Horrorpops

On a brilliant British summers day (rain with a threat of thunder storms) I headed down to the "local" in Rugeley with Jess to interview Patricia of The HorrorPops. After sound check, she came out and lead us onto their bright yellow tour bus. Seated comfortably on "the smoking banana" Patricia talked to me about life as a HorrorPop, Fish and chips and horses... 

How are you enjoying Britain so far? 

I haven't had fish and chips yet so I don't feel that I've arrived yet so… it's rainy! I can say that much. 

Your album "hell yeah" came out in march. Are you happy with the reaction you've had to it so far? 

I have no idea about the reaction to be quite honest because I've been on the road since February, and we aren't seeing all the sale numbers and so on, we're just playing gigs. Yeah we see that more and more people know our songs, and we're selling out more and more places and that's nice. 

What's your favorite song off the new album? 

That changes every night. I can tell you that last night it was girl in a cage. But it changes every night it all depends on how the audience react to the songs is what makes it good for me. 

Where do your ideas for your songs come from? 

I don't know [laughs] I don't know, on this album we were like "oh let's do a ska song" and "let's do a more punk rockish sort of song or "let's do a surf style song", horror beach you know. So we like to mix our own styles. 

Does it ever annoy you that some people seem more interested in your clothing than your music? 

What annoys me is that I don't have enough time to have a clothing line. If more people were interested in my clothing than my music, then I would make some money from clothing you know, which would be nice! 

Last time I interviewed you, you had just finished your video for "miss take". Do you enjoy making videos? 

No. it's like doing homework. It's a thing that we have to do to get us on the road because what we care about is doing the shows and all that. And making an album, and doing videos and even doing interviews is something that makes us go on the road. 

Do you think you'll be making any more from this album? 

I don't know, that's up to the label, basically, not us. They would ask us first, you know "do you want to make another video" and we could answer yes or no and they wouldn't care either way. But they would let us know if we could and that depends on the records sale, how many albums we sell. 

How is it living in America as apposed to Scandinavia. 

Warmer! I like it because Copenhagen is such a small town and looking like I do and always have done is difficult because Copenhagen even though it's the capitol of Denmark people still feel that they can beat you up or call you a whore for looking like I do which after having that kind of experience for the last 15 years its kind of a relief. Moving to a different country and not being spat at for being who I am is good. 

Is there any difference in crowds between countries? 

Yeah. 

Is it better in America? 

No [laughs] it's different in Europe versus America, in America the audience tends to be younger. We play live shows where there's no bar which means that the kids can come what whatever age, like 10! And a lot of kids are into rock and roll. Whereas in Europe it seems that more kids are into soul, RnB, disco you know that sort of thing like guitar based music. So in Europe its an older crowd that goes. So either thing is good. It's a different vibe, but its all good. 

What is your favourite question to get asked? 

I really don't know. 

Is there anything you would like to be asked? 

Erm… I don't know. [laughs] in this one interview this person came out with all these normal questions like how did you start and how do you feel and stuff, and then all of a sudden, between all of these music questions, there was "do you like horses?" [laughs] I was like "what?!?!" [laughs] I thought that was pretty funny. 

What have you got lined up for the future? 

With HorrorPops you can never line anything up. Its totally chaotic. In my dream we would be on the road forever basically, but I guess at some point we have to make another album… 

Thanks very much to Patricia for the chance to interview her. You can check out more about The HorrorPops at www.horrorpops.com or go to www.epitaph.com for information on their tour dates.