from a gig, every time is a little different, I can never take a general well that tour went well, it really is about each gig and that one went well enough tonight or I loved that one or...
       But this is just London, people don’t fold there arms everywhere do they
  NO!
   Where don’t they?
  They don’t fold their arms in.... now let me see... they don’t fold their arms in Darlington, but that was an underage gig and kids gigs are fuckin’ class, they just don’t give a fuck 
            Oh but that happens in London as well
  Oh man, book us for some London underage gigs, they’re so fuckin’ cool, them jumping down the front boys are so damn cool, I was like I wish I was sixteen again! Let me think here, things have morphed in to one big gig this year... We did a We Are Scientists support tour recently and their people were good - really none-judgmental, they were like a dream. None-judgmental, young and just wanting to hear good music and they were waiting for their main band, the band that they clearly love but first they had us. But We Are Scientists had prepared these people for us and then just let us loose to play for them, how fuckin' mad is that! And it was just amazing and wonderful and God! Hoxton! Hoxton fuckin’ Bar and Grill and I’m sat here looking around while we’re talking an’ like look at these people! Where are you Organ guys from if you don’t mind me asking?
       Hoxton born and bred, all my family are from here! 
    Oh shit no! Now I’ve offended you! Drink more vodka! Sorry!
  No, we’re not really, (pass the bottle) we’re not from here, we avoid this place if we can help it...
      Ah you bastard! Thank you, no I didn’t think you could be, you’re like the total opposite to Hoxton, the antisepsis of it all... 
       That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to us (hic..)
   Oh you really are, but at the same time for a band like us we can’t reject it and we don’t want to, I love all this, this is like going to the fuckin’ zoo for us....
     Oh we fully get that, we had to come to London to do what we do, we came here with Organ and the record label, and this city is wonderfully creative positive place, always so much going on.... Now tell us, what’s this ghost hunting thing? 
        Oh wow! We need more drink for that! Hang on, I’ve got another bottle from our rider here, it isn’t mine and it isn’t yours, just from the mysterious thing called a rider, so drink! You know, I get really weird about riders. Where do they come from? Who owns them? And I don’t get this thing about the big headline bands having to paying for them...
 Who on earth told you that? 
  Well someone pays for them
   The band don’t, don’t let anyone tell you that one, that sounds like the kind of thing I would tell a band back when I did the managing thing just to keep them in line
           Well that’s what I understood
     No, the promoter has to provide what ever you demand or at least whatever you agreed in the contract, and the bigger you are the more of a pain in the arse you can be with it! We’ve had to spend fortunes on stupid rider demands...
No? Who was the worst? Tell me...
 Napalm Death probably, they wanted 72 cans of strong lager (had to be strong!) just for the soundcheck and that was before we got talking about the gig, they were obsessed with their 72 cans of beer and their hot towel before they’d even start the soundcheck, they were not very hardocre or punk rock about it, they worst type of prima donna Spinal Tap heavy metal band
      No way! You’re really telling me all this, did you really put Napalm Death on? Even more massive respect to you
Oh we’ve put them on several times - that was the last time though - and we released their nice gentle folk- rock side project
      Get to fuck! You’re messing with my head now, they did not release a Napalm Death folk rock record.... But hang on right, this makes my life much better, you see we’d read literature about this, one of those how the music business works books 
       Oh those books are always full of crap, throw them all away...
 Oh but we had to read them, you get to a point where you get an idea that something maybe is starting to happen and you think, hang on I better start to figure it out a little here and protect myself just a fuckin’ little you know! That sounds like a really bitchy thing to say but you do need to protect yourself and it was like me and Jamie working it out with this book. Jamie is my best friend and he’s in the band and it was like right, how do we do all this? It was like the first time we got booked in to a serious Dublin venue and someone said don’t forget about your rider and I’m like OK, what’s a rider? And we’ve worked it out now, it really is the simple needs of life - booze, a towel or two and sandwiches... 
           No Smarties?
 Oh yes and Smarties
       But not the blue ones?
 Shut up! But what is it with riders, I mean how far can it go, how much do they have to piss you off with not giving you what you demand before you think hang on, “I may have to pull the gig” and they say “who cares, pull the fuckin’ gig yer bitch” and we have to say “OK, forget we said that, pull it back, we’ll play, just give us bread and water, we’re not going to pull the gig!” - Oh this whole thing that’s happening to us now is so strange, rider politics is so strange and playing great gigs at big Irish festivals and then coming over here and playing to ten people and I love it all and I’m so up for the challenge that it shocks me how much I’m up for it all! Imagine playing to a few thousand people who are singing back to you and loving it and then come over here and working it from the start again and trying to win a handful of people over....
