The Cooper Temple Clause

'Kieran got really excited about holding an AK-47, not that he’s a violent person,' explains vocalist Ben Gautrey talking about his bandmate’s experience on The Cooper Temple Clause’s latest promo shoot. The infamous, bullet-fuelled video for kick-ass single 'Homo Sapiens’ has unsurprisingly been censored but not compromised: 'We just didn’t want it to be a band in a dingy, dark room playing their instruments. It doesn’t make sense to us.'
The experimental rock group are back to follow up 2003’s 'Kick Up The Fire, And Let The Flames Break Loose’ but this time there’s only five of them since Didz Hammond took up bass duties with Carl Barat’s Dirty Pretty Things.
While his colleagues took to the decks in aid of Oxjam, Ben gave Music News the low down.

MN: Your debut album was out in 2002. A year later came your second. So why has it taken until 2007 for your third?

Ben: We went on a couple of tours of America, one with The Cure, which was fantastic and when it came to start demoing songs for this album it was quite soon after 'Kick Up The Fire’ and we didn’t want to make the same album. We wanted to take time and progress because bands that we admire - The Beatles, Bowie, Radiohead, Blur - the last couple of albums they did, they really tried to push themselves as artists. One thing that kept coming back to us was perhaps a sense of melody got lost on the first two albums. The first album was definitely a lot of spontaneity and where we were at the time - teenagers. And the second album was extremely dark and paranoid - that’s where we were at that time. We just wanted to try something new and different and part of that would be changing the way we wrote our songs and starting almost from scratch, building it up organically from a piano or acoustic guitar with a vocal and just finishing the song like that. And then finding the right mixes for the songs took a long time. We feel very justified in taking this long because we made the correct decisions.

MN: Have you noticed a significant change in the industry since 2003?

Ben: I think it was 2002 / 2003, there was a big garage rock explosion and White Stripes came into prominence. People listened to guitar bands and not to pop bands anymore. And that’s just expanded over these years. I think music’s a lot healthier than it was when we released our last album.

MN: How about the work involved in promoting your product - the advent of digital etc?

Ben: Yeah we like that. I think we enjoy the fact that through your internet site you can communicate with people, who want to support the band, very easily and it doesn’t get distorted by the media. There’s just a lot more information about bands, a lot of websites dedicated to writing about music and bands opposed to turning into Heat magazine about bands.

MN: You’re known for experimenting with your music. Have you elevated that any further with this album?

Ben: Well we’re never short of ideas when it comes to music and instrument-playing. It was very different this album obviously having the songs finished and then putting music on top of it. We were a lot more brutal and precise and if we thought something wasn’t working we’d say it to each other’s faces which can be quite harsh when you’ve known each other for a long time. There’s perhaps our most electronic moments on this album. 'Homo Sapiens’ is probably our heaviest song to date and we’ve got an acoustic song called 'Take Comfort’. Although it’s maybe our most concise album, it is without a doubt our most eclectic. If you heard each song separately you wouldn’t know that it was by the same band and that’s what a lot of people have told us.

MN: Why did you decide not to replace Didz and share bass duties?

Ben: We started this band from school. It was done very organically. If we got someone in to replace Didz the chemistry would’ve changed and it would’ve felt more like a business than actually something that we enjoyed doing. We knew it would be tough because obviously it would mean we’d have to learn new parts on the different instrument to play it live. So we went on a tour of Europe in February to see whether we could function as a five-piece and although we were far from amazing it did give us hope. It also gave us a little glimpse that maybe we could actually be stronger and better live as a five-piece than a six-piece.

MN: Is there a sense of rivalry when someone leaves to join another band?

Ben: Not really because it was getting to the case where Didz was getting frustrated that he wasn’t able to be involved as much in the writing process and we were getting frustrated that he wasn’t pulling his weight. He had a young baby girl and she took precedence so he just couldn’t be at the studio when we needed him. So the offer that Carl made to Didz because he was based in London (meant) he could be a doting dad and a bass player. There wasn’t any jealousy because it was actually best for all parties. The only sadness was that we were going to be losing a close friend from our daily lives. It was a new lease of life him leaving because it meant we could carry on and be a lot more refined and focused.

MN: You were back on the road earlier in the year and are gigging at the moment in places like Shrewsbury.

Ben: For the first time in our lives we’re going to Shrewsbury! We just wanted to go to places that we hadn’t necessarily been to seen as we’re doing quite small venues, just getting back to what we did on the first album. Like you say we’ve been away for a long time and we didn’t want to ram our band down people through the media and take the easy route. I think people get tired of being fed all these different angles of stories by all the various magazines so we just want people to judge us for themselves. We’re playing Carlisle for the first time. We did Barnsley which was a weird one.

MN: Where did the cat fight happen as documented in your online diary?

Ben: That was Newcastle in this really small place that apparently Dirty Pretty Things were at the week before. The crowd were amazing and it was almost like you were playing a proper punk gig, just the amount of energy and everyone crammed together. And on the front row I just saw this girl push another girl and before I knew it they were punching each other senseless in the face, which you don’t often see! Luckily as the gig was so small the security guard was close. He did his job and he did it well.

MN: What’s happening with your own label Morning Records?

Ben: We’re still the only band on Morning! We would like to sign some bands but you need to give time and support to a band. At the moment it’s just not viable.

MN: Does critical acclaim fair against commercial success?

Ben: Commercial success - great if it happens on your own rules but not if you have to conform. That’s not us and that’s partly why we left Sony BMG because we weren’t willing to play by their little rules and it obviously caused friction. Critical acclaim - if someone writes something nice about you, that’s great, but it’s not the purpose of why we’re in a band. Ultimately being in a band you’ve got to turn yourself on. And if other people can relate to it, that’s an overwhelming feeling but you have to do it for yourself.

MN: Is it a disappointment that the video for 'Homo Sapiens’ has been censored?

Ben: Well I think we knew it wasn’t going to have much chance of being played. The whole premise of the video is abuse of power and us shooting people who abuse their positions of power be it politicians, people within the military, lawyers, people who wear fur, people who gain out of other people’s misfortune or exploit them. That’s not to say all politicians are evil. The song is about the arrogance of man and especially the arrogance of the American foreign policy. At the end we get killed ourselves because trying to shoot people who are wrong, that’s no way of combating something.

MN: You started the band because of the lack of talent on the late 90’s rock scene. Excluding your good selves, have things improved?

Ben: Now it’s great people listen to guitar bands and hopefully in a few years they’ll go back and find out about Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Kraftwerk. But I think it was Jarvis Cocker who said the other week about career bands. I think there’s about 90% of bands in the charts who are in that mould.


Album 'Make This Your Own’ is released in January.
Single 'Homo Sapiens’ is out next week. Track down the video on You Tube!

www.morningrecords.com