Paris Pickpockets

Last weekend (08/02/2013) was veeeery busy music-wise for London’s CrazyFriday Magazine’s member. Hanging around the city visiting not less than 4 places with live music either free or less than 6 pounds, we could enjoy a bunch of good byves, amazing indie bands and really stunning live performances.
One band that really got our attention was Paris Pickpockets.
Very contundent live and really good songs. We could enjoy them at The Urban. Here’s a little interview with them so you can know more about them:

1-. Hi guys, couldn’t find much more information about Paris PickPokets. Tell us about yourselves, how you met, when you started to play and when you decided to gather together and start Paris PickPokets band.
There are three members of PARIS PICKPOCKETS – Kai (Singer/ Guitarist), Michael (Guitarist) and Ryan (Bass). We knew each other as we all used to live in Manchester a couple of years ago. We only properly started the band a couple of months ago but we’ve already played the O2 Academy Islington and supported one of our favourite bands growing up – The View, so we’ve been fairly busy.

2-. At your facebook´s page says you are based in London. Are you from the same area?
We met in Manchester but originally Kai is from Birmingham, Michael is from Strabane and Ryan is from Wood Green.

3-. Facebook page was opened the 1st of January of 2013. Is this a new years proposition? the result of a big party at new year´s eve?
We got told of our first gig on New Years Day, however the venue said that we had to have some sort of social network site to advertise the gig so reluctantly we made our facebook for then.

4-. We could saw you playing in The Urban without a drummer. Are you playing to get one? still looking for the one that fits in the band?

There are a lot of influences in the band. We wanted to have a strong dance element to the band and always wanted to have a drum machine as we thought it made us sound a bit different to other bands.

5-. I´m curious about the drums. Really sound amazing. Any of you play drums? you pre-record it or are software generated?
Kai used to be into drum and bass music as a kid so was always into making drum beats. We wanted to make our music to be as different as possible and wanted to maintain a dancey sort of feel to it.

6-. Tell us about the songs. How you compose your songs? is there someone that leads the composition and the other members add their
instruments to it? What about the lyrics?
We take just as much time on lyrics as we do on the music. We wanted to have lyrics that were observational and that people could relate to. Lyrically Kai’s a big fan of Pulp and other non musical artists such as John Cooper Clarke and Alan Bennett.

7-. Your sounds recall me Artic monkeys early stages. Is that one of the bands you like? Tell us about you influences, which bands, sounds you like.
I think because our lyrics are quite observational people often make comparisons with early Arctic Monkeys. Musically we have quite a lot of influences though, such as Foals, Boys Noize, Metronomy, Kasabian, Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

8-. In your soundcloud you have two songs. Do you have more songs coming? any date of a probably EP release?
We are due to record another two demos and put them on our soundcloud around 19th Feb. We had to do most of the demos ourselves due to us having no money. However we’ve been really happy with the response that the song ‘You Better Watch Your Tone’ has had online. especially as it was a fairly rough demo.

9-. How you find London´s musical scene. Is it easy to find places to play and get your music to know?
With the internet its easy for people to hear your music. We always concentrated on the songs and never really worried about promoting ourselves online. However when we put our songs on soundcloud people took them and shared it on their own page and put them on youtube etc. So I reckon as long as the tunes are good, you will start to get more known eventually through word of mouth.

10-. Finally, could you recommend us a couple of places in London to see good live bands like you?
Kai and Michael have moved to London fairly recently but found it’s got a really good music scene. Good places to watch new bands are The Dublin Castle and the Old Blue Last.

For more info about them check their Facebook fan Page at Paris Pickpockets and their music at Paris Pickpockets’s SoundCloud.

Have a nice day!

Related Posts