You’ve said that they’re inspired by ‘this era of football’. How did the idea for these jerseys come about?
I met this guy outside of our show in Denver when we were touring in America, he’d emailed beforehand asking for guestlist because it was sold out. When we put him on the list, he was really grateful and said that he knew I was a football fan, and that he sold vintage football shirts, and asked if he could bring me a Denver team shirt, the Colorado Rapids. I was like, ‘sick, yeah, that’s a great trade’. He turned up with this shirt and we were chatting outside, and he said that his friend runs a company called Full Kit Wankers where they make bespoke football shirts that are esentially riffs on classic shirts. It was one of those things where you’re like, ‘oh cool, yeah, your friend does a thing’, but then I actually looked them up and they were really good, and we spoke to them about the idea that we had. There’s a team in Holland, PSV Eindhoven, and their shirt is a classic. In the ‘90s, they had this fantastic player, the original Ronaldo – or ‘Fat Ronaldo’ as he’s known. We took the idea to riff from that for the ‘TSV’ jerseys, and ran with it from there.
It has a ring to it, ‘TSV’. Could it become a real team?
We actually used to have one! We started a 7-a-side team in South London when we used to live there. I was always pretty shit and unfit, but Dom was really good. As these teams often do, it kind of became its own entity. There were other people we knew who would come down to play, and the group morphed over time. Years and years later, when we’d long left South London, we bumped into someone who told us that the team was still going, it’s just no one that we know anymore – it’s been passed on over time.
Dare I ask who you both support? Any clashes in your football fandom?
I support Spurs! I’m basically equal parts Tottenham and Harringey fan at this point, they’re my two teams. Dom is one of those weird creatures who really likes football but doesn’t really support a team, which I think is very sus behaviour. I think he’s got a bit of a soft spot for Brighton, make of that what you will.
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You’re heading out on an Australia tour soon where you’re playing a lot of DJ sets as opposed to live shows. Are you looking forward to returning to that?
We’re doing three live shows with a full band and I’m playing some DJ sets, too. It’s been ages since we were over in Australia, it’s such a big undertaking getting over to that part of the world and making it work for everyone, the opportunity doesn’t come up very often. It’s nice to be able to play to those same 10 people who message us every year asking us to come to Australia!
I’ve noticed a lot of artists speaking about how hard it is to tour right now given hiking costs, visa issues, etc. Are you finding that you run into those same difficulties?
The live thing is really difficult. When you start adding people, especially more than two people, it becomes incredibly expensive. It doesn’t make sense financially, even when you’re selling out shows. At least not until you get to a certain size venue, and I’m not even talking about medium-sized venues, you have to sell out 3,000+ capacity spaces every single night, which we don’t really do. We can do that in major cities, but not elsewhere. It’s really difficult, and I don’t really know what the answer is, because I know how tickets can feel really expensive too. People are still going to shows and paying for those tickets, but it’s just the way the industry is right now. It feels like we’re encouraged to make more music as opposed to going out and performing it at the moment.
What’s next for you both?
I’m just moving into this massive space, it’s the biggest studio I’ve ever had. We plan to make a lot of music this year, because every time we make an album, we say: ‘Let’s not leave it so long next time’. But each time we do that, the gap gets longer. I think we’re going in the right direction though, because last time it was seven years between albums, so if we can get that down a bit, that’d be great! I think we’ll finish quite a lot of music this year, maybe even an album.
Will that album head in a similar direction to your last?
I dunno yet, probably not. I think we’ll pick up where we left off, but I feel like I really had an image in my head of what we wanted that album to be, and not to brag, but I think we absolutely nailed that vision. We managed to fill it out in the way that we thought we could, so at that point, you really need something to be excited about when coming back into that world. I’m ready to do something slightly less influenced by straight pop music now. ‘The Sunset Violent’ was more about concise pop writing in a way that was really fun, but I think we’ll try and do something that’s a bit more of a studio record, a bit more experimental.
Can you tell us about your mix?
The idea I had for this mix came from those football compilations on YouTube with really shit music, that great but trash dance music. It’s part of the experience of watching football on YouTube, it’s a very particular sound of dance music. I wanted to go back to ‘95 or ‘96 when this original PSV jersey was released, and only play tracks from then. I basically want to provide a slight alternative to the YouTube football watching experience.
The TSV Jersey is available to pre-order now. Grab yours here
Gemma Ross is Mixmag’s Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter
- Source: NEWHD MEDIA
