Interview with The Helmholtz Resonators

The Helmholtz Resonators are five scientists from London, England. They are working in a laboratory, but sometimes if they leave their experiments behind them they come out of the lab to make music. Great music. You can listen to their soundscapes if you buy their records or if you go to their MySpace page or you can listen to Toast On Fire on Tuesday when Toast is playing a full Helmholtz Resonators gig!
And this is a good reason for an interview! So I sent some questions to their lab.

Who, where and when are you at the moment?
I am Garland Vanderbilt and I have just returned from the Crystal Submarine. I'm currently suffering from a serious case of 'time lag' due to travelling through 3 different centuries - parts of me seem to be stuck in the late 1800's now though.

I would say your music is not mainstream. How would you describe it to someone who don't know your songs?
It is definitely not mainstream, but does have elements that are very catchy, so it does become pop. Sonic audio experiments that carry big heavy bass lines, dance beats and repetitive chorus refrains that stick in your mind and bounce through your very essence.

It looks a bit complicated to be a scientist and a musician. How is your life between pumps & pipettes & patents and sex & drugs & rock 'n' roll?
Haha!! Indeed it is!! But we seem to manage it perfectly well. Because its as if we're always in an alternate state of consciousness, we can traverse the space time continuum, travelling on the wires of our nerves.

Do you remember the gig the Musicborn guys recorded and which will be broadcast at Toast On Fire? How was it?
The Musicborn gig was one of our best - we really enjoyed it. We played @ Cafe 1001 in Brick Lane, East London. Jack the Rippers' old stomping ground! The venue was great and the promoters were really cool too. It was free entry so it was very busy and everybody in there really got into our sound. A real party atmosphere.

Why do you all swap instruments so often at gigs? Isn't it very exhausting for you?
We initially started this band so we could all play the drums! We all played other instruments in various different situations. Most musicians can't wait to get on the drums when they're in a rehearsal studio, so we ended up swapping after each song, that way we could all play the drums and then the rest evolved from there.

What do you do after a gig? Do you rush to the lab to put all the energy and adrenaline from the gig into an invention or do you do normal things like having a pint or so?
It depends, sometimes the results of the gigs have to be documented immediately in the lab, so our findings can be discovered for future generations and other times we just let the booze demon take a hold of us. Taking us out into the night for another wild misadventure!

Do you have a good breakfast recipe for the morning after a gig, after a short night with a pint too much? Do you as a scientist have a recommendation for us?
The best recommendation we have found over our many years is to book an appointment with a certain Dr. Jägermeister

Last year you had a lot of problems with Mr. Noseybonk. It's very well documented in a video. Who is this guy?
He is a very sinister and scary late 1970's childrens TV character that has haunted many people's psyches ever since they saw him, he also seems to have a particular problem with us and regularly appears in our nightmares

What is next in the pipeline? We are releasing the findings of our latest experiment BOMBS! as a single on 22nd March. We recently filmed another video for it too, which will accompany the release. Mr Noseybonk tried to blow up our lab with a massive bomb - a bit like this Video
We also have an exclusive remix of the song that Manrose and myself did available for a limited time here: www.musicglue.com/thehelmholtzresonators

Best Regards
Garland Vanderbilt Esq

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