The Manchester band whippin’ it good on U.S. tour
It’s a textbook example of a miserable Monday: cold, gray, torrential rain. But nestled inside The Whip‘s touring van, the mood is cozy and even a little buoyant. The Manchester electro-punk quartet has finally released their album X Marks Destination  in the U.S., and they’ve been having quite a time touring and hitting up festivals like South by Southwest and Miami’s Winter Music Conference to promote it. |
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One member of the band is particularly enjoying herself: The Whip’s comely drummer, Fiona ‘Lil Fee’ Daniel.
“At the end of the night, we’ll be going back to the hotel. And it’s like, ‘well, who’s going to stay with Fiona?’,” says Nathan Sudders, the group’s bassist. “It’s always me. So we have to go out and I’m like ‘Fiona, come on. We’re gonna go home now.’ And she’ll be like, ‘I’m not going!’ and it’s seven in the morning…”
“She’s hardcore. A party animal,” adds keyboardist Danny Saville. “When we step out of line, though, she can quite easily kick all of us into shape.”
“She’s a hard little woman,” says Nathan. “She’s half-Irish. She’s like R2-D2. A feisty little number.”
The Whip has blown off record label meetings on this soggy afternoon to hang out in an East Village bar and watch the Manchester game (as well as dutifully chat it up with a journo in their tour van, away from the noise of the bar). They formed about three years ago in Manchester, where each member was going through their own things with other groups and knew one another from the music scene.
“All of our bands kinda fizzled out and this band came together,” says Nathan. “The combination of four failed bands. We’ve all been through the meatgrinder a couple of times.”
Things came together, though, after the dissolution of Danny’s much-buzzed about dance band, Nylon Pylon. After the group recorded what Danny says was “a record that sounded overproduced and nothing like us,” they parted ways.
Danny and one of his Nylon Pylon bandmates, Bruce Carter (The Whip’s vocalist and guitarist), holed themselves up in the cellar of a Salford pub and spent eight months writing new material. During this time, they were working in a guitar shop with Nathan, who took a liking to the tunes and came on board as to play bass. With the addition of Fiona on drums, The Whip was born.
Being from Manchester, it’s inevitable that they’ll get asked about the city’s storied musical history (you know it already: Joy Division, the Smiths, the Buzzcocks, yada yada yada) and its influence on their sound.
“Subliminally, there’s something there because we’ve been submerged amongst the scene for so long,” says Danny. “You’re going to draw bits of influences from it. But I think more than anything else now, because of the Internet and everything, it’s easier to look into a wider field and get influences from all over the place, stuff like the Crookers or Bloody Beetroots. We listen to pretty much everything between us.” He names Soulwax and Daft Punk as influences, as well.
Listening to “X Marks Destination,” this all makes sense. There’s a bit of a New Order-esque vibe and to their electro-dance sound, and tracks like “Blackout” are bathed in a moody Manchester sheen with intense bass riffs, but there’s also more modern accoutrements on songs such as “Trash” that bring to mind Soulwax, with little electronic nuggets featured heavily.
After the band is finished with their U.S. tour, it’s back to the U.K. to record their second album. They have two main goals for album number two. One is to capture the intensity of their live show a bit more. According to Danny, one of the most complicated tasks for The Whip is going from stage to studio, editing down their often six-minute long tracks into two-and-a-half minute tunes that are radio-friendly.
The second? Get back to the States to tour and promote it. “We wanna bring our party here,” says Nathan with a laugh. “We just absolutely love New York. We’ve been here three times. We’ll talk to our agent and ask, ‘are there any [gigs] in New York?’ So we’ll be back definitely.”