Hello Twilight Collective readers of Earth and elsewhere! I've infiltrated the main tab without Alli once again to bring you this interview with producer, performer, and former Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick McCarthy. Would you say you had a lot of exposure to music early in life? When did you realize your passion? Who would you say the most prominent influences are on your music and life? I didn’t have a massive exposure to music as a kid. Just normal. My parents had a normal record collection which to me seemed quite boring until I found the Beatles hidden in there. My brother had a profound part in my musical life. He taught me how to play the guitar and showed me how to write a song. I couldn’t quite believe you could do that so easily. And one last big influence was my time with Embryo, the German krautrock band. The leader Christian Burkhart was my mentor for years. I loved the way he played and how he managed his band. He’s a true hero and icon for me. He died only a few months ago. What have you been listening to recently? Mal Waldron. What was your experience like touring with Das Lunsentrio? What was your favorite thing to work on with that group? Also, I noticed you guys have a distinct red, green, and yellow color scheme. Why did you choose those colors? What do they represent? We are the greatest of friends and have an amazing time wrecking havoc on tour. We actually have Martin the God of Chaos in our bus with us and he decides which direction to take. You can imagine... the colour scheme is because Hank, our singer is a Rastafarian. How have your experiences in touring changed from when you first started out to now? Have you noticed any shifts in popular music or the way the alternative music scene is perceived in different places? People don’t like touring much anymore because it’s so clean, but our tour with Das Lunsentrio is definitely not clean so I like it. There are indeed shifts I’ve been perceiving but that might just be the way time works. And I think there are always a few alternative music fans anywhere in the world. It’s similar and not so similar at all all over the world. How’s that for a non-answer? How would you describe your experiences with Franz Ferdinand? What are some differences in the music scene in the UK vs Germany? We had an amazing time as a band. I’d even say exceptional. Something like that doesn’t happen very often in a lifetime. My memories are all a vivid sparkle. the UK music scene is based on the newest thing, pop, I suppose. And we just stepped right in there and never looked back. The German scene doesn’t work like that. There are subsidies for music to try and give everyone the experience of high culture. They want everyone to have the same education. It can be quite high brow but people get a lot of musical history shoved down their throat. There was never a big scene for the entertainment industry. One of the men from Kraftwerk said that’s because the Germans aren’t very good at entertaining. Well a lot has changed though and there’s a lot of labels in Germany now, so it’s better for the scene. I assume working with your wife, Manuela, is a different experience than what you've had in the past. Would you say it comes naturally, or have you dealt with any creative differences? If so, how do you overcome those challenges? it’s great writing and recording songs with Manuela. we’ve always done it since we met. She’s great. The problem is organising the worldly things like who booked the flights to the next gig and where is my passport? How do your kids feel about your music? They can sing along to the whole Manuela album and when something I’ve done comes on the radio they tell me “it’s Daddy music in’t it”. And I go: it sure is, now get your Muesli down you we need to go to school. (thank god school in England starts an hour and a half later than in Germany. I used to hate getting up for school, but this seems ok) Can we expect anything from Box Codax coming soon? I love Ragnew and still see him every Christmas. We are still writing together but I use the songs for other things usually. Who would you like to work with in the future? What are your plans for the future? I want to work with all the great musicians I’ve met over the years. There’s not that many I really really connect with so I’ll start working my through them pretty soon! I’ve got a studio in London called “Sausage Studios ” or “the Sack” and I’m producing music there, so that’s my plan for the future. More songs, more records. Give us a call if you need some hot production! What’s your go-to pizza topping? Margarita for the kids. If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be? No. 9 What songs would soundtrack your life? No. 5, 6, 13 and 17. Are you more of a cat person or a dog person? Do you have any pets? Cats cats cats If you were an animal, which animal would you be? Why? Which animal best represents your music? A sponge. They live for 4000 years. SpongeBob represents my music pretty well. What are your interests outside of music? Table tennis, Spanish, watching the news, cycling. Are you planning on coming to the US anytime soon? No I really don’t have any plans to come to the US. but we play in Mexico. Come over there if they let you in! Thank you, Nick, for stopping by the email inbox of Twilight Collective to answer some questions. We appreciate it! Good luck finding your passport.
