Spector: Topmen

By Putera Zamir  •  14 Nov 2012 in Interview

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Going back to ‘Chevy Thunder’, you had actually wanted to name it Citroën Saxo before Chevy called you up and offered you a deal, how different would the song have turned out?
C A lot slower, probably.
F More of a family song, I don’t know if it would have been a more successful song, or a less successful song.
C A lot more French as well.
F I was going to name it that but really I’ve got a problem with the French, I can’t deny it anymore, they’ve hurt me, they’ve riled me a lot
Danny Are there any car manufacturers in Malaysia?

Proton.
F What’s a big Proton car? What’s the main car?

… Wira.
F Wira, Proton Wira, yeah, that’s what we should’ve called it, In fact maybe we’ll change it while we’re here. It’s funny, there are not many Chevy’s in England when I wrote it, I don’t know what I was thinking
D What is a Chevy Thunder? It’s like a massive truck.
C It’s not an interesting car.
F It’s not a sexy car, It’s an ugly, trampy car, but you know, it’s the spirit that matters.

Fred, you like to use rating to describe things, how would you rate Kuala Lumpur so far?
F Tell you what, it would’ve been a 9, we had a great club sandwich, great clothes from Topman, and a great iced coffee, but there was a bit of a WiFi situation at the hotel, on arrival, there was no WiFi in the room, I tried to deal with it at the reception, but they couldn’t help me, so it went from a 9, to an 8.7. And then Chris was trying to have a little sleep, and he slammed the door in my face, all I did was wake him up to tell him that it was time for him to be defibrillated, and he got angry at me, so it’s an 8.5 overall, it was a 9, but him and the WiFi issue mucked it up. I thought there was WiFi everywhere, it’s a modern country, it hurts me. Singapore has loads of WiFi. Come on guys.

Malaysia is really big on English football, and Spector is obviously a football loving band, do you collectively support one team or do you support separate teams?
D No, Jed and Fred support QPR.
F Chris is a Gooner, Tom supports Chelsea, Tom goes where the money goes.
D And I support Sheffield United.

Did you know that QPR is Malaysian owned?
D Oh yeah! What’s his name again?

Tony Fernandes.
F Tony Fernandes is a close friend of mine.
D That’s a great name though

This is your first time in Asia, did you have big expectations for your KL show?
F I’ve great expectations, I’ve heard that the Malaysians are wild, and that they’re gonna be the type of audience that we’ve never seen on earth, but, they can only respond to what we give them, so the ball is in our court, to use an old tennis metaphor that I sometimes like, so we’re going to try and deliver a great show, and if they enjoy it; they enjoy it. But it’s up to us. We don’t get to come here very often so we’re going to put extra effort to make it extra special to entertain a nation that means a lot to us.
D Hey hang on, I’ve got a question about Tony Fernandes! Why has he got a Spanish name?!

Why do you have an English name?

Presented by Topman, Spector played Stage KL @ Avenue K last 6 October 2012. For more spectral tunes, hit up spector.co.uk.