BAND HANG : TEETH
Teeth are Ximon Tayki (electronics), Veronica So (vocals) and Simon Whybray (drums). They are a Dalston-based dance trio whose music, according to chief electronic noisemaker Ximon, is “fat, femme and fierce”.
Teeth’s debut album Whatever drops on 19th September and between now and this time next month they’re taking the show to the road as they embark on a tour which includes dates around the UK, two dates in France and shows in Amsterdam and Brussels. Despite the busy schedule, they made a little time to meet up for a chat with us about, well, all sorts, starting with their name. “It’s nothing to do with vaginas or anything like that.” Veronica reassured us, alluding to the recent film – Teeth – about the girl whose toothed vagina turns the hunters into the hunted by biting off the misdirected wangers of her sexual predators.
It wasn’t long until Veronica whipped out the CD of their brand spanking new album and handed it to us. “That’s the preview,” she explained in her expressive Californian accent. “No-one has seen it yet except you guys.” The band inspected the CD case with an innocent pride, making it clear that the novelty of their album being an actual CD was still as fresh as ever to them. “I like the back better than the front!” Ximon blurted out, sparking an eruption of laughter around the table at his not-so-subtle innuendo. He continued, “We wanted it to look like… er… like shit, basically.”
Veronica clarified, “We wanted it to look like we’d just scribbled on it.” She paused for a minute again, “Wow, it’s really nice. It feels really good.”
The album leak party is on 21st September at the Lexington, so we asked Teeth what we could expect from it. “At least 10 people to show up.” Ximon remarked, but with such an ingenious promotion campaign behind it this couldn’t possibly be the case. Their album leak party video on YouTube entitled ‘y u shud come 2 our album leak party’ is a characteristically inventive and to-the-point way of spreading the word about the party, to say the least. It features a guy screaming at his webcam about why you’d be an idiot not to go. In Ximon’s words, “He was just some cute twink we found online. I was like, ‘Babes, will you do this?’ He was like, ‘Yeah sure.’ He’s just, like, a super-fan.”
With the release of Whatever drawing closer, Teeth are under no illusion about the likelihood of a mixed reception. “People will either love it or hate it, I think.” Veronica told us. “It’s quite a specific sound; it’s very loud so you automatically lose a certain percentage already, but the people who like it we want them to really, really connect with it and with us as a band.”
Ximon eloquently explained the learning curve that they’ve been through during process of making and promoting their album, “The thing is we’re learning a lot about the music industry as we go on, and we realise that it’s full of shitbags and bullshit.”
Veronica, clearly provoked by Ximon’s little insight, added, “It’s incredible how much we get asked, ‘So how did you put this album together?’ It’s our fucking debut album; obviously we’re chucking all our songs onto a disc and calling it a day, it’s not our 5th album or anything like that. It just goes to show how many people are manufactured and how many people make albums for the sake of making albums. We’re lucky that we’re at a time where we can genuinely say we didn’t even think about it.”
“We didn’t even think about it… but there’s so much manufactured bullshit out there; it’s kind of crazy… I’m REAL!” Yelped Simon in his best diva voice, prompting Veronica to ask if he was drunk. “I’ve had 1 pint. I haven’t had anything to eat the whole day.” He replied, a little more sheepishly.
Teeth recently pulled off the mother of all internet pranks by hacking into Lady Gaga’s Twitter account. Oh, what power! They used the opportunity to post tweets such as ‘My dick’s not as big as Teeth’s’ and ‘Love Gaga, love Teeth!’ “Yeah, she thought it was funny.” Veronica told us, “She didn’t hold it against us.”
“She actually named a song after us – ‘Show Me Your Teeth’.” Ximon added. “Lady Gaga is a fan, I believe.”
Since it’s the ‘Fun and Games’ issue, we quizzed Teeth a little bit about their favourite arcade games. Veronica started the ball rolling, “Time Crisis – any of them, Time Crisis is good. Jurassic Park – shooting dinosaurs is fucking awesome!”
Ximon chipped in, “The original Street Fighter 2 is really rad. Oh yeah, and there’s this one coin machine game in Brighton that we always go to.”
“We spend all our show money there.” Veronica picked up where Simon left off. “Literally go cash out in 10p pieces and we fight over the coins that come out of there. It’s so fun.
Ximon, uncharacteristically, was the last to offer his thoughts on the matter, but this kind of insight is worth the wait. “Touchscreen Poker in Vegas,” he said, “because you get free drinks if you play more than 20 dollars. Then you just withdraw the 20 dollars and take the drinks… Top tip for Vegas!”
We thought we’d close off the interview by asking Teeth about what they’d leave in a time capsule for future generations that would best explain who they were and what they were like. “Hair and skin,” Simon suggested almost immediately. “So they could remake us. Then we could tell them about it.” This answer not only managed to insight more chuckles from around the table, but offered a solution tailored to the futuristic setting in which the time capsule would arrive. Genius.
Content that this was the best answer, suggestions of trickery ensued. “I think I’d leave something retro-futuristic; something kind of misleading,” said Veronica. “Like a light-sabre.”
“I’d just shit into it!” Ximon added.
We’d well and truly regressed. On a similar theme, Simon threw the final suggestion into the imaginary box, which was fast becoming full of human waste and deceptive paraphernalia. “I’d fart in it and close it up quick!” Thank god we didn’t actually get them to make a time capsule.
WORDS: JIM PILLING
PHOTOS: ELLIS SCOTT