Getdown Services
22nd November, 2024. The Hope & Ruin, Brighton.
Tobias Partington
TP – I’ve recently been reading the Rolling Stone interview that you did with Nick Reilly. I really liked the Dick & Dom analogy that you made, and I feel you’re becoming more well known for that. Do you think that was something you had planned, and has that always been your approach to dealing with the awkwardness of being on stage?
Josh – That’s a very good question. I think it’s always been the approach but I don’t think we ever intentionally started doing it like that. We found ourselves doing [our first] gig, we didn’t really know what else to do so we just started doing that. When we were playing together at home and making it, we were just messing around, and trying to make each other laugh, really. Our guess would just be that. I didn’t think we would do many more gigs. It was just after lockdown, so everyone was just eager to do it. We hadn’t played a gig, as any band, for years and years, so it was just like ‘we’ll see what happens.’ It was never really the plan, but it’s always been how we’ve dealt with it all, without really deciding to.
Ben – I think you’re right with the coming-out-of-lockdown thing, everyone was just excited, including us. Doing it together, it was just a bit like, ‘this is funny isn’t it?’, just have a laugh with it.
TP – I think its fair to say that the cover art you do usually shares that sort of comedic, bizarre quality, and, across everything you’ve put out so far, it includes quite a random array of different things, whether it’s random food items, or those statues for the Crisps album cover.
Josh – The first thing we did with the hot dog, that’s Weston-Super-Mare. But the album cover, that wasn’t, that was in a service station on the way back to Bristol from Cornwall. I think they do have one in W.S.M., and they do have one here in Brighton, actually.
Ben – Yeah they have actually got one just up the street [Belgian Chips]… We thought it was sort of like a one of thing, like ‘eugh, that’s fuck ugly’, and then playing in mainland Europe, they’re absolutely everywhere.
Josh – We thought we had some special thing, but they’re literally everywhere in Belgium. It’s sort of like putting the Colonel on your album cover.
TP – I suppose, with other covers you’ve done as well, like [Dog Dribble], one of you has got your head in a bush?
Josh – Yeah, that’s Ben.
TP – And then for the new EP, I’m assuming that’s your parents sat at a bus stop. So the question relating to that is, does any of that imagery mean anything, and, if not, is that the whole point?
Josh – That’s a really good question, it’s not [that] it didn’t mean anything, but all of our artwork is done by our friend, Siôn Marshall-Waters, he’s a filmmaker and a photographer, and most of the artwork we’ve done has been pictures he’s already taken – sometimes years before. It’s just pictures of his that we like, and we’re like ‘well that fits with this song’, and it kind of feels like, it sums things up. [For] the album artwork, Siôn had spotted the thing, and it seemed to fit. The EP artwork, and when you’re talking about my parents, that’s the first time we’ve had a sort of concept, first. So there is kind of an intended meaning there. The rest of it, it does have a meaning, but it’s a coincidence. But because Siôn really understands the kind of vision or aesthetic of what we’re doing better than we do, he takes pictures and shows them to us. But with our parents, there was some thinking behind it. Basically, there’s a lot of stuff on the EP about class tensions, and how confusing the class system is in this country and [there’s] a lot of issues and questions about entitlement and things like that. There’s quite a big difference between the class backgrounds of me and Ben. But we also really connect on most levels, so I think we just thought it would make sense to have our parents be the artwork, because it’s going to be interesting, but it sums up the very different financial situations, and raises a lot of questions about…
TP – …how they’ve come together?
Josh – Yeah, and trying to say how confusing, and frustrating and difficult the whole thing is.
Ben – They’re our parents, they mean a lot to us. It’s mad that we’ve got to where we are to a point where we’re releasing something else that people might actually want to listen to. So it makes sense to put our background as the image for that.
Josh – Also, on a completely different note, we just wanted to have a nice picture of our parents.
TP – I suppose everyone’s music taste is influenced quite a lot by whoever brought them up.
Ben – Entire personalities are influenced by that.
TP – On the topic of influence as well, you’ve obviously got quite a rock and disco orientated influence, and you’ve mentioned people like T Rex, Daft Punk, Chic… and AC/DC, and I think those in particular become more apparent on the EP as well, but you’ve also been compared to people like Sleaford Mods and LCD Soundsystem. Do you agree with that comparison, and how does it feel for you to witness other people’s perception of your music?
