Colin Sweetman meets Michael Webster of Essex boys Baddies
Quantity of voices – lots of it. Baddies go for the overkill effect of image making, so much so that you’d have thought the band just stepped from some kind of pseudo-80s time realm: “I think Baddies, it suits the way we dress,” says singer Michael Webster.
They have recently been gigging non-stop throughout the summer at various festivals around Europe. “We played with White Lies in most of those festivals. I think it came to about 32 this summer. We just bang those places and have a good time.”
The next steps along their journey are invariably Australia and New Zealand, before the try to make it big in the States: “We could have tried to break America this year but instead we decided to record our album. This December though we plan on hitting the Down Under with You Am I.”
But does the band hold similarities to other groups with the same agenda from the south end of Essex? “There’s no scene as such, like we wouldn’t know each other or anything. There are bands like Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. But they’re very into their politics, and we’re more into music. We just set out to do our own thing.”
The band relates Roskilde in Denmark as being near top of their list for the summer festivities, mainly because they differ somewhat to their Anglo-sphere counterparts. “You know, mainland European crowds have attitudes just to go crazy. They drink just as much as us but there is a different vibe about it. I think they’re there just to have a good time really, unlike the us – who just get pissed and fall over really.”
True in a sense, but not entirely vulgar. “I mean, at the end of our gigs we just go crazy. There was this boat in Bristol that we played at – sort of turned into a small venue – and I ended up getting my front tooth smashed out.”
Baddies are set to close up their European tour in October, in which they are looking forward to their Irish dates: “you know, it’s a good close-up to a tour”. But with regard to Bono, for no reason at all: “I think he’s a bit of a twat, over-rated, and I wish he’d take those fucking sunglasses off… but a nice bloke all the same.”
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