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September 27, 1999
bis
Marla Tiara tracks down bis in Boston and gets the lowdown on the Glasgow trio. bis, September 23, Boston, The Middle East.
By Marla Tiara
Bis is one of my favorite bands. The trio from Glasgow, Scotland, is made up of John Disco, Sci-Fi Steven, and Manda Rin. Their sound can't be categorized, but falls somewhere in between pop-punk-80's sound-indie rock. Their lyrics are often sly and sarcastic, poking fun at the latest trends, such as in "Making People Normal," off their second album, Social Dancing, or dropping pop culture references left and right, such as in "Starbright Boy" off of their first album, The New Transistor Heroes. On September 25, I not only got to see bis perform live, but I had the pleasure of interviewing Sci-Fi Steven beforehand. Here's how the interview went
Marla Tiara: First off, state your name.
Sci-Fi Steven: My name is Steven, and I play in bis.
MT: Where does the name bis come from?
SFS: Nowhere really. We just couldn't ever find a name. It means encore in Latin. We wanted something that didn't categorize us, that didn't say "this is an indie band' or "this is a rock band." Sometimes that can hold you back, like if you're called "The Devil Riding Horses" or something, you know that's going to be rock.
MT: How did the band get started, because I know John is your brother ...
SFS: Yeah, John's my brother, and we went to secondary school with Amanda. The part in Glasgow that we're from is kind of a dull, lifeless area and we were about the only three people that were into music at all -- you had the metal kids but nothing much else. So I suppose that because we were the only ones that were into different types of stuff, it was inevitable that we would make something out of it.
MT: Kind of making your own scene where there wasn't one.
SFS: Yeah, pretty much. We had to go where the scene was to get anywhere. There's no shows around where we live so we had to go to the center of Glasgow and get involved with those people. That's pretty much what everyone in Glasgow has to do. Most of the Glasgow bands get started off the same way, just getting gigs through the same people -- certain people that just helped out so many bands in the same way.
MT: What other bands?
SFS: Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, all from different areas of Glasgow, but they come together in the center to do stuff.
MT: Do you guys all work together?
SFS: We don't hang out or anything, but we're all friendly and we all are interested in what everyone else is doing. We [bis] are reasonably close to Mogwai, but the bands don't really sound the same so we don't have too much trouble with "a scene." Glasgow has a scene more than a lot of places and all the bands help each other out but there's not really a sound of Glasgow which I think is much healthier for it so we don't get tied down to something.
MT: The sound changed from New Transistor Heroes to Social Dancing. How did it go from that - from more punky to a little more polished.
SFS: I think we got the sound on Social Dancing that we tried to get with the last record, but [with New Transistor Heroes] we didn't have the time and we were maybe a bit too bold when we decided to produce the first album ourselves. It was kinda good that we did that because it was good to make the first record exactly the way we wanted to make it. We were all really happy with the first record for a while after it was finished but it kind of wore off on me. And you just can't really make the same record again. It wasn't like the first album was so ultra successful that we just had to repeat it. We're always developing and always changing. Probably because we're still reasonably young, we still get into new music and those influences come through. It's not like we've got our set of influences and that's it. Influences change all the time.
MT: But then are you still Teen-C Nation?
SFS: The whole ethos of the Teen-C nation was to spread awareness of teen empowerment and say to the kids that came to see us, "You can do this. You can do what you want to do." And we're all over twenty now so its basically handed down half a generation. It's up to either the kids we inspired or the kids that get into us now to do what they want with the legacy. I don't play down the importance of it or say that it was just a joke, but it would be dishonest of us to go on about teen empowerment now that we're in our early twenties. But I still think empowering teens is the most important thing because that's the future. We're aware of that and we want to help the future as much as be part of it.
MT: How did you get to work with Lois?
SFS: We did a show with Lois in London about 4 years ago and we kept in touch since then. Eventually when it came around to start thinking [about the new album] we wanted to work with a few different people on the album. Lois was the only one that we got around to organizing.
MT: Who else did you want to work with?
SFS: We had a huge list of people. I wanted to get Mixmaster Mike to do something, but we didn't know him at all. We didn't even try, and Graham from Blur, but we didn't really know what to get him to do.
MT: Stand in the studio!
SFS: Yeah, just be there. Just hang out. He's really nice, so maybe one day.
MT: Getting back to Lois, working with her seemed a bit unusual.
SFS: Well, we have similar backgrounds.I just really like her voice. The song she did with Dub Narcotic called "Ship to Shore" was a real inspiration to doing "Detour." We're quite open about that as an obvious inspiration.
MT: When I first listened to the album, I didn't have liner notes, and when it got to "Detour" I looked up because it sounded so different. Did you intend for "Detour" to be separate?
SFS: We did want it to be part of the album, but we just wanted to give people a surprise. I think especially where its placed in the album, its kind of near the end, [it indicates that the rest of the album] could just be more songs that are the same or a real shock. I think "Eurodisco" and "Detour" were the two shocks on the album, and its good to shock people.
MT: What about the Powerpuff Girls theme? How did that come about?
SFS: We haven't disowned it or anything, but [even though] we all wrote it, it's not our best song. We consider it like doing soundtrack work. For a cartoon, we had to write a specific type of song and we knew that. We weren't told what to write but we're intelligent enough to know what is going to suit something, so we wrote it specifically for [the show]. Which means we don't play it live, we aren't going to put it out as a single. It's just part of making music as opposed to being in a band.
MT: Rangers or Celtic or neither? [Scottish League football teams.]
SFS: Neither! I support Ayr United. That's my team. Amanda supports Rangers though.
MT: My final question, what is up with the last song on New Transistor Heroes? It's the hidden bonus track that suddenly appears that sounds like nobody in the band ...
SFS: It's a half speed version of a song called "Keroleen" that we put out as a single on K with Heavenly about three years ago. We were trying to rerecord it for the album, but we then decided not to put it on. So basically John was at the studio late with our engineer and he just slowed the track down to half speed and he just started talking over it in a Dutch accent. The "kind of accent that they put on which is kind of American when they talk English." [said with a funny Americanish accent] Most humorous voices are done by John - he's very good at it.
MT: That's it! Now can I take a picture of you wearing my tiara?
SFS: Sure!
The show that evening was fantastic. The band mainly played songs from the new CD, but they threw in a few older treats such as "Monstarr" (which featured Manda singing through a megaphone that unfortunately refused to work for the first verse of the song) and "School Disco". They also played two new songs, one that featured a rap-like section and one that had the repeated chorus "Are you ready?" Both songs continue to show the band's ability to change and grow and to make unexpected turns with their sound. The most interesting part of the show was watching Steven, who had been quiet and shy during the interview, turn into an incredible stage performer, bounding across the stage, talking to the audience, and smiling a huge smile. The entire band looked like they were having a great time performing, and it kept me so entranced that I barely noticed that it was nearing one in the morning. Only after bis left the stage following the encore did it hit me that I was absolutely exhausted from the energy in the show. Bis is definitely a band to be experienced live, and I hope I see them again in the near future.
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