Manflu
Interview
January 19th 2012

Hype - now there's a sure fire way to get me disinterested in a band, or disinterested in, well, just about anything really. It is however, something that's been surrounding Manflu for quite sometime - Manflu the band that is, not the illness. What kind of sadomasochistic fool would hype an illness?

With their raucous, energetic, full throttle live sets all over London, Manflu's following, along with said hype, has been growing at a rate that has already seen them breakthrough onto Radio 1. Like I said, hype usually only puts me off a band, but when certain very trusted people become hooked in all of a sudden you start to take notice, and so take notice I did. With this in mind I thought now would be the perfect time to have a chat with the band, so I sat down with Manflu's Pip for a frank chat.

To accompany the interview the insanely talented Flyn Vibert took some exclusive shots of the band he knows better than most, and who he describes as "experimental, DIY, raw, carnivorous, untempered, eccentric, fiery, unhinged, and noisy." Be sure to read on because this is one interview and one band that's not to be missed...

So Manflu, tell us a bit about yourselves. According to Radio 1 we hear you're from Russia? 
The BBC are notorious liars - none of us are from Russia but some of our lyrics are, such as the song played on Radio 1 ('Wizard'). Aza (vocals) is from Kazakhstan, Will (drums) is from New York, Saki (synths) is from Japan, Dudu (bass) is from France, and I was born and raised in London, where the band now reside.

How, where and when did you get together?
Dudu, Will and myself have known each other for years, we used to play in a Donna Summer covers group together in the mid noughties... Halcyon days... but soon the cocaine and freejes become a bit tiresome, and after finding Saki in a piano shop and Aza in a park bbqing some salmon (so wrong, right?) thus we haz band.

Rather than predictably ask you where the band name comes from (it's an awesome name, let's leave it at that), I thought instead I'd ask you about the ailment itself... so is 'manflu' real? If so can you recommend any treatments or cures?
The short answer to that question is no. I find the term manflu hilarious. The use of 'man before flu is supposed to give some leverage to the argument that this particular flu is much worse, much stronger than a bout of flu dealt with by a female or child, when in fact it is just admittance that men who use this term are fucking pussies. The word looks like it should be an oxymoron; men representing strength and vitality and flu representing sickness and death - but of course it's meant to be taken seriously. I get a bit lost thinking about it sometimes.

From seeing you perform live to your artwork and Tumblr page, would it be fair to say you're a shock to the senses on more than just one level?
We really don't make music to try and shock people. In many ways the songs, lyrics, and any bullshit we put up on Tumblr or Facebook, are just extensions of ourselves and what we're interested in, but then i guess the five of us are quite different in terms of what we like compared to most people. We have quite a teenage/naughty schoolboy sense of humour which, if it doesn't come through instantly in the music, perhaps the artwork etc will help portray a little clearer. So, erm, yes, in answer to your question - kind of.

Underneath the deviance and darkness there seems to be a lot of depth and layers to your music. Dare I ask you to describe your sound?
Oh man, everything. I try and get people to describe us because it's such a hard question, and usually when you ask bands this the band will just answer with either a) bands they like and wish they sounded like, or b) say they don't have any influences. What I'll say is that we come from five different countries and between the youngest and oldest member there is a 30 year age gap, so I suppose our sound is a combination of those experiences in how we understand and structure music.

This has never happened, but if we wrote something and it sounded too much like another band we'd probably scrap it. Also, as I was saying earlier, I think there is a lot of light hearted stuff in there as well, as our songs have lots of quite jarring parts, or things that repeat a bit too much, or have weird sounds - that makes me laugh. I think it's real easy to make quite dark music, but to do it in a way where it has it has a wry smile on it's face is quite appealing.

Do you have any shared musical influences?
To be honest we don't. If you asked us all to name our top 10 records I know we would all give a different top 10... maybe our top 20s would perhaps cross over, but I dunno for sure. We do play each other stuff and it's cool, but yeah...weird huh? I could be all like "well we just playin then allasudden we heard this ban' Can and this rekkid Tago Mago and we were like wooahh and that was our year zero man, WOOAHH....WOOAHHH," but I won't because it's lame, and I would also be a liar, and lies are a trait I absolutely abhor in human beings. For the record Tago Mago isn't my favourite Can album, I really like Soundtracks.

What about influences away from music?
Life and every aspect of it. From the giddy highs to the dark lows to the really boring day to day shit, we go into the rehearsal room and take it out on our instrument of choice. Did that sound sexual? That was the intention.

Would you say it's on stage that Manflu really come into their own?
Yeeeeeeeep. We get to show off on stage and push each other to the limits and beyond. It's unpredictable as well, we could all fuck up or Aza could take off her clothes at any given moment!

Is it hard to try and translate that live energy and performance on to something that is (studio) recorded?
Yeah, really hard. We've worked with some wonderful people who have done incredible work with the recordings, but it's never the same as what we do live or in a rehearsal studio together. Maybe we should just try and get away from that completely, be one sort of band in the studio then this 'hardcore prog post punk whatever genre you wanna call us' when you see us live.

What's next? What can we expect from Manflu in 2012?
Gigs gigs gigs. Maybe some festival slots, and, for me, getting the shit beaten out of me by Aza for implying that you should come see us live because she might get naked at a show; she isn't the type and it'll never happen. We will give your tinnitus though, sexy sexy tinnitus...BEEEEEEEEEEP!