“About: Fun. How quickly people start up bands and forget why they bothered in the first place” Interview: The Young Playthings - Who Invented Love?

For fans of: Superdrag, The Wannadies, Chopper One

Surely nobody starts a band to be miserable; surely it’s all about the fun and having it, lots, right? Yet it’s rare you find a band who sound like they’re enjoying themselves as much as they should. London-based power pop trio The Young Playthings are that band. ‘There are far too many dour, boring, skinny jeans, pale skin and pathetic, pouting indie bands around, who think moody equals sexy. Well, it doesn’t’ states Playthings spokesman Bateman quite rightly.

Thankfully his band are the very antithesis of the current mode. Harking back to the mid-90s alt.rock aesthetic mixed with a keen appreciation of old skool girl groups, they sound like The Ramones gatecrashing the prom scene in Grease. Or something. They release thier debut record ‘Who Invented Love?’ in May through Smalltown America (Jetplane Landing, Oppenheimer) and if you share a similar sense of dissatifaction with the zeitgeist’s dullards, you’ll dig it.

Comes a time though when the young and the playful schtick will no longer be considered a dignified way to live life. Rock ‘n’ roll is undoubtedly a young man’s playground – after all, it’s not like The Grateful Dead are still alive and touring...so how do the currently sprightly and frivolous Young Playthings plan on combating the inevitable, crushing march of time? ‘We’ll change our name to the (Postmodern) Rolling Stones’ Bateman begins, tongue securely fastened in cheek, ‘make crap soft rock records, sell-out Wembley Arena every year playing nostalgia shows for our smug, now comfortably enfranchised, home-owning generation, holiday in Monaco, and fuck our own daughters. Actually, that sounds pretty playful’.

© Alternative Ulster 2007