inthemix | Features | Does It Offend You, Yeah?: TV is their inspiration

If you’ve ever had a friend grab you by the collar and scream into your face “lets have it large!” you’ve probably got a grasp of the reputation of Does It Offend You, Yeah? Described as electro-punk, moonage-funk and disco-spunk, these lads from old Blighty subscribe to a more ambiguous music vision.

“We got known for the electro thing, which is funny to us because it was from like two weeks that we were into electro. We went to a nightclub and they were playing loads of electro stuff and me and Dan were like hey, let’s write songs like this. And that was it,” vocalist and bassist James Rushent tells me with a quite laugh. “Then that stuff got picked up on and everybody was like oh, you’re going to make an electro album and we were like actually we’re sort of bored of electro now.”

Apparently, their influences are drawn from less obvious places. “We’re really big Talking Heads fans, and when we were doing the album we sort of sat down and discussed, like how do we want the band to be, what do we want it to become and stuff. One of the main things was, that we wanted to sort of get into a Talking Heads habit, you know. You couldn’t say what the Talking Heads were, they were just Talking Heads.”

It’s this kind of unpredictability that the band is shooting for. “They could do one album that sounded one way and another album that sounded another way. All the tracks sounded different, I mean there was a thread running through it, but part of it’s charm was that you didn’t know what you were going to get out of them. And with this album I think we’ve really cleared the slate with regards to that. No one can turn around and say to us, ‘the Does It Offend You album, it’s going to sound like this.’”

Like a lot of other acts out there, Does It Offend You, Yeah? are keen to shrug off the shackles of what was yesterday’s hot new thing. Don’t even think about calling them electro. “Before the album came out we were getting a lot of like, ‘yeah it’s going to be an electro album,’ and yeah, there’s an electro track on there, but at the same time we sort of tried to divide it up a bit, just sort of tried to create our own sort of thing. So it’s like, ‘who knows what the next Does It Offend You album’s gonna sound like, they write whatever the fuck they want!’”

I ask him about the name, which is quite possible one of the best going around at the moment. “It was a quote out the office. Well, I mean like, we were setting up our MySpace account, and we needed a name. So we were like oh I don’t know, anything… let’s just put anything and Dan was like, ‘well we can’t just put anything.’ So I was like, let’s just put on the TV and the first thing that was on was Ricky Gervais, and he said ‘does it offend you, yeah? My drinking.’ So we were like, Does It Offend You, Yeah? Put that in… and that’s how it happened.”

The biggest mistake that anybody could make is assuming Does It Offend You Yeah? are making a statement with their chosen moniker. Are you kidding me? “It’s funny, some people when we first came out thought we were trying to say something with the name, you know trying to be outrageous or something. We were like, no, we just needed a name, and we were too lazy to think of one. So we just ripped it off the TV, no thought went into it at all.”

Despite their reputation as a live act of unbridled enthusiasm, who often indulge in stage diving and smashing guitars when on stage, James at heart is a family man. “When I’m off tour I see my wife and my daughter. At the same time when I go out I like to have a good time, but when I’m at home I’m at home. I hardly get to see my daughter know, so when I’m back it’s like quality time, just take her out and do things. She’s nearly two which is great, I’m the man to her. If she remembers who I am that is,” he laughs. “It usually takes like a day when I get back off tour when I first see her she looks at me quite oddly, doesn’t quite know, like ‘I know you and you smell like me’ but she can’t quite figure it out. But then like a day later she’s like ‘oh yeah it’s that dude.’ It’s like a switch, she’s frowning at you for a little while then suddenly it’s like ohhh!! Then she comes over and everything’s cool.”

Eager for some some tales of excess, I press him about tour stories and who’s the wild child in the band. “Morgan [the band’s vocalist] has woken up in LA on the street before with no idea where he was. We had to do this TV interview, and we sort of showed up at this station and were like, where the hell’s Morgan? Then at like three in the afternoon, our tour manager got this call, it was like this collect call sort of thing and he was like Morgan’s been out on the street tonight, he’s totally lost and we’ve got to pick him up,” he laughs.

“But usually not really, everyone goes through stages I think. Even I go through stages you know, I’ll drink five shows in a row then I’m dead, you know I can’t move for a week and I feel really ill for ages. It’s very rare that we all hit our stride of drinking at the same time, I think it’s only happened twice, and that’s when it got really messy, that’s when the tour manager cracks it.”

Catch Does It Offend You Yeah? at the following shows over the next week…

Wed Oct 1st – Sydney, Oxford Arts Factory
Sat Oct 4th – Brisbane, Parklife
Sun Oct 5th – Sydney, Parklife