Ben – With the Sleaford Mods thing, I can sort of see that, mainly because it’s spoken-word, two blokes, laptop, and a lot of swearing. The visual aesthetic is obviously similar. LCD Soundsystem makes sense as well, we were never trying to go for that. We both love those bands, but I don’t think it was ever a conscious decision to make music in the same sort of style, naturally because of our inspirations, but it is interesting to see what people compare you to, and the comparisons they draw. In France, a few times people have said Fun Lovin Criminals. Another one we get quite a lot is Yard Act. It’s not a problem, but I don’t personally see that.
Josh – There’s some things where you think you get compared because you’re around at the same time, and there’s other things I think you’re compared [to] because they’re seeing something that you’re not seeing because you’re making it. You’re almost too involved to see what the overall thing looks like to someone who’s not as involved as you are. I love Sleaford mods as well, our influences to making stuff are much more to do with music, rather than vocals. Now we are, but we were never really that interested in being lyricists, I think because we cant sing, we probably knew we had to do something to fill. We started just sort of ranting, ‘that feels good’. [I can see it more] with the stuff I do vocally, more than the stuff ben does. The delivery; I swear a lot more. With the songs where Ben’s doing the lead vocals, I don’t really think it does sound like Sleaford Mods or Yard Act, but they’re all great bands. If people mean it as a compliment, then we take it as a compliment, it doesn’t really matter if we agree. There’s some crossover with the stuff we talk about, lot of swearing, there’s a laptop, I can see what people mean.
TP – Obviously, you’ve known each other for years, you went to school together, been in several bands, etc, but Getdown Services was a lockdown project. Do you think it would have existed without that?
Josh – I don’t actually, no, I don’t think it would.
Ben – I think lockdown led to us being at home all the time, really bored, and sending stuff back and forth to each other, so we just had loads of spare time to plough into this thing.
Josh – I don’t think it would have occurred to us to do it, we were both working all the time before lockdown. And then the end of lockdown coinciding with when we started trying to make more music, gave us that excitement of trying to play gigs and stuff. There was excitement at the gigs, as well.
TP – You don’t have practice spaces, you don’t make stuff in studios, it’s all recorded and produced by yourselves at home. Do you think that because that came from lockdown, the pandemic influenced, if not determined in any way, what your music sounds like?
Josh – I never really thought about that… I’d say definitely. Just because of the free time to focus on learning how to record.
TP – Is that something you learned in lockdown as well, as you were going?
Josh – Pretty much, yeah.
Ben – We’ve always made music at home, for each other, I think as well, we’d have never wanted to make music seriously enough to go into a studio again. It was probably never on the cards that even if we did want to do something, that we’d take it as seriously as going into the studio to do it. In lockdown you’re doing it yourself, anyway. So I guess it turned out that way. I think that makes sense.
TP – The next question’s a lot simpler, where did the actual name [Getdown Services] come from?
Josh – It came years and years ago, long ago we even thought about it as a band, just talking about ‘what would be a good band name?’, stupid conversation. Just had it in the back of my mind, and briefly gave it to a mate of ours, who was in a function jazz funk band. He was looking for a name, we were like ‘you should call it Getdown Services’, and they were briefly called Getdown Services… but then he was outvoted and they changed it to something way worse. They changed it to ‘Funk Me Up Scotty’.
Ben – Oh yeah they did actually.
Josh – Doesn’t even work as a pun. They’re not going anymore. But yeah, it was just sort of floating around for ages. There’s a few others that were floating around. We were ‘Justice Brothers’, that was one.
Ben – We never were that, it was just spoken about.
Josh – It was just a joke, if we ever started a band, it might be called that.
Josh – It was probably like, seven/eight years ago. We started doing this, the name is good and it works for this music. I will say it’s a good band name, as well. I’m chuffed with it, maybe our strongest point.
Ben – There’s one thing we do well in this country, or at least we have loads of, is service stations.
TP – A lot of people have been talking about your Green Man performance, because you didn’t really anticipate that big of a turnout. Are you expecting more of the same at next year’s one, and at Wide Awake festival in London, as well?
