Cap Pas Cap
March 1st, 2008
I’ve seen Cap Pas Cap live four times in the last twelve months, thrice in support slot capacity, and they never fail to strike me as a band extremely assured in their own sound. Often shy and retracted onstage, the band stand in contrast to their confident, carefully-constructed clamour. The Not Not Is Fine EP, their sole release to date, exhibited the early stage of a sound that’s rapidly developing into something more complex. However, things have been all quiet on the Cap Pas Cap front since its release in December 2006. I caught up with the band before their recent These New Puritans’ support slot to see how 2008 is shaping up.
“Not Not Is Fine” EP has been doing the rounds for a while now, and you seem to have a lot of realized songs in your live arsenal- Will there be a new release soon?
Ed : We’ve already begun recording and we’re really happy with the results, it’s taken us a while to figure out exactly what songs work well as a set but it’s really taking shape now, completely new stuff and some older songs from the live sets that we really want to document. We’ve been recording with Al O’Connell who’s worked with Klaxons and The Rapture among others…The EP was released in December 2006 and the hope would be to release our first album later this year, probably Autumn. In the meantime we have a split 7” with Marnie Stern coming out on Hidden Hive Records in the next month or so.
Does having the band signed to your own label offer a lot of artistic freedom, or is there more pressure on you to be successful?
Ed : Only one member of Cap Pas Cap is involved with the Skinny Wolves label, so I wouldn’t describe it as ‘our label’, plus, as far as I can tell, they are actually just as busy working with other bands (Indian Jewelry, Luftkluster/Luftfluks amongst others), since Skinny Wolves released our EP we’ve been talking to a number of other labels who are interested in working with Cap Pas Cap, we’ve also managed to have the EP released in Japan on the Rallye/Klee label. The only pressure comes from ourselves, we’re quite self critical and cautious about what we release, but outside of our own circle we’re certainly not aware of any expectations.
You’ve played a lot of high-profile support slots- Have you learned anything or gained new ideas from any of the headline acts?
Ed : Definitely, playing shows with Errase Errata, Crystal Castles, Gossip, No Age have been so important for us, mainly because it informs us on where we want to go with Cap Pas Cap, which is outside of Ireland, and it defines for us how we want to work, we feel more comfortable placing ourselves in an international context. The biggest eye opener was probably The Go! Team tour, those venues were much bigger than anything we had been used to so that was very exciting and a learning experience I guess.
Who would your dream support slot be for?
Ed : Speaking for myself? This week it would be HEALTH, I couldn’t even guess what the others would be..
You’ve garnered some international recognition, like in Dazed And Confused. Is it an ambition for you to break out of Ireland?
Ed : Yeah, it really is, it’s hard to point to very much that we identify with musically and visually in an Irish context, nearly all our references points are international, the few shows we’ve played abroad has only confirmed that for us, particularly the gigs we played in Malmo last year, we met some amazing people and played to new audiences. Our EP has just been released in Japan too; we would LOVE to go there!
Are there any frustrations with being an Irish band, such as the smaller audience?
Ed : It’s not frustrating, it’s just a fact, there is a limited audience for what we do in Ireland, but we’re quite realistic about that. Again, it’s just another reason to explore the UK and Europe and further..
Do you pay attention to lyric-writing or are you more interested with providing vocal hooks, using the voice as another instrument?
Gavin : I think both lyrics and delivery are equally important in a song and we try to combine these to make every song as imaginative, engaging and unconventional as it can and should be.
Your sound seems quite informed by post-punk and krautrock- Have you always been interested in this type of music? Was it a conscious direction you wanted to take?
Gavin : We all listen to different types of music individually and Cap Pas Cap is music that happens when the four of us meet up. We didn’t sit down and decide to make a certain type of music; there
is definitely no blueprint for what we do.
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