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Noisettes guitarist Dan Smith

By Sophie Ann James Tuesday 30 June 2009

2009 has been a successful year for the indie-rockster trio Noisettes. Despite making music together for over 5 years, it was energetic single ‘Don’t Upset the Rhythm’, released in March this year, that rewarded the London trio with nationwide recognition and reached Number 2 in UK single charts. With their first album What’s the Time Mr. Wolf? released in 2007 going largely unnoticed, the second Wild Young Hearts followed in April 2009, containing an eclectic mix of pop, electro, grunge and soul. The band were critically acclaimed for declaring ‘Indie is boring, dead and over.’ I spoke to Noisettes’ charismatic guitarist Dan Smith to find the voice behind this bravado.

“It’s brilliant to finally have attention directed towards us,” says Dan. “Any attention is a leg up. I mean, we always give it our best shot to try and connect to people, but you can never really know if you’re doing it. Over time, it can feel like you’re not managing it at all. Yeah, success is a great thing.”

Has this success gone to their heads though? The band upset YUSU recently by pulling out of the Summer Ball. Dan seems surprised when I suggest that it was their newly acquired big-name status that caused them to cancel smaller gigs. “No, not at all!” Dan assures me, “We really love playing York. On the last tour, Fibbers was the only venue that completely sold out.” The small venues are all about the sound. “They’re more musical, more instrumental. Big gigs are all about the crowd and the energy. Both are pretty good.”

I promise Dan that there would not have been a more energetic crowd than the students at York. So why the cold shoulder? “I really don’t know” he apologises. “There have been loads of changes in management recently. They usually only tell us where we are playing a week in advance. It’s very hard to keep up.”

It may be a vague excuse, but Dan sounds genuine. Recently pulling out of the Summer Ball, however, was only one of a long list of cancellations. What happened with the Maxmio Park tour? He speaks uncomfortably: “Yeah, I think we pissed them off a bit. We certainly didn’t do the full run.” Dan explains that trips to New York to meet the record label kept tearing them away from the tour at short notice. “It’s a shame. It was very hard to get into the stride of the tour. Usually bands get to know each other quite http://nouse.co.uk/2009/06/30/noisettes-guitarist-dan-smith Archived 10 Dec 2018 22:50:07 Nouse Web Archives Noisettes guitarist Dan Smith Page 2 of 3 well, playing together every night and having a good few ‘jolly-ups’ after the gigs. This didn’t really happen.”

Disappointed fans can catch the Noisettes at a number of festivals around the UK over the summer. But as they walked into the Isle of White Festival where I caught up with them, Dan tells me that arriving there had not been a smooth ride. “The battery went flat on the tour bus,” he laughed. “We had to jumpstart it.” Not all jet-setting glamour then? “Not really. There’s a physical strain to touring. I mean, when you haven’t played a gig for a week then suddenly you’re in front of these huge guitar amps, it’s shocking. Sometimes I go a bit deaf!” he laughs. “But still, it’s lots of fun.”

Arriving at the festival Dan clutches his sketchbook, apparently he paints. “Yeah, I want to take advantage of the Isle of White setting rather than staring at the same things.” That is one way to relax, I suppose. “It’s very creative, like a type of therapy. It’s just my personal thing I do for therapeutic reasons.”

Dan’s multidimensional talents surprise me. Did the same level of creativity go into writing the new single and album title-track ‘Wild Young Hearts?’ “It was funny how that song came about. We sat at a piano and had a ‘jazz moment.’” It seems that it doesn’t always happen like this though. “The way songs we make are down to chance, there’s never one ritual. Sometimes you’ll be sat with a guitar, but equally you could be at a computer or in a studio for eight long hours. There’s no cliché.”

Dan admits that it is ‘wise’ to have a popular dance tune like ‘Don’t Upset the Rythm’ on the album to “promote its success”. Yet ‘Wild Young Hearts’ is the jewel in the album’s crown; it’s a sixties-style tune perfect for a long summer. The video sounds equally exciting. “We plan to film it all on hand held mobile phones,” Dan tells me exclusively. “It’s an experiment, we may even get some footage from fans.”

It’s great to hear that the Noisettes are aiming for the top when it comes to experimentation. With their own headline tour starting in October, there’s no chance of this band calling it a day quite yet. They will continue to expand the boundaries of the music scene without reserve, enjoying it all the way. “Who’d not want to do this? It’s a great lifestyle. Making music, doing gigs. It’s brilliant.”

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