       So you must be one of the biggest bands in Ireland right now...?
 Well... um.... yes! I’m trying to be modest and politically correct and everything here, but I can’t and yes we are! I have to be honest with you, I can’t be modest, I’ve read Organ so much I can’t put  an act with you here and be all cool and clever and political and modest, yes we are getting near that and isn’t it fuckin’ brilliant! We’ve been like this unsigned band doing it all ourselves, a punk band if you will, and you don’t really get that many punk bands doing it themselves all the way and putting out records themselves and things in Ireland that much these days... We’ve just signed a record deal now but we’ve done all this so far by ourselves and last weekend we got to headline a show at a festival and that was like one of my best moments in this band ever, it was brilliant. You’ve got all these people, you got the front bit of maybe a thousand who know you so well and know the words and such, singing it back and then you’ve got the back bit of maybe another thousand and they’re there thinking who the fuck is she and what the bloody hell is she doing, and you can slowly see them being won over and that is just the most exciting thing to see from up there on stage...
      Ah you could hear that at Somerset House when you supported We Are Scientists, people we’re  just talking and saying “she’s cool”, they’re cool” “who are they”, “what are they called” it started off with not much reaction and you could feel it growing from all around the audience, it was exciting to be in the middle of it and feel it... 
     That makes me feel good to hear that from you here tonight in Hoxton. This place could do my head in I tell you – and another thing, everyone is dressed so well! Look at us, we look like shit, we’re dressed like shit, we look like tramps, I saw someone with better sparkly pants and I wanted to rip them off her because they were better than mine!
 But are these ones you have on now the lucky lost ones returned?
          You heard about that?! I lost my lucky sparkly gig pants! These are a different pair (whispers)... And today in Hoxton it was oh my god look at everyone, and you can write this because I’m not bad mouthing them - I love it, it really is nice to see, and everyone is so trendy here and I love it and I just wish I has thirty percent of the clothes they have but... on the other hand the fact that our keyboardist who has sprained is ankle and is walking in in a pair of navy blue flip flops and one sock on and a pair of crutches and I’m walking in like twat behind him with my sparkly shorts – and that’s the only bit of style I know, sparkly shorts....
      But now if you come back next week everyone will be wearing sparkly shorts like yours, I want some now...
       Get ta fuck, you in sparkly shorts and big boots and a black top! That’s all I know to wear, and someone said, “make an effort, the NME are coming” and I’m like “I don’t give a fuck, this is me, it doesn’t make the slightest difference what I wear really!”  In a way I wish I cared about dressing for the NME but I only care about dressing for me. I would love to be, right, a big magazine is coming let’s impress them, but I can’t do that, I can’t be anyone but me, if I wasn’t being me then I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight... 
      But that is it, and I get this picture of you all living in a flat in Dublin together and arguing about who’s putting which video on and who’s going to the chip shop... do you all live together like The Monkeys? 
        Get the fuck out of here again! Oh dear, what can I say... that is what it is really like! Oh so we’ve just signed to this independent label in Dublin and they’re like, “so, the video” and we’re like, we’ve got ideas, here’s what we want to do for the new Jake Summers, we want to recreate b-movie scenes and be like The Monkeys and we were telling the label these things and they were like “we don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but you know what, just go ahead and do it”
 Ah but you have to make b-movie videos.... you’ve avoided the ghost hunting question though, we’ll get back to who gets the chips and goodness me, and get some grace and such in a minute...
    Oh, alright, the ghost hunting, how embarrassing (more vodka). We were playing this festival called Castlepalooze in Ireland, at Charleville Castle in gorgous Tullamore, and of course the castle is said to be haunted...
      Are you sure about this?
Wait, I’ll tell you, the castle is reserved for band members and the whole thing is just so beautiful - no matter who you are and how used to big things you are, it really is beautiful. Wonderful old furniture, big open fires – and Jamie, our keyboard player, has always had this thing about wanting to go ghost hunting, and I was being a pussy about it and I was like "no Jamie we’re going to stick in the backstage area and behave man! Behave ourselves just for once - we’ll stay here, be cool", smoooze you know - and the long and short of it is that he got his way again and we went ghost hunting in this castle, we walked out and he fell down almost straight away and now he has a broken ankle and it was not my fault!
           But how do you ghost hunt first off? 
   Basically the way you ghost hunt is you just look around a haunted area and then head for the darkest most haunted bit of that area... obviously!
  What was it? The basement?
