Paper Boy Blues

Photo by Ivan Jones

I started to get into pop music in the early 80s and, to me, Rumble Strips sound like all my favourite groups from that time of industrial disputes, yuppies and riots. They remind me of a melancholic Dexy’s Midnight Runners, a doo-wop Adam & The Ants or Haircut 100 if Nik Kershaw was a manic depressive with a Morrissey/James Dean complex. They make a really unique, charming sound that sticks out among this over-excitable crop of crappy MySpace bands, the ones who wear fluorescent peach Camel bomber jackets, totally unaware that the only people who ever wore that kind of stuff were crazy homeless people. Anyway, Rumble Strips’ Charlie Waller, plays a broken semi acoustic guitar and his guitar strap is made out of string. He goes against the Day-Glo vogue and wears old dirty T-shirts, trousers that look like Dad’s Army and cheap shoes from an African suit shop on Kingsland Road. The rest of the band look like stonewallers from Devon. Wait, they ARE stonewallers from Devon. Vice: So, are you really poor and stuff? Charlie Waller: Well, no. My background is middle class. I was born in London, but we moved to Devon where my parents are from. My first job was as a paperboy. I got £7.50 a week and I was shit at it. Right. But bands are always moaning about being really poor. A lot of people you meet who play in bands and didn’t get signed when they were teenagers have stories of poverty and struggle, but it’s often bullshit because it’s like a chosen poverty. I’m not going to talk about years of woe and struggle because it was my choice to play music nobody really gave a shit about. So how would you pay for guitar strings? I would always find little bits of work to fill in the gaps. My uncle was always very good to me and gave me work as a labourer even though I was terrible at it. We eventually got a deal and it’s strange to get money for playing in a band after doing it for so long. The practicalities like getting to gigs are easier and we get a chance to put everything down on record which is pretty cool. And now you’re making your debut album in L.A. Why? I wasn’t sure about coming out to L.A at first. It just seemed a bit needless. But I quite like the ridiculousness of it. We came not knowing what to expect at all. It’s a funny place. There doesn’t seemed to be anyone on the streets. We were talking to one of the engineers and he said that there isn’t a freeway exit to Compton, the real deprived area, just in case people get off by mistake. That seems pretty shit. ANTHONY COOPER