Interview: Hayden Thorpe, singer with Wild Beasts

BEFORE Hayden Thorpe could become the singer in the most exciting young band in Britain, he was required to do "the most menial job in the Lake District". Far from the glamour of being the official taster on the Kendal Mint Cake production-line, he was a warehouseman for Lakeland, the kitchenware specialists.

"I worked in the distribution centre, putting the stuff into boxes for the guy above me to send away," says the Wild Beasts' frontman. "Maybe he had the second most menial job but at least his work involved thinking about other destinations, places that weren't Kendal, even if he didn't actually go anywhere." So what was it that Thorpe packed? "Those daft gizmos," he sighs. "Plastic banana protectors for your lunchbox."

Wild Beasts, it should be said, are the unsheathed bananas of indie. The most quoted lyric on their breakthrough album Two Dancers is the one about the "dancing cock". The second most-quoted lyric is "Girls astride me, girls beneath me, girls before me, girls between me."

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Britain manufactures tough, snap-shut, wipe-clean containers for every conceivable purpose whereas a country like France rejoices in the invention of sex. Wild Beasts want to help us all discover our inner Arthur Rimbaud.

Thorpe loves Rimbaud. He loves Angela Carter and Ted Hughes as well, and has just discovered he likes Ian McEwan more than he first thought, but the French poet of the decadent movement was the man. "We're definitely risking ridicule, namechecking him and singing about the subjects that we do," he says. "But they need to be uncovered. That's what the best art does: it uncovers the things that, morally, can't always be talked about, such as those drunken carnal desires and what interested Rimbaud, which was desiring something but at the same time being disgusted by it."

Don't know about you, but I'm in need of a stiff drink. Wild Beasts – the kind of band who'll mention their favourite writers before getting round to musicians – are today represented by Thorpe and guitarist Benny Little, who recommends the local brew, Black Sheep. We're in a pub in Leeds, the band's adopted home since quitting Kendal. They're friendly and funny and arty, and don't mind admitting they've always been a "self-important" band.

"You have to take yourselves seriously coming from Kendal because no-one else will," says Thorpe. "It's a traditional rural town where they make fun of musical ambition. Folk think you're mad for having it, or that you've got a complex." Then Little paints a vivid picture of dank alleys with their tattoo parlours, populated by skinheads and goths, and of musical ambition beginning, and most often ending, with a Tuesday night slot at a pub called Dickie Doodle's. Wild Beasts had grand plans to, in Rimbaud's words, "stretch garlands from window to window, golden chains from star to star". The line-up is completed by drummer Chris Talbot and Tom Fleming, who plays bass and sings in a solid Northern baritone that combines to dramatic effect with Thorpe's falsetto. The latter's three-octave range is the other striking thing about this band, further setting them apart from their peers; it's a voice that climbs Lake District peaks all by itself.

"Hayden's always sung like this and after a while I think the rest of us stopped noticing," says Little. "But when we started playing these working men's clubs, folk were like: 'His voice is weird.' And I suppose it is."

Thorpe confirms the clubland scene was reminiscent of comedian Peter Kaye's Phoenix Nights and when it's added to our picture of Kendal, Wild Beasts' emergence in this form – unashamedly literate, bawdy and camp – seems all the more improbable. But to the band it all makes perfect sense.

Thorpe adds: "Kendal is miles from anywhere and when we were growing up the hot new bands never came our way. In any case, the likes of the Strokes weren't singing about anything we knew. There's a lot of anger and frustration in towns like ours and many kids our age found an outlet in heavy metal.

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"We were simply a different kind of outsider band in Kendal. In fact it's probably more confrontational and dangerous to go into a working men's club and perform very lush pop songs. We think we've got balls of steel."

Their first audiences expected, if not demanded, hoary standards. "Blues classics played on guitar with a Budweiser bottle," says Thorpe. "Wonderwall – everyone did that – or I Believe in a Thing Called Love," adds Little with a groan. Wild Beasts, though, are proud of never having performed a cover version. "We haven't based ourselves on anyone," says Thorpe, and here he could have added another Rimbaud quote: "I'm intact, and I don't give a damn."

But the band are very proud of their home town and don't mean to knock it. "We are who we are because of where we're from. If we were a London band we wouldn't sound like this. There's so much music in London that it's easy for groups there to blend in with what's current and be faddish and lose anything that might have made them unique."

The foursome met at school. They all loved football but, coming from the Lake District where there's barely one flat pitch, quickly realised they were never going to make the grade (though football is the theme of their song Woebegone Wanderers which includes another mention of "cock", immediately followed by "balls").

There was a shared appreciation for the Smiths and Jeff Buckley early on and, although they don't admit to them, these influences can be heard in Wild Beasts' sound – along with distant strains of Van Der Graaf Generator in the challenging time-changes and Scotland's Billy Mackenzie of the Associates in Thorpe's swooping vocals.

Two Dancers is the band's second album; if you think it's overblown you should hear the first one. Thorpe says there's been no attempt by record company Domino to rein in their purple prose, though he's sure it's prompted collective gasps. "But that's the reaction you want, isn't it?" says Thorpe. "Too much pop is safe and predictable and wrapped in cotton wool. The music industry has babied the public for a long time when actually people can deal with songs that are suggestive and erotic and sometimes quite dark."

Thorpe and Little chuckle at the idea they might be over-sexed. "Go out at the weekend and you'll see that we're an over-sexed nation," says Little. So no actual orgies were involved in the making of their five-star record? "None," adds Thorpe. "And I'm sure they're always better in the imagination anyway."

Wild Beasts play the Arches, Glasgow, tonight, and Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh, tomorrow night.

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