Ben – I think if you expect it, you’re going to disappoint yourself, but we’re very excited to be at Wide Awake.
Josh – I don’t really know what to expect. We never know what to expect because the reaction varies so much. I expect we’ll enjoy it, but you just never know.
Ben – You never know who’s going to be there.
Josh – It’s really nice to be asked, it’s a good festival, there’s cool bands playing.
TP – So Crisps was written when you were still gardening [Josh] and waitering [Ben], and the last few EPs that you’ve released since, have been written on the road, now that you’re actually doing this full time. How do you think the music has changed, and will change, with these dramatic stages of you doing this as a career?
Ben - We’re less angry, we’re less sad and depressed, and less distracted.
TP – I think there’s a few songs on the album that are a bit more melancholy, whereas you’ve got certain songs now that are quite Bolan, or have daft punk written all over it.
Josh – If you spend all your time doing something you hate, you’re going to be miserable, and we spend all our time doing something we like, now, so the music’s a bit more uplifting, I think. Unless some kind of major crisis happens, I think we’re probably just gonna keep it ‘party-time’. [But] we enjoy complaining about things.
Ben – We love a whinge.
Josh – We love whinging.
TP – That’s the headline.
Ben – Yeah, “we love whinging”.
Josh – Even when you feel good, I just love to complain about things, I think that’s always going to be in the music. But the anger and the bitterness is just changing form, I think.
Ben – We have talked about doing another album – we want to do something quite different. Maybe a bit more, not singer-songwriter, but consider the songwriting of the songs, and production techniques and stuff. We’ll still be making music, so it’ll still be the same band, its not gonna be a million miles off. Just keeps it interesting for us.
Josh – Always try and do something different, is the only thing.
TP – I think as long as you’ve got the audience there, which you do, people are going to listen to it anyway, and people will appreciate if it’s still got the same qualities, but it’s going in a different direction as well.
Josh – I don’t mean this in an arrogant way, it’s really nice that we’ve got an audience now. But, us making music is completely irrelevant to that, we’d be doing it as were doing it, even if that wasn’t there.
TP – For yourselves?
Josh - We just really need it as an outlet.
Ben – It started out that way, so for that to change would sort of be ingenuine.
TP – You’ve said before that its quite cathartic.
Josh – It is yeah, and we really depend on that now. It does help and it’s really lovely that people listen to us now, but it’s not rested on that. If everyone who was involved suddenly started hating us, it would be like ‘that’s a shame, but were going to keep going anyway’, it might sound corny but I do really believe that. It would take a lot for us to stop now.
TP – I’ll just wrap it up with one more question. Tell me about Dr. Christmas…
Ben – Go on Josh…
Josh – It’s actually quite old, that song. About three, maybe four years old. We did put it out in a different form a few years ago, but I took it down, then I lost it. I just really love Christmas songs, it’s a really easy thing to try and write about, because there’s a very limited pool of things… you just chuck mistletoe or brandy, or whatever, and… Christmas. I thought it would be funny. My girlfriend’s stepdad Jim Pitchforth helped sing some vocals on it, because he’s a proper singer. And then we got my girlfriend Daisy to help do some spoken word on this version, and then [got] our friends Ruby Hunt and Sam Drumfield to sing with us, and we thought it was funny, really. I think it’s a really good song as well.
TP – The high pitched sequence in the middle of it caught me off guard (in a good way).
Ben – Fantastic.
Josh – That’s Daisy, Daisy Kennedy. She smashed that.
TP – She did the vocals on one of the songs from Crisps?
Josh – She did, on The Vortex, yeah. Sam Drumfield, who did the vocals on Dr Christmas with us, he’s also in another song we did, a song called Throbber [a collaboration with Saloon Dion].
Ben – There is a couple more people, David Woolford and Rosie May, they’re also on the first album. I don’t really know why their names sort of got [unfeatured], we did ask for that to be put on that.
Josh – They are featured on PRS now.
Ben – Fantastic!
Josh – We just thought it was a fun idea to write a Christmas song, I like it when bands put Christmas songs out, I think it ticks all the boxes: its really annoying, really stupid, but also quite good.
