The Rapture - Interview

Here's our second interview from Parklife 2012 courtesy of new Reebok Radio, which you should check out here , following our one with Murkage that went up two days ago. This time Robbie was lucky enough to interview perhaps one of the most influential DFA bands of recent years The Rapture, who talk about festivals, Euro 2012 and working with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. Enjoy!

So, Parklife, Now Wave headliners, how do you feel?
Yeah, pretty good! I saw the line-up and I thought, “oh, shit! We’re going up against a lot of awesome bands, so we’re just hoping there’ll be someone with us!

Yeah, even when I was looking at the line-up, I was thinking, “there’s way too many to choose from!”
Ha-ha, I know! I thought, I want to see a lot of this but when I looked at the times and was like, “aw shit man”

So, if you were a punter, who would you go and see?
Well, y’know, I’ve gotta say us but us withstanding, I’d really want to see Julio Bashmore, Claude von Stroke, you know, there’s just some great DJ’s here. Especially, Justice, we played a couple of shows with them on the west coast after Coachella and their live show is just amazing. Even Dizzee Rascal I wouldn’t mind checking out.

And you also come over to England during the European Championships and I heard that one of your songs ("Whoo! Alright, Yeah…Uh Huh") is also the official anthem of the New York Red Bulls football team. So how did that all come about? 

Yeah, we love football. I mean, Matty who used to be in the band is a gigantic Fulham fan for whatever reason and uh, we all follow it. In America, it’s starting to catch on a little bit but its nothing compared Premier League. I’ve been following football for quite a while, you seen it grow a while. Especially when David Beckham came over, it was a massive deal publically. You watch it and the quality is not exactly convincing, I still watch the MLS but it’s nothing on the Premier League. Like, the US team is looking convincing. They beat Italy in a friendly and they’ve got Klinsmann, so it’s looking good.

You also announced your latest album in between the supposed “rapture”, so that must’ve given you the best press available? 

It was fucking awesome, man. We didn’t even plan it out but our Facebook page we started getting a ton of hits a few days before and then we realised, so it worked out perfectly. We then announced it and it was the best free press ever. So really, we should thank that dude, what ever his name was.

Also, this is the first album on DFA, so what’s the relationship like with them and James Murphy? 

We’ve been friends with James Murphy for over 10years now. He came to one of our first shows in like 1999 and he came over and said “I like you, I have studio and you should come over and record” and then he had the label that he wanted to start called DFA and the rest is history. You also worked with Philippe Zdar who’s pretty much in demand at the moment, what was it like working with him? He’s incredible; we’ve been really lucky. As a band, we’ve always wanted to work with good producers and he’s just amazing. He’s super talented and started from the bottom, he can do anything and knows everything about engineering. What makes him amazing is that he has so much energy and he’s so positive. In the studio, he’ll just push you through things and in the studio, when you’ve been listening to the same thing 100 times and it’s not working and he was always telling us to just keep going, which was so important.

So finally, this is just one of the festivals you’re playing this year, what’s the rest of your summer like?
Just touring and festivals; we do this and then Lovebox, go home for like 5 days, play a show in New York and then just generally touring, so it’s gonna be really busy.

Robbie Baxendale