Banshee - From the basements of Genoa to NME

Banshee, from Genoa, swear they never took inspiration from Siouxsie. Their blend of synth-pop, funk and post-punk has crossed the Channel too, landing on the pages of the New Musical Express. And their second album, "Your Nice Habits", tries to give their sound a more European breadth. We spoke exclusively with Jago, the band's guitarist, vocalist and synth player.

"Your Nice Habits" is a fresh, enjoyable, even danceable record. Not that I want to force any pigeonholing, but for our readers it's worth clarifying what we're talking about: I hear a post-punk backbone intelligently dressed up in a nice synth-pop coat. Do you agree?

First of all, thanks for the adjectives and adverbs you used - anyway, yes, I'd say I mostly agree. I think the roots of our sound can be traced back to those two genres, and to explain to people who don't know us "what kind of stuff we do", I'd probably use the same words. That said, the songs on "Your Nice Habits" differ quite a bit from one another, and you could even throw in a few more labels - I like to think this record takes on different meanings depending on who's listening and when.

Listening to the ten tracks on your second record, the first names that come to mind are Strokes and Franz Ferdinand, but also Wire, Devo and New Order. What are the tastes and musical backgrounds of Jago, Nico, Patrick and Fish?

Very different; among us there's someone who comes from funk, someone from electronic music, someone from new wave, someone from noise and punk. At some point, our paths somehow converged. The tastes we had in common gave us the chance to work on a unified project, but the differences between us always let us consider different points of view and enrich our sound. Beyond that, the strongest glue holding us together is that we have compatible personalities and we've built a great atmosphere within the band, which lets us have a lot of fun and deal with everything with a lot of ease.

Which records were Banshee playing on "heavy rotation" while recording "Your Nice Habits"?

We listened a lot to newer releases like Late Of The Pier, Envelopes, MGMT, Foals, but also less recent records, like work by Deerhoof, Bowie, Eno, Wire, Paul Simon, Xtc, Talking Heads. We needed to hear different sounds and textures to figure out what mood to give the tracks we'd already produced and arranged earlier on, but also to switch off for a bit sometimes and just not think about anything!

How did you go from Genoese basements to the pages of the New Musical Express? Give us a brief rundown of Banshee's artistic journey.

Well, the Banshee project has been around for years, since I was in high school, just a kid, and since then everything has changed several times over - people, musical genres, and a thousand other things. Since 2006 we started this latest phase of the project with Nico, Fish and Enrico, let's say in an "indie" context, and it was then that we got in touch with Suiteside, who released our first album, "Public Talks", and gradually put us in contact with various scenes, both in Italy and abroad. Since then we've really played a ton of shows and met all sorts of people and environments, which has made us grow in every sense. Then Patrick came along to replace Enrico on drums, and we recorded this second record, which I hope can be a new starting point, bringing us even more experiences.

Weren't you worried that choosing that name would get you associated with a certain 80s dark-wave scene that feels a bit dated these days?

Not at all - like I said, I've had this name for years, since before I even knew about the 80s dark-wave scene, Siouxsie and co. It was simply a name I liked, and we've kept it out of laziness and because, evidently, we still like it!

Why do you think Italian artists always end up forced to follow international trends? We have good bands at home (I'm thinking at least of Afterhours, Marlene Kuntz, Verdena, Giardini di Mirò) but together they never manage to set the trend outside our borders. I think of what Norway's Motorpsycho manage to do - a niche act, sure, but one that points the way from the edge of the world. I also think of dEUS, another great reference point, considered pioneers despite coming from tiny Belgium. Are we Italians condemned to live in the shadows and just chase after everyone else?

Yes, as long as things like the Sanremo festival exist, and a commercial TV that keeps force-feeding us garbage and disinformation, there will never be a demanding audience, and as a result good bands will struggle to emerge, and only a few (3 out of 4 of the ones you mentioned sing in Italian) will manage to scrape together a small audience within our borders. Luckily we also have the rest of the world to turn to, like they've always done in Belgium and elsewhere - if we distanced ourselves from the heavy cultural baggage of the last 50 years, we could still have something to say to the rest of the world, beyond how to make spaghetti and how to dress properly to go see the monuments we built two thousand years ago.

You also play regularly outside Italy - what kind of response are you finding? Is there interest abroad in Italian bands?

The response abroad is excellent, the habit of going to see live shows is stronger than it is here, and going to a gig is still considered "cool". It's not that Italy lacks great venues - in fact, our crowds are often envied, especially when it comes to the bigger names. Interest in Italian bands as a concept is pretty thin, but there's a lot of interest in bands in general, which is why we should at least start thinking of ourselves as Europeans, because if you're good and you kill it live, that's what counts, not where you're from.

At this point, how do you think the story of Banshee will evolve? Are you already thinking about possible future scenarios?

We'd like to work with increasingly varied scenes and, little by little, with the whole world. We're working on that, and we'll see what happens. Musically we're experimenting a lot, using new instruments and electronics, we want different sounds and to "deconstruct" ourselves - there too, we'll see what happens... who knows!

One Italian name and one international name you'd kill to work with.

Did you say kill? Ennio Morricone and Brian Eno, ideally turning back the clock a few years for both of them.

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