 No, it was actually the forest bit in the grounds - you’re at this big festival in the grounds of a castle and police and security are everywhere and the one place where the police aren’t is obviously going to be where to go ghost hunting, I mean they know the score right? Man it was so stupid, it wasn’t even fun, it was really ridiculous and this is what I have to put up with in this band all the time, and it was like so f’kin dark and I’m shouting “Jamie this is horrible, I can’t even see you” and he’s shouting back “I can’t see you either, arrghhhh.... help!” and I’m saying "stop messing around" and he’s like “no, I’ve broken my fuckin’ leg” and I’m yelling “no you haven’t yer pussy” and we’re yelling at each other and in the end he admits he might be bring just a tiny bit of a pussy but it is definitely sprained 
 And was the ghost to blame? 
      Well I can’t actually blame a ghost, I’ve no proof of ghosts existing or not existing and I’m not going to dismiss the possibility, all I know is that it wasn’t me who did it to Jamie, that’s it, it wasn’t me, it was a ghost who tripped him up in the dark, that’s my story... now that’s a scoop of sorts, I didn’t do it! Now you give me scoops, give me dirt on bands, drink more rider and give me the names of good bands....
 Oh now, arrghhh, there’s loads of good bands
  What did you listen to today, give me the hot new thing?
 Elephant Nine, no Wild Dogs in Winter was the best demo today, I like that Sweet Jane band from Dublin, they sound like they’ve been listening to the Dandy Warhols a little though... 
      Ah, yes I do like them, but that might be the case, I don’t know, but that’s the thing about us, we all have such different tastes and backgrounds and I can’t even work out where we come from musically, I’ve tried...
          What got you in to music first? 
  Jamie did, Jamie Fox, (Pockets) our keyboardist, I met him in Spain on a holiday, I was fifteen I think, very impressionable, and I was hanging out with my sister and she was like my idol, she's older than me and she was like - hey, there’s that guy from the big school near us and I’m like "oh what’s his name" and she’s like “Jamie Fox” and I said, “what, like the actor?” and she was like “Who?” and I said “never mind” and then the next night she introduced me and said “Mary, this is Jamie Fox” and I tried my joke again and said “what, like the actor?” and she said “that’s not funny” and he said “well it is kind of funny”. And from that night on me and him found this inexplicable really stupid sense of humour that I’ve only ever found I;ve had in common with him. We’ve all been in that situation where we met someone male or female or animal, possibly a dog, or a leaf or a flower or something and you’ve found someone who’s made you feel a little more like yourself and when I met him it was really weird and I had a fake tan and a silly pink dress on and I was such a little twat...
 So he Sven Gail’d you...
 Yes, he guru’d me...
  That man in the bandages and the flip-flops, he’s your guru?
 My god, what am I saying! He’ll read this won’t he? Now I’ve spilt the bottle, drink more before we spill it again... what a confession that was...
       So before you met him your record collection consisted of what?
  Oh dreadfully shite pop music, oh this is real confession time now, I’ve never talked like this in an interview...
 Well should we really hear all this?
  Oh yes, trust me here, this is good to get out and I trust you guys and let me make up a story, I ran away to be a rock chick when... oh no, I can’t lie and make up cool stories, I was a twat in a pink dress who liked bad pop music...
 What bad pop music were you in to?
  Oh the cheesiest of mainstream pop music, I’ve always had this horrible affliction towards pop music 
          But that’s good, good pop music is really nothing bad
        Oh I’m not ashamed of it, I like pop music... I think
  And that’s what you have in your band - good pop music, I read somewhere on some annoying web site the other day, that you were just a fight rock band and nothing but an act and I’m thinking, one, what the hell is fight rock? And two, can’t these people hear the songs and see how real it is! You can’t act this kind of chemistry – this is real and this is good – and the four of you have such chemisty and you’ve got pop in you!
         That’s a good thing to hear and that’s why I love Future Of The Left so much, Andy Falco from Mclusky, he’s saying there that you can have this pop sensibility and such trickling through everything you do but if you put it all through distortion peddles - and you can put distortion peddles on us and try and change everything but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m a poppy hooky bitch at the end of it. One of the very first UK reviews we ever got was from you at Organ and you got the pop without licking anyone’s ass about it, and it was really complimentary and really good to have someone I didn’t know and had never met saying these things and understanding what we’re doing, we’re a pop band man! A vulgar stark one maybe but pop all the same, and that’s it and now you’ll never play us on your radio show again now I;ve said we're a pop band - yer fucker...!
 Of course we will -  we sent one of our bands out on tour supporting PJ and Duncan once – that was pure pop chaos and screaming kids not yet teenagers! We just play good music, this is all about good music...
  Thank fuck for that, we get so paranoid when we’re in London, we just want to be us and make music and such.. People are coming up to me tonight and saying “do you know who’s here?” and I’m like “well yes, I do, there’s lads and girls here, look at them, look at her in her better sparkly pants than mine!” and they’re saying “no, the NME are here” as if they’re the English royal family or something and I’m thinking well I couldn’t possibly care any less! The thing that excites me is all these people are here for us to play to, they might not have been here to actually see us, I don’t know, but it seemed like a lot of them were. I do need the NME to like us, we know that but....
