Culture Clash: Young Rebel Set

You know you’re making a mark in the music business when a national newspaper gives you an almighty slagging for no apparent reason. Seven-strong rustic blues-rockers Young Rebel Set, from Stockton-on-Tees, honed their clamorous racket around unforgiving North Easterly outposts and now arrive fully-formed, with several million songs and Oasis’ management on board. Yes, The Guardian may think they sound like hoary old Welsh rockers The Alarm, but they’ve never heard of them so no problems there.

Here’s frontman Matty Chipchase’s cultural recommendations:

Record

“I’m a dole rocker at the moment, so I can’t waste money buying music. I go looking for vinyl in flea markets and car boot sales and I picked up Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ the other week, a bit of Dire Straits, Cat Stevens. One band I do think are shit hot at the moment are Reverend And The Makers, I love the enthusiasm. What’s the sample on their new single? Pigbag? No, that’s not it…”

Film

“Excluding porn? I saw Life Is Beautiful the other day, and that’s a perfect film I thought I’d never enjoy. Reading subtitles and shit like that isn’t really my thing, but I was forced to sit down and watch it, my ex-girlfriend made me. I’m a really slow reader so with subtitles - I end up missing half the film.”

Books

“I read Johnny Cash’s autobiography, and it’s alright but he misses out so much - all the good stuff. It’s quite religious too, not preachy but he goes on about his faith quite a lot, how it saved him and stuff. But apparently he was still on the pills. A walking contradiction, a preacher and a sinner. But I suppose they all are.”

TV

“My current girlfriend just got me into Flight Of The Conchords. Does it remind me of our early days? Well, the gigs are empty, yeah. And I love my cooking programmes, the proper ones, and Something For The Weekend as well, on Sunday mornings. Good hangover telly.”

The Web

“Redtube obviously, for your porn. We were talking about Xhamster on the way to a gig today, I’ve heard that’s good, I keep getting redirected there.”

Social Networking

“I can’t be arsed to Tweet, or updating your MySpace. I know it’s a really good tool for bands, but personally I sit at the computer for ten minutes, I check the band’s email, check the band’s Facebook, but apart from that there’s nothing else interesting on it, apart from porn. I’d rather do something with my day.”