Push to Fire Interview: Templeton Pek Steve O’Gallagher caught up with the band at the end of January in London. [K - Kev, guitarist/vocalist // N - Neil, bassist/vocalist // S - Simon, drummer]
So, how long has the band been going for? S: About 3 years in this line-up. K: Yeah, well me and Neil have been playing together since school N: We only got serious about 3 years ago when Simon joined. 3 years? That’s pretty good considering you’ve got an album coming out next month in Europe and Japan… S: Yeah, we recorded it before we had a label and then approached labels with it looking for distribution at that point. We recorded it at a studio in Swansea. It was great because we got to have our input into the production ourselves. How long have you spent preparing the songs for this release? N: It started off as an EP. That was just a sampler we did in about 5 days and just gave out to anyone, but in order to get the deal we had to finish an album so we went back and added a few more tracks and released it in Japan.
How would you describe yourselves musically? Any particular influences? N: I don’t think we fit into any particular genre, to be honest. We’re a bit of everything really, probably a bit of punk rock... fast and melodic basically. K: I’d say Rise Against as an influence we didn’t actually know. We only heard of them after someone told us we had a similar vibe to them. So you guys have been touring with Short Warning? How’s that been going? N: Yeah, it’s been good. We’ve done about a week’s worth of shows with them, got one more show tomorrow in Birmingham, our home town. We were brought together by the same booking agent, Crucial Talent Bookings. Are you touring with anyone in particular on your upcoming Europe tour? K: Haha. Itchy Poopzkid. Sounds like an awesome band… K: We’d never heard of them until the label put us together S: They’re really big in Germany apparently, they have their own MTV Europe show and everything so it should be pretty fun. We’re really looking forward to it.
Have you done many tours before these ones? N: We did six last year… supporting Zebrahead, Millencolin, Mindless Self Indulgence… all UK tours. Are you doing this band full time now or you still having to work at all? N: Still working. We’re trying to establish ourselves by doing both main support tours for bands like those we mentioned as well as doing our own headline tours when we can. Just gotta keep our heads down and keep going really. How do your songs come about? Do you have any particular writing process? N: Sometimes one of us will come out with a whole song, sometimes we’ll all just be messing about and one will come out of that. It just depends really. S: One of the songs from the EP called ‘Control’, I was just messing around with some jungle beats while the rest of the band were still setting up… then Kev joined in, Neil joined in, and that was that really. That EP will be coming out some time in April in the UK. What kind of live show can we expect from you guys? K: Sweaty, energetic, loud.
Any roundhouse kicks or backflips? N: Haha! Noooo. No choreography. What are your future plans? S: We’re doing a Big Cheese tour in April to go along with the release of the EP. We’re hoping to eventually self-sustain and do this full time. By the end of the year we hope to have written the next album and then found the right producer for it, then we’ll tour on the back of that. K: We’re hoping to have a laugh as well. I mean, it would be nice if we didn’t have to do the working between tours because it’s really tiring, but if we get to a point where we can just tour and cause a riot: happy days! N: We’re hoping to release records and tour in America and Australia as well. That’d be pretty nice.
Thanks to the band for speaking to Steve. Check out myspace.com/templetonpek for more info and tour dates. Photos by Suzy Witts from the band's tour with MSI in 2008.