Black Manila Beach Parade have probably one of the coolest band names I’ve ever heard, its one of those names that your sure is set for great things. With Gareth wanging out the guitar distortions, Liam dolling down the surf beats and Conrad singing about pigeons shitting on your head, this collective bring together something rather extraordinarily wild, a mix of kraut rock meets surf beat meets horror surf ( as they like to call it). When I headed down to the Old Blue to catch their gig at Dollop, they were dolled up in the strangest assortment of outfits - a dead sailor, a skeleton and a some sort of Moroccan goat herder…..
 

What’s the meaning behind these amazing outfits Conrad? Will we be seeing you in a new outfit for every gig? I reckon the sailor probably went best with the surf beat theme. 

Yeah we enjoyed the whole cabaret, its influenced by the old horror surf bands, and getting into costume helps set you free from yourself and really perform. With the collapse of the record industry its all about live music again, so live bands really have to perform and have a look to build their fan base. 

Horror Surf sounds epic, what does that really involve? 

There is no real definition of Horror Surf, its like the C that Sid vicious played on the bass guitar was the same C that Mozart played on the Piano, its all about context and the way that you play the music. Musically Horror Surf is no different to any other surf riff, Gareth is a genius guitar player and doesn’t just re create old sounds, we are really pushing the surf genre to a new place.    

What about surf beat, which bands where the pioneers of this? I think surf beat is one of those genres that is really lacking in output right now, I don’t think I’ve heard any surfbeat bands since the 60’s or something…

There is a Latin American surf band called Los Saicos from the 60s who are incredible, you need to hear their front man, he is like no one else. Also the Nebulas, Satan’s Pilgrims, The Surfaris, Meeser Chups, there are also an incredible wave of horror surf acts from back in the 60s and 70s who dress up as Mexican Day of the Dead Skeletons or wear those latex Mexican wrestler gimp masks on stage. 
 

When you started playing music was it surfbeat that influenced you,  or has that just gradually developed and formed what you are now?

I starting playing the Drums back in primary school and played the drums and the bass ‘sid viciously’ badly for a few sweaty teenage bands until I heard the Velvet Underground & Nico album when I was 16 and decided that Lou Reed was god and writing songs and lyrics was what I wanted to do. I taught myself to play the bass and guitar by writing hundreds of terrible songs sitting on my bed.

I later started a band called Stazi Static but we disbanded after less than a year for various reasons and a few months later I got together with a couple of other people to try and form a new band while we still had the use of a studio. So many different line ups formed and fell apart, never quite clicking musically until Liam (drummer) came back from a year round the world and we formed the foundations which were to become the band. Our first gig was a month later at the Macbeth and we had about 7 people on the stage, none of us really knew what we were doing but that was the fun of it. We have never stopped and stuck with anything, we have changed names, line ups, songs, styles so many times in the short space of time we have been together in the search of our sound. Now its just me Gareth and Liam and we are writing the best material we have ever written, and we are much more sure about our musical direction and what we are trying to do. 

The lyrics all have a great deal of power to them, I find that really refreshing, is there a message behind each song?

I used to listen to the radio everyday, and I couldn’t’t believe some of the crap that people write, release and have listened to. Shit music is a huge driving force for me, people are so content with second rate material, if I am going to make something then it has to be the best it can possibly be because if its not then what’s the fucking point. The New York poets and writers Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs have a big influence on my lyrics, also William Blake, Lou Reed, Charles Bukowski, W.H. Auden, Mikhail Bulgakov, Richard Brautigan, Mary Shelly. Other people lyrics and words have had a huge affect on my life, and I think it’s a privilege to have the chance to write something that someone else can respond to.  
 
You guys are all from South London, is the area one of the things that has become an inspiration? You seem to sing about a lot of interesting characters!

South London is a big inspiration, Me and Liam have lived in South London our whole lives and Gareth is from Bromley which is South of South London, that’s seriously fucking south. I have been cycling from Streatham Hill to Shoreditch most days recently, for work, gigs and parties, which was the inspiration for our newly recorded song Brixton Hill ‘it’s a long way up Brixton Hill’. I think that South London is an amazing place to be from, it can be hard to relate to people from other places sometimes because everything is South London is so open and everyone from all backgrounds and walks of life live on top of each other, that is one of the most beautiful things about it. As long as you have your dreams it doesn’t matter where you are from, it’s how hard you want to fight for those dreams that matters, that’s the message behind ‘Brixton Hill’. 
 
And finally is there a deeper concept behind Black Manila Beach Parade?

We are really trying to break boundaries and discover new sounds, we aren’t afraid of change, one of my favourite quotations is ‘The visionary artist inhabits the eye of the hurricane. For him chaos in both inspiration and balm for his turbulent soul’, I want to keep the chaos of Black Manila Beach Parade alive, it’s the only way to progress. I want so be one of those bands who are given the chance to make a great album and then see what is next.
 
www.myspace.com/blackmanilabeachparade

You can buy black manila beach parade T-Shirts on http://www.dobedo.co.uk from Mid-september

Words and photos Vasilisa Forbes

Article by supersupertv