The Galleon - Portsmouth's Official Student Newspaper

“My plan was really to…marry her, but I’ve got a girlfriend now, and she’s married.” While things may not have worked out exactly as he had intended with Emily Kane, that old flame is now well and truly in the past, and things aren’t bad for Eddie Argos.

Despite wishing his band had been ‘a bit more successful, and made a bit more money’, success and wealth are clearly two things that are of little concern for Art Brut (they might have given up by now if they were). They get their gratification in other ways and having their last two albums produced by Black Francis of the Pixies is surely one them.

“We never really got over that ‘It’s Frank Black’ thing”, says Eddie on the first album they produced with him, ‘“we were a bit in awe of him, and he didn’t want to tread on our toes too much.” The opportunity to work with such a legend came after hearing that Black liked their music; “we saw that he liked our songs so we thought we’d just chance it and sent him an email saying ‘Do you want to produce us’, thinking he’d say no. He said yes, almost immediately.” Since Art Brut vs Satan, the dynamic between Black and the band has changed a fair bit. They’ve gone from being nervous on the first flight over there about whether Black Francis drinks or not, to being drunkenly Facebooked by him, “he definitely drinks.” says Argos.

Another change that has come with this new relationship is the decision to ‘sing’ some of the vocals (Argos’ tone still puts sing in inverted commas). ‘That was his (Black’s) idea, I thought I was singing’. While Black Francis may have put in the hours teaching the him to sing, Argos is the first to admit that melody isn’t his strong point. “I just kind of whisper now, that’s all that’s changed.”

His vocal ability, whether sung or spoken, is really of little importance. What sets Argos apart from other songwriters is the humour in his lyrics, and his unfaltering enthusiasm for simply being in a band. Between the last two Brut albums, he was busy tackling the unenviable task of being in a band with your girlfriend in the form of side project, Everybody Was In The French Resistance…Now! and he’s still keen for volume two of that venture. “I’ve always been in a few bands at the same time really. I’m a show off, I just like being on a stage, it’s all for that really.” Since January this year he has been living with said girlfriend in Berlin, and has already managed to half-form a punk band over there. He says ‘we’re just mucking about really”, but in sense that’s all Eddie Argos has ever done, with varying success. Art Brut’s gig at the Wedgewood Rooms a few weeks ago was by no means packed, but those who were wise enough to turn up saw one of the most captivating live shows you’re likely to see at the moment.

There is a sense that we don’t quite ‘get’ Art Brut here in the UK. In Germany, the gigs have always been bigger and more popular, and even though the subject matter is so overtly English, the US seems to connect with Argos and vice versa in a way that us Brits don’t.

“All of my favourite songwriters are American. I like that kind of heart on the sleeve songwriting and they understand that more in America. Over here people are more cynical, they don’t believe me.”

This connection has resulted in “18 tours in America, or something, maybe even more” and that’s not something many British bands can boast.