The Big Pink

Fellini once said in earshot of a passing hack, “Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you’ve made is worth the misery of having to review it.”

If that overrated dead director is correct, then Robbie Furze and Milo Cordell of The Big Pink are two of the most desperate and awkward individuals of 2009, because we here at Disorder are not only fully convinced, but have had the logo tattooed onto our hearts without anesthetic. Blending fuzzy rock sensibilities and electro chic with more than just a dash of homoerotic imagery, these London boys have managed to make a big noise in an incredibly short period of time.

We caught up with Milo prior to one of the biggest gigs of his career supporting the clearly overrated Muse at the O2.

Your debut album ‘A Brief History of Love’ has been critically acclaimed. Are you happy with the result? Would you change anything if you could now?

Yes, yes I would. There are always going to be songs you look back on and wish you didn’t include or that you swapped them with something else. There are at least six good songs on this album. That’s better than a lot of albums out there. After all this I’m gonna take some time to get inspired by things again. At the moment I’m just going from city to city filling in the gaps with music but not actually listening to it. I want to be inspired by something to make me want to write better music. I can’t remember the last time I just sat down and listened to an album all the way through and was actually moved by it.

How has winning the NME Shockwave award in February affected the band? Do you feel under more pressure?

Well we had only released one limited edition single (500 copies) at this point so I don’t know where all the hype came from. It’s crazy that we won it. The band certainly hasn’t changed, we are still the same. I don’t really think about it to be honest. It has probably made us a bigger target though. I guess there are elements of it which is setting us up for a fall.

Did you have much say in ‘Dominos’ getting used in that XBOX 360 advert? Do you have a view on your songs getting used to promote products? Would it not be better used in a pizza advert?

I probably wouldn’t be here at the O2 supporting Muse if it wasn’t for ‘Dominos’ and that advert. We got exposure to a demographic we wouldn’t normally get to. It’s crazy supporting a band this big. They have 12 big trucks to carry around all of their gear and hundreds of people on their crew. We just have ourselves.

Do you actually like Muse though?

Hold on, I’m just looking around the room for listening devices. Yes, I think they’re alright. You’ve got to respect what they have achieved, even if you don’t like the music. You’ve also got to respect their catering. We can eat whatever we want!

You are about to start an American tour. How do the fans out there treat you?

It’s funny as we get lots of hype in the press over here, so when we get a good reaction we feel it might be justified. We have sold the same number of records in the UK as we have in the US, so people don’t realise that we have great support over there too. That’s all probably from one or two good reviews where it matters. The Curse of Pitchfork. We are really looking forward to going out there and just playing as many gigs as possible. We are playing a few dates in November and then we are going back in March/April to do 60 dates all around the country.

Do you have a 5-year plan, or do you just want to take it one single/gig at a time?

I’m just gonna do what I have been doing for the last couple of years. Just write music I like and see where that takes me. If we were to release a Greatest Hits we would only have two songs on it at the moment. I want to build a body of work comparable to the Rolling Stones!

Disorder were approached on Twitter to clarify Milo’s statement that “The Horrors are the best rock n roll band in the last 10 years.” Was this a misprint or did you in fact mix up the word ‘best’ with the word ‘worst’?

No, I do really think they are the best rock n roll band of the last ten years. They have an image that syncs with the music perfectly and create songs that I already think are timeless. I think they will be remembered as one of the great British bands, maybe not right now, but in the future.

Your image also plays an important part in have that whole Bowie sexual ambiguity going for you in both your artwork and press photos. Is this a contrived image to get you as much exposure as possible? It must be difficult for a new band to get yourself noticed above all of the identikit X-factor robots.

It’s not contrived at all. It’s crazy to think we had it all planned from the start. We just got bored of photographers asking us to stand next to a wall and pose so we tried to do something different. I was reading a book by New York artist, Dennis Cooper, and it had lots of homoerotic photos on it and we decided to go with that. So instead of us in a tunnel looking moody, you get us cupping each others balls and getting off with each other. It’s just spawned from there really. All of that gay stuff was just rumours. We’re not gay.

Talking of rumours, would you like Disorder to start any right now?

Errol Flynn started the best rumour didn’t he? He spread a rumour that he had the biggest dick in the world. Hang on, I don’t want you to print that I said I had the biggest dick in the world. Don’t print that. Whatever you do, don’t print that, Jed!

Words by Jed Shepherd