For our readers: You can follow Nick on Twitter here and support his music here and here. Since I infiltrated the main tab, I get to do my outro: see you guys in my next article!
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"Liah and Alli," you ask your computer screen, "how in the world did you discover a Croatian indie rock band with the name Jonathan?" It's kind of a funny story, actually. It was 7:30 PM on a Friday night. We were getting ready to go to Alli's brother's basketball game. We were screwing around in her kitchen with her totally-not-recording-everything Amazon Alexa. She asked it to play songs by Jonathan. And it delivered. We listened to two of Jonathan’s albums that day and decided they were so good that we had to interview them. After literally ten seconds of discussion over whether we should ask or not, Liah sent Jonathan an Instagram message. Anyway, here are the responses to our questions, answered by Jonathan's guitarist, Darko Petković. 1. Why did you guys choose the name Jonathan? What does Jonathan represent? Jonathan is our imaginary person. We used to make fun during rehearsals of this guy who has very poor social skills, awkward when there are other people around him but also a very kind and generous person. It’s an internal joke so his persona is a bit exaggerated. For us, it reflects this idea of unity, Jonathan being a metaphorical single person with a blend of character traits and whimsies from each one of us. 2. Who are your biggest musical inspirations? Are you inspired more by music scenes worldwide or the Croatian scene itself? By music scenes worldwide, of course. We grew up back in the 90’s when TV, especially MTV, had a huge influence on teenagers, especially Nirvana and the whole grunge movement, and that’s where the English lyrics came up in our music. Each one of us emerged from different music worlds and genres, we all played in different bands before we started Jonathan (which wasn’t even supposed to become a real band). I would say that we seek and find the inspiration in each other because of that, it is diversity that inspires and also connects us. 3. What's your favorite thing about the Croatian alternative scene? We don’t have our favorite thing about the Croatian alternative scene because it’s very poor and not coherent, so we like to stick to ourselves, trying to do our best. 4. If you could replace the members of Jonathan with animals, which animals would they be? This is a hard one. Nikica would be a fox because he’s clever and canny. Branko would be a dog, he likes to bark with no particular reason but he is also very loyal and full of love. Zoran is a strange combination- sometimes an eagle that flies high, sometimes a little mouse that needs a shelter from all the other predators. Tomo would be a dolphin- it swims for an easy and joyful life, enjoying thesmall things, and has very sophisticated sonar for music. It’s hard for me to write for myself so I’ll leave that for some other occasion. 5. In your own opinion, what makes a Jonathan song a Jonathan song? Do you have a “trademark” part of your songs? We think our trademark is that we don’t have our trademark or music style, as we said in one of the previous questions. We are very diverse when it comes to music and we move through music genres and styles easily. Strong vocals and great writing skills is something that defines Jonathan, by the words of the media critics and the public here in our region. 6. (Alli) I’m actually Croatian! My great-grandparents were from there. My Grandparents recently visited and brought me back beautiful postcards. What part of Croatia do you think inspired you the most? It’s actually our hometown, the city of Rijeka. It isthe biggest port in Croatia and it was the main port in ex Yugoslavia. In the 1920s, there was a direct line to New York once in a month. A lot of ships used to come and go, with people bringing lots of stuff from all around the globe, music records amongst them. It’s a very multicultural city, known for its rock legacy. 7. I really enjoyed your video for “Maggie.” What was your favorite part of filming it? The whole process was very exciting and inspiring for us. It was our first video, we had no money, just enthusiasm and a bunch of good and willing people around us, to whom we are very thankful. 8. What place in the world do you dream of playing in? New York. We would like to be the band with the planet earth as our playground. You can stream Jonathan’s latest album, To Love, on Spotify, Bandcamp, YouTube, and iTunes.
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