They may have been nominated for the Mercury Music Award (for ‘Fantastic Playroom’), but New Young Pony Club’s musical preferences remain firmly rooted in the past. Andy Spence, N.Y.P.C.’s guitarist, notes with pride that ‘I picked up a 7 inch version of Human League’s ‘Love Action’ yesterday- that was pretty cool.’, while going on to muse that ‘I like the 7-inch thing; it reminds us of the 80s, which is a period that we love musically.’ Indeed, the band’s fascination with tacky, sweaty, sexy pop music is illuminated by the song they choose to sing at Karaoke- ‘The last time we played in Dublin, we headed out for Karaoke afterwards and did a killer version of ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ by Bon Jovi. We got the entire room singing it!’

While New Young Pony Club embrace their Nu-Rave moniker more heartily than other similar bands do, they are by no means musically exclusive. They describe themselves as‘fresh, fun, exciting, flirty, edgy, punky and poppy’, and while ‘shameless’ may not be the right adjective to use, as long as music is involved, their interest can be roused. It’s difficult not to appreciate the wide-ranging musical capabilities of the group, though they shrug off notions of virtuosity, laughing that - ‘seriously, we’ll do anything, we’re slags!’ Andy composed the music to the Tibetan film ‘Dreaming Lhasa’, because of a fortuitous coincidence- the directors were his landlords. ‘They had heard the stuff that I did with N.Y.P.C. and really liked it, so they asked me to compose the soundtrack. They were lovely so I said yes. As landlords they were really nice, they never raised the rent in 7 years.’ From film soundtracks to remixing (a Seven-Inch for Gossip and ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’ for Amy Winehouse, amongst others), N.Y.P.C’s musical enthusiasm is limitless. When possible collaborations are mentioned, Andy gets incredibly excited-‘Well, obviously we’d love to do one with Bowie- though we might be doing a track with Paul Weller soon. There’s a Best of British compilation coming out, and we’ve written a track that he’s producing, but I don’t want to give too much away just yet.’ Despite being signed to the hip Modular label, N.Y.P.C. remain true to the minor venues where they honed their immaculate live set-‘ Well, we’ve never played a stadium… I’d like to be given the chance, though not as a support act, that’d be too difficult. You can’t beat a small, packed, sweaty club.’ Amongst their various side-projects, the band is also in the midst of writing their second album, the follow-up to ‘Fantastic Playroom’. Once more, when writing music is referenced, Andy’s enthusiasm is tangible- ‘with N.Y.P.C. there’s more of an emphasis on having fun, doing what we want… really, we don’t want to write for anyone else.’

Ailbhe Malone is 21 years old. Her father told her the other day that she was 'going to change the world'. She remains sceptical.
Email this author | All posts by Ailbhe Malone

Similar Posts