aaamusic | On 30, May 2010

The interview series continues: this time we chat with Chris from Kill It Kid, Ben Marwood and Bencat from Cats and Cats and Cats. Find out what we discovered!

Chris – Kill It Kid

2000trees festival: 2000trees festival showcases the best in British new music. What are your favourite up and coming British bands or artists at the moment?
Chris: I’ve been interested in an Irish band called ‘Villagers’ of recent and our friends The Heavy.

2000trees festival: Have you ever been to 2000trees before, if so what have been your highlights from previous years?
C: I haven’t been before but we’ve heard a lot about it. We’re really excited to be at the top of one of the bills at a festival not focused on sponsors, brands, and the songs the public are fed on mainstream radio. From the people I’ve spoken to its a festival everyone attending can be proud to be a part of, and in turn be proud of new British music…and British mud.

2000trees festival: Who is your favourite British band of all time?
C: It’s traditional to say The Beatles here…I’d hate to break tradition.

2000trees festival: What are your plans for your performance at 2000trees?
C: Playing live is what we do best and this is our first year playing the festivals and we’re ready to cut our teeth at 2000 trees. We’ll put on as much of a show as the audience wants, I’m already excited. At the moment we have a tendency for blowing amplifiers and splitting floorboards.

2000trees festival: Which other artists are you and your fans looking forward to seeing, at this year at 2000trees festival?
C: We’re looking forward to catching up with our friends ‘Sparrow and The Workshop’. We also met Johnny Flynn when we were in Texas for SXSW, it will be great to catch him and the Sussex wit.

Ben Marwood

2000trees festival: 2000trees festival showcases the best in British new music. What are your favourite up and coming British bands or artists at the moment?
Ben Marwood: Definitely Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun, they’re just fantastic live AND on record, which is surely a devastating combination. I can also recommend the mighty Tubelord – do they still count as up and coming? – and Kent’s Tom Williams & the Boat are impressing me entirely.

2000trees festival: Have you ever been to 2000trees before, if so what have been your highlights from previous years?
BM: I went last year for the Thursday night party, which was brilliant if completely soaking. I didn’t much care – Joe Summers played and he was great! and I met Jim Lockey’s mum, which has got to be a winner in anyone’s book. I think other than that, my highlights of Trees always involved hearing about Oxygen Thief’s massive hangovers.

2000trees festival: Who is your favourite British band of all time?
BM: Stereophonics? only joking. They couldn’t even be the best band in wales. That was always Mclusky, wasn’t it? Andy Falkous swears with the vitriol of a scorned lover embarrassed in public these days in Future of the Left, but in Mclusky he was similarly unstoppable. They had to be my favourite, I guess, their live shows were unstoppable. I saw them at the Garage in Highbury once. Jon scrunched up the setlist and ate it, then got on the drummers shoulders to make one big unbalanced drummer. Then Falco took the kit away piece by piece and the drummer took his clothes off. Let’s see you do that, Kelly Jones.

2000trees festival: What are your plans for your performance at 2000trees?
BM: Some good songs, with the right notes in the right order. Make the sun come out if possible. If it’s raining I’ll have to shelve my slow songs, just to help keep 2000 Trees’ mortality rate at 0. It’s a record to keep hold of, that one.

2000trees festival: Which other artists are you and your fans looking forward to seeing, at this year at 2000trees festival?
BM: Frank Turner – not only is he unbeatable on his day, I’d be practically nowhere without him. Well maybe not nowhere, but next to nowhere. slough, maybe. I’m also excited to be catching up with Lockey and Chris T-T, who is another guy I owe a lot to, and if I can hang around for the Saturday I’ll be sure to catch Johnny Flynn & the Sussex Wit. The four best UK folk acts in one day? Count me in.

Bencat – Cats and Cats and Cats

2000trees festival: 2000trees festival showcases the best in British new music. What are your favourite up and coming British bands or artists at the moment?
Bencat: There seem to be so many amazing bands starting up at the moment, a few that spring to mind are two Oxford based bands – Ute (http://www.myspace.com/utetheband) who make folky intricate pop songs and Spring Offensive (www.myspace.com/springoffensive) who make darker, louder stuff with loads of lovely vocals. I should mention our often-tour-support heroes The Siegfried Sassoon too (www.myspace.com/thesiegfriedsassoon) and our good friends Wild Dogs in Winter (www.myspace.com/wilddogsinwinter), two masters of their trades.

2000trees festival: Have you ever been to 2000trees before, if so what have been your highlights from previous years?
B: No but I wish I had!

2000trees festival: Who is your favourite British band of all time?
B: I have to say the band that got me into music in the first place, which was Blur. I was about 11 when Parklife came out and I remember we were moving house at the time, me and my best friends got in a big empty cupboard and sang End of a century at the top of our voices along to a cassette. Good times.

2000trees festival: What are your plans for your performance at 2000trees?
B: Hopefully we’ll have all our extra instrumentalists and will be playing tracks from our album which is out in May (15th to be precise) along with some unreleased songs we’ve been working on recently. There’s a chance we’ll have some visuals and costumes and a near zero possibility of a lazer show with deadly robots attacking the earth.

2000trees festival: Which other artists are you and your fans looking forward to seeing, at this year at 2000trees festival?
B: Well we can’t wait to catch up with our friends and ex tour buddies in A Genuine Freakshow, Vessels, Maybe she will and 65 Days of Static and see them rock the place. We’re also looking forward to And so I watch you from afar and Shoes and socks off.