 Enough of this NME stuff, what was your first ever gig like?
            What with Fight Like Apes? It was in Dublin, it was like oh no...
  No, the first ever gig you ever did in any band?
  Oh my god, it was, oh I was a backing singer in this really indie indie proper indie poncey band....
 Like an indie version of that film the Commitments? 
  Oh god, I guess so, and I had two little solo slots in ten songs and the first was seven songs in and I was like no! And thinking about it for the whole time as it got closer and oh no, they’re not going to want to hear me, get me off this stage now please! Please run out of time bofore we get to my bit - but it turned out alright in the end and everyone politely clapped. But the first proper this is me and my big voice you hear now in this band gig was in Dublin at a place called Whelans supporting a band called Pedestrian 
 And did you blow them off the stage?
    Well no! We actually didn’t....
  So when did you actually think, hang on a minute there’s lots of people here, this is starting to happen? Was there a sudden moment? 
 Well the first gig was the 3rd of October, no, November 2006, what a twat I am for remembering that 
 Well you should... 
 Oh, OK, that’s alright then, but I do remember it being a really cool day and I remember thinking, alright I might not make it anywhere in this band but I like what I’m doing here and I love my life right now, so yes that was a great day
 Does it still feel like that?
    Yes, totally
  So you’re having a great time?
 I’m having such a great time, I’m having as great a time now as I did when I first realised hey, I’m playing in a band that has seven different distortion peddles!  The same feeling as when you first go out with a guy or you join an art workshop or the first day of your first job and you feel yes, this is actually who you are... it still feels like that - my head, legs, boobs, shoulders, arms, knees, my gooch... every bit of me feels like I really want to do this and that may sound so pretentious but I just don’t care
 What’s pretentious about saying you want to get up and put your heart (and all your other bits) in to singing and playing pop music?
         I know! But it wasn’t me, some other bitch decided it was pretentious, drink more vodka and ask me more, we’re starting to get on a roll now, no let me ask you more about Hoxton and what this place is all about - look at him over there...I mean look, at me, not the singer in a band, just look a me, a country girl called Mary, coming to London and singling in a trendy as fuck venue in London and all these trendy people paying attention, me on a stage in a pair of those bastard scruffy boots and a pair of sparkly pants, and having people I have never ever seen before in my life singing my words and I may never meet those people again but tonight that made me very happy and I’m not an emotional person but that may just make me cry right here and now...
   That’s it, if you never do another thing, you just had fifty strangers singling along and singing your words 
 OK, don’t misinterpret this, but let me say, if I never play another gig again, if I just decided to walk off in to the distance right now, then wasn’t that the best thing tonight! I’d be happy with that! That wasn’t the best thing that will ever happen in my life but for now it was fuckin’ near it - and it was massive fun - and wasn’t it such fun they through we were great. Wow! A few people are really getting this here in England now and I could see you and I could see her over there and you and this other guy and I never expect everyone to get it, and that’s what I like about being in my band, not everyone will get it - but some people will and that gets me so orgasmically excited about it all – excited about connecting with different people and coming over here and meeting people and I know I’m sounding like a twat now but I love all this...
 Part of it is because all four of you seem like real genuine people, you’re not acting or anything, you really are loving all this aren't you....
 Oh fuck, that’s a really cool thing to say, and I really don’t want to offend anyone but look at some of these people here, and I know we need these people but look how fake some of it is...
 No, the people you need are the people who will see you at that festival next Saturday in Leicester or the people you connected with on that last tour or the people in the towns reading this and checking you out...
 Oh thank fuck for that, hang on we’re almost out of drink and....
  Pass the bottle please, did you really grow up on a farm? 
 Yes...
  What kind?
 A cows and pigs type farm
   So you know how to milk a cow?
  I do!
   You’re a rock star but you also know how to milk a cow
  Exactly, no hang on, I’m not a rock star am I? Get ta fuck! Was that a trick question there? Let’s go find more rider, turn that recorder off, let's go have fun in Hoxton
 

And that’s it, Fight Like Apes – fun! Just four really honest, really real people singing distorted pop songs about life and feeding geese and junk television and second hand boots that are white not pink and all those important bungy-breaking things, and having a great time doing it. 

They’ve been one of the best bands of 2008, their debut album FIGHT LIKE APES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN MEDALLION is out in Ireland now, out in the UK in January.... we love Fight Like Apes!!

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www.myspace.com/fightlikeapesmusic or 

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