Interview: Two Door Cinema Club
Myspace has a lot to answer for. The Numa Numa bloke, the “Leave Britney Alone” nutter, and then there is Two Door Cinema Club. Were it not for their MySpace success, fast mates Alex Trimble (Lead vocals, Guitar/Synths), Sam Halliday (Guitar) and Kevin Baird (Bass) might not have chucked in university and taken a serious stab at this music malarkey. But the alterative electro pop band from Northern Ireland did and since the release of their album Tourist History in March this year, their rise has been stratospheric. Flown to Splendour In the Grass by Air Asia X in July, JUICE made the ultimate sacrifice and ducked out of Delphic midway through its set to hang with the lovely Sam Halliday after Two Door’s blinding capacity set.
How are you feeling? How was the gig?
Great, it was amazing. It was so overwhelming, to travel so far and for people to turn up. I guess there couldn’t have been that many more people there, it was so full! It was brilliant.
This is your first time in Australia?
Yes, as a band and also personally as well. It’s all of our first times!
Have you got plans to see the Opera House or climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge?
Alex has got a bit of vertigo, he doesn’t like climbing, so I don’t think we’ll do that. We’d love to go to the beach though.
It’s been 4 months since your debut album Tourist History was released, and now you’re playing a capacity crowd halfway across the world. What do you make of it all?
It’s hard to take it all in. It’s something that we’ve taken a lot of pride in, that we can play similar-sized shows all over the world, it’s something we’ve worked really hard in doing. For such a young band it’s great we’ve already been to America and Japan, and all around the Europe. The UK for us isn’t the primary place to play shows. If you’re from London’s easy to play all over but for us it was us driving our own little van over in the ferry so it was quite expensive.
What’s on your rider?
Lots of fruit, some chocolate and crisps. Kettle, the salt and vinegar ones, they’re always first to go. We have Berocca, it’s good to try and keep healthy on tour. It’s not really healthy, kind of stops you from being sick when you’re flying.
Being called Two Door Cinema Club, are you guys film fans?
Yeah, massively. It’s one of my favourite things to do whenever we have a day off, I just go find a cinema. Being in a van for so many hours in a day, we all have our laptops out and we all sit and watch movies all day.
What was the last movie you watched?
Toy Story 3. I watched She’s Out Of My League on the plane. Inception was a good story. I had to ask my friend what was going on in places.
And the ending? Is Leo in a dream or is it real life?
I’m going to go with real life.
An optimist! Do you have a favourite director?
I’m really into Tarantino movies, I love them. I loved Planet Terror, which Robert Rodriguez directed. I love Guillermo Del Toro, I’m a big Pan’s Labyrinth fan.
When they make a movie about Two Door Cinema, who’s going to play you?
I’ve been told sometimes I look a bit like Michael Cera, but I think he would be too funny.
Apart from yourselves, what’s your favourite Irish export?
Probably Guinness. In Ireland, Guinness definitely. It doesn’t travel very well and often you can’t get it on draught.
Irish pubs are very popular in Asia, you should try one and rate them. Have you been to any? In Asia?
No. We try and avoid them and try to go somewhere local.
If you were to jet across the world for a holiday, where would you go and what would you do there?
I’d love to come back to Australia on holiday. I’d like to go surfing. I heard it takes a long time to get used it, it’d probably be frustrating. I’d love to see a kangaroo.
JUICE got to see Two Door Cinema live at Splendour in The Grass in Woodford Australia, we were flown there by Air Asia X. Air Asia X flies to Gold Coast near Woodford daily. Book your flights there by clicking to here. More Two Door Cinema Club at myspace and their site.