After a three-year gap, !!! are back, back, back with their most accessible album to date. Singer Nic Offer talks Berlin, Chinese cinema and the beauty of the Internet.
The new album by !!! (you can pronounce that anyway you like, but “chk-chk-chk” is the popular choice) bears a title that sounds like it’s come from a line of P.G. Wodehouse dialogue: ‘Strange Weather, Isn’t It?’.
The title actually has a very precise and somewhat obscure origin, as !!!’s amiable front man Nic Offer explains. “I was watching a Kar Wai Wong film, In The Mood For Love, and there’s a scene where the leading couple run into each other on the street and so much has changed between them and there’s so much they could be talking about. But instead one just says to the other, ‘Strange weather, isn’t it?’ And I thought, ‘That’s it!’ That, to me, sums up the album, because the album is a reflection of the changes we went through. The music is the weather, the changes come through and you just have to accept them.”
‘Strange Weather, Isn’t It?’ is, in many ways, business as usual for !!!. Which is to say: it’s a funky little bastard. But what takes it a notch or two above their previous efforts is its new songwriting suss: tracks such as ‘Jamie, My Intentions Are Bass’ and ‘Even Judas Gave Jesus A Kiss’ boast slinky, sophisticated melodies, meaning that !!! now boast hooks as big as their grooves.
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It might also go some way to shift the focus from !!!’s rapturously-received gigs to their recorded output. Offer is aware of this imbalance in !!!’s reputation. “I think people generally consider our live shows better than the albums,” he concedes. “But we really love being in a studio; our records are all layered pretty densely. But… bands like The Stooges sure put on a better live show than any record they ever made, but the records are still really good.”
Still, that venerable live reputation is well deserved. !!! are known to reduce even the most flat-footed indie crowds to a seething mass of flailing limbs and discarded inhibitions. It’s an ability they’ve honed over fourteen years, dating back to their earliest days playing America’s scuzziest clubs. “It was shocking to punk fans that we were going to make them dance. We used to get into loads of trouble, because we were screaming at them to dance. Now we have them from the start.”
!!! have found acceptance among indie fans who might have been resistant to their unashamedly hedonistic sound, say, fifteen years ago. The Internet’s ability to open minds and break down barriers has undoubtedly played a big part in !!!’s recent success. Refreshingly, Offer doesn’t whinge about the state of the music industry when the subject of the Internet is raised. “People seem so quick to complain about the state of the music industry these days,” he says. “But I think now, you have so much access to so much incredible music. Y’know, I could get hold of any classic album from any culture within fifteen minutes. And I think it’s amazing to be living through this.”
Words by Christopher Monk
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Clash Magazine Issue 53
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