Trampolene are ALIVE (and candid!) TheZineUK interview
The Alive Tour press day for This Feeling was a unique and unforgettable day, full of laughter, music and even a This Feeling bus that took everyone from The Monarch in Camden to The Boogaloo in Highgate.
Ever the cool kids, The Surrenders, took straight to the back of the bus, singing a variety of '70s hits, with Rich playing the guitar they’d been carrying around all day, while at the same time Trampolene singer Jack Jones got a hold of the bus's microphone, rapping Eminem lyrics (who knew he was a fan?), and coming out with random lines, the most remarkable being, “my nans 62, her name is Sheila, she’s always on the phone to her mother fucking dealer!”
“Yeah we have to live with this…” says Trampolene drummer, Rob, with a laugh and an eye roll.
Prior to this bus ride, Elly Bailey got to sit down with the Welsh rockers to have a chat about chart success, being pushed around in trollies and of course the This Feeling Alive Tour.
It was a beautiful day in Camden sat in the garden of The Monarch. The sky was blue, the birds were cheeping and the relentless sound of a drill was adding (?) to the essence of the day.
Rob, Wayne, Jack
Wayne: (bassist) "Yeah I’m really enjoying the sound of the chainsaw in the background."
Jack: "It’s my dentist he’s coming for me. He’s an evil dentist.
Well… to be fair he’s done nothing but good things for me because I keep knocking my teeth out.
The first time I did it I was going down a hill in a bin while I was at school. One time I was so angry with my sister I clenched my teeth and they snapped out. Another time I dove into a swimming pool and cracked my teeth on the side. Another time I went for a drink from a tap and hit my teeth on the tap."
Rob: "I think on your 18th birthday, early on, you went back on a chair and didn’t realise it had no back, and hit your face with your knees."
Jack: "Yeah it was an 18th birthday present to myself, knocking my own teeth out with my kneecaps. And I didn’t have any teeth for a while and I really wanted some so I sold my iPhone. And that’s how I got these teeth I’ve got now."
Elly : "So, you're about to embark on the Alive Tour, are you looking forward to it?"
Jack: "I’m well excited, can’t wait. It’s going to be great to get to know all the other bands. Manchester and Cardiff I’m most looking forward to."
Wayne: "It’s going to be good kicking it off in Cardiff, it’s sort of our home coming show."
Jack: "Yeah we get to scare the shit out of our family once again, make them think, ‘why are they doing this.’?"
Elly : "You’re not doing too bad, you’ve released two albums now!"
Jack: "Yeah that did better than the first one, it got to number 10 and none of us knew."
Wayne: "We just had no fucking signal…"
Jack: "We just didn’t care, we didn’t think anything would happen and then we got a notification."
Wayne: "Like, we do what we do because we want do what we want do, and if people enjoy that and they want to keep with us that’s enough for us.
Who remembers what was in the charts in 1982? As long as we get on that stage and we play together and there’s people there enjoying it and embracing the moment like we are, we don’t care about digits.
We also can’t fucking count so that’s probably is part of it."
Elly : "And then, you're playing Dingwalls in Camden, kind of close to where home is for you now."
Wayne: "Yeah, North London, I like where I’m living cause there’s no tubes, just get the bus and if you’re on the wrong one get off and get on another bus."
Jack: "There’s always that worry of falling asleep on buses though…"
Wayne: "When we first moved to London we used to go out and come in late and get the 24-hour bus.
One night we were in Dalston or somewhere and got on the bus. And Jack fell asleep because he couldn’t handle his liquor as well as me. And I was like fuck this, I’m going to have a sleep as well then.
So we were both sleeping and the bus got to the end of the journey and the bus driver woke us up and told us to get off and we’d ended up in Wood Green.
And Jack couldn’t walk so I chucked him in a trolley and pushed from Wood Green station to Hornsey High Street all the way. He probably could of walked, he was just being lazy, the trolley was there, it was meant to be."
Jack: "I was fine really, I was completely sober, I just wanted a lift."
Jack, you just came back from Japan, and you were over there promoting Trampolene, did you find people reacted in a different way to you than in England?
Jack: "I was really surprised how people are affected there. They’re giving you presents, getting really emotional, it just seems different to England. If someone notices you here, people are like, ‘hey it’s Ket Man.’
Rob: "Wayne’s got a hoodie with a picture of Jack’s face on that says Ket Man."
Wayne: "Oh yeah a fan gave it to me."
Jack: "When I first did The Libertines tour poet thing, I was in Cardiff and I checked online after the gig to see if anyone had said anything and everyone was talking about ‘Ket Man’ and I was like 'what the fuck is Ket Man?' and I clicked on it and it was just a picture of me!"
Elly : "What are your guys thoughts on This Feeling as a platform?"
Wayne: "It’s a good platform, Mikey helps new bands and takes them under his wing, I don’t know if we’d call ourselves a This Feeling band. We’ve just always got on with Mikey and he’s as nuts as us. We’ve ended up playing shows for him and sometimes didn’t realise we were playing them for This Feeling."
Elly : "I remember at Y Not Festival Jack drinking something that wasn’t Red Stripe and getting told off…"
Jack: "...Yeah, before the show they were like don’t take anything on stage that isn’t Red Stripe, so I snuck a couple of cans of Stella in my pocket..."
Wayne: "...We started shouting Fosters, Carling... Being mates with Mikey you’re going to have a bit of banter so we walked onstage and thanked every other beer company we could think of. Red Stripe's a classic drink. It’s better then Carlsberg. But not as good as Guinness."
Elly : "As a band you have a much more personal connections with fans, do you see them as fans or friends?"
Jack: "I think of them as friends."
Wayne: "That’s when it gets dangerous, when your friend group becomes that big and you see them a lot. When you’re meeting your friends/fans everyday you’re going to have a good time. Off the stage we meet people and spend time and we remember everyone."
Jack: "I know how much it means to people because I’m a fan too and it’s a dream to have someone you admire to give you some time. Just treat people how you want to be treated.
That’s my simple philosophy." *
https://facebook.com/trampoleneofficial/
Words and image by Elly Bailey
* that philosophy is quite possibly why Trampolene are a thread of TheZineUK music movement story. get involved on the #ALIVE tour 20th November to 1st December (remaining tickets - act fast)
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