Long live Klaxons

Ironically, Klaxons, the English band behind the most danceable indie rock in years and originators of the term "New Rave," don't want to be the torchbearers for the dance revolution. They're just three (sometimes four) young men from Stratford-Upon-Avon and Bournemouth, England, they contend, who, a year ago, got bored with the grey, depressing drone-rock billowing out of London like so much factory smoke and decided to update the rave scene's DayGlo dedication to all-night fun. Soon after, the major rock press picked up on it when, as a joke, bassist/vocalist Jamie Reynolds described his group as "New Rave" in an interview. Always on the hunt for conveniently labeled revolution, New Musical Express (NME to friends) slapped Klaxons on its cover, declared "new rave fever," and booked them on its massive "indie rave" tour.

"People wanted to start this non-existent genre, and we told them we're not part of it and we don't give a fuck about it"For the English, that's all well and good. But when was the last time an American rock audience was inspired to dance to an electric guitar? As the band embarks on a U.S. tour—last night's show at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan was sold out—in support of the stateside release of their debut LP, Myths of the Near Future, Radar asked guitarist/vocalist Simon Taylor, 24, how Klaxons plan to persuade the Yanks to do more than just cross their arms and nod approvingly to the beat before moving on to the next big thing.

RADAR: What can you, Simon, do to make people dance?
SIMON TAYLOR: It sounds really pathetic, but I don't think there's anything you can do to encourage people other than just go for it, just do it. We are not one of those bands that makes people clap on the left and clap on the right. We just go out there and play and hope for the best.

Surely, considering your brightly colored beginnings, you have some magic scheme to get the party started.
[Long pause.] I'm really struggling 'cause I don't think there's anything you can specifically do—whatever you tell an audience, they will just do the opposite. If someone tells me to dance, that's the last thing I feel comfortable doing.

Is that where "New Rave" comes in, then, as a simple way to signify a dance party?
It came from Jamie. He mentioned New Rave as a joke to talk about how the British press get excited by anything new, like the new rock revolution or the new this or new that ...

But you all dressed the part with whacked-out, retro rave wear right up until recently.
One of the things we're constantly learning is that we get an idea in our heads and then we do it. Then we have another idea and we do that, but when you're a touring band, there's a delay between the ideas being transmitted and received. The thing about when we first started was that all the bands in London were quite gloomy, and that just bored us—and we wanted to wear bright clothes. And then I suppose everyone else started doing it—and not in an arrogant way—but we just got bored of that. It's just constantly about change.

Does toning down the look do anything to dampen the message that your music is made for movin'?
We're not gonna get pissed off at people if they don't dance; we're not a dance band. That was the funny thing about being on the indie rave tour; all the other bands were sort of electronic and were all dance bands, so people would go to our show and sometimes didn't know what to do.

"It was amazing that we could really infiltrate the mainstream pop world with songs about riding on horseback to the apocalypse"Does that mean, then, right here, half-way through this interview, that you're proclaiming New Rave dead?
We kind of toured the world and people wanted to start this non-existent genre, and we told them we're not a part of it and we don't give a fuck about it. We just toured Europe for a month and we were like in this bubble. We didn't really live anywhere, musically, and it's enough to make us all go mad, but it's something that we found quite exciting, too.

So you're not a dance band, nor are you New Rave. How do you want to be classified?
It's funny. We always wanted to be a really big pop band. Here, the Guardian, the most artistic left-wing paper, said that our album was a pain to listen to, and then the Sun, the real celebrity paper, named us album of the month and wrote like a huge three-page thing on how much they loved us. I think that for the people's newspaper to name us album of the month, that was a huge deal—it was like making it for us. It was amazing that we could really infiltrate the mainstream pop world with songs about riding on horseback to the apocalypse or about William Burroughs.

Does that give you any inkling as to whether mainstream American crowds will take to you?
It's really quite baffling. Now that America has opened its doors and Rolling Stone hates us [the magazine gave their debut LP just two stars], that's just another bit of excitement and confusion. The great thing is we have no idea how we are going to be perceived in America or how the shows are going to go. We were packing our bags today, and it was kind of like jumping into the unknown again.

What's exciting you musically right now?
I'm more excited about Britney than anything. We did a TV show with Bloc Party yesterday, and I'm not sure how much of the truth [singer, guitarist] Kele was telling us, but he was saying that he heard one of the new Britney Spears tracks, and it was life-changing. So that's more exciting to me.

So will the follow-up to Myths be produced by the Neptunes?
We've written the opener of the next album, the opening track ... We're thinking of making a prog album—like a huge, tribal prog album.

Is this where we declare the coming of "New Prog"?
No, no. I'm being completely serious. We've all been listening to bands in England like Caravan, so we're definitely going to make a big, heartbreaking prog album.

So how long will it be until Gwen Stefani—or maybe Moby—makes a New Rave record?
[Laughs.] There was a gossip magazine yesterday that had this whole double-page feature on how, like, Sienna Miller was New Rave now, and it was insane ... I think Gwen Stefani will make a New Rave record within a year.

All photos courtesy of Biglife Management