We’re here today to interview the Teacup Riders. They’ve self-stylized themselves as “Algorave British Punk,” and they only perform live. They’ve recently released a live album, titled, appropriately enough, Live Wires. We’re here to talk with them about that release and how their latest tour went! What follows is a transcript of a phone conversation with the members of the group.
Mic Drop Interviews: Greetings! Very quickly, let's start the interview with some context about your musical style for the readers unfamiliar with Teacup Riders. Can you explain what you mean by “Algorave British Punk?”
Danny Gillespie: Right, yeah. Britpunk is probably the most well known part of that. It’s, you know, in the vein of Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, right? To hell with the establishment and all that. Super raw. Algorave is what throws most people. That’s a thing where people go to a rave and there’s this big screen, yeah? And there’s code up there being edited in real time. But the code is also generating the music being heard, live. It’s cool. Super geeky. So yeah, raw & geeky. That’s about right.
MDI: Cool, cool. It makes for some wild shows, believe me! Let’s move on to a bit about each of you. Feel free to jump in at any time. First, I’d like to know about you, Danny. I have a few questions that popped up from my research. You’re known as the front-man of the group, the backbone, if you will. You're well know as the voice of reason and structure for everyone. What happens when they don't listen?
Danny Gillespie: Well, yeah. Thanks. To be honest, it hasn’t come up. They usually—
Chris McIntyre: Except for that one time in Liverpool. I mean, you were being a twat. I almost walked out of that show.
Danny: Yeah, ok. I’ll give you that one. We usually get along, but everyone makes mistakes. I apologized a lot for that one. Right, yeah, to answer the question then, I guess when they don’t listen, I listen to them. I mean, we’re old friends. We mostly get along and trust each other.
MDI: Interesting. We can get into that now, but I have a question about Liverpool already in my notes here. Gotta say, what a great start to the interview! Alright, next question, let me ask Chris, what is it about Danny that makes it that you reportedly will never share a hotel room together?
Chris: [laughing] That’s a great one! How’d you hear about that? Before we really started finding a bit of success, we had to stay in some really manky places, including sleeping in the van sometimes. It’s part of the road, you see. This one time, after a really great show, we had all gotten a bit amped up and needed the hit the road early to make the next one. Danny kept nagging me to wrap up schmoozing with the fans so we could do that. I just wasn’t looking forward to a nap in the van snuggled up to all our gear. He had to literally drag me away from the fun. Took a bit to wind down, and then we passed out, Danny in the front, me in the back among the gear, Evan, nutter that he is, decided to sleep on the roof of the van that night. That was the night I found out that Danny kicks and thrashes in his sleep sometimes. How’d I find out? He disengaged the parking brake and we rolled down a hill in the middle of the night. I woke up to a metal crunch as we sideswiped a lamp-post. Lost a mirror too. Impossibly, Evan slept through it all on the roof.
Evan Trask: Yeah, I sleep like the dead.
Danny: Arms crossed on his chest and everything like a bloody vampire. Er, pun not intended.
MDI: That’s amazing! Remarkable that nobody was hurt. Evan, you’re relatively new to the group. I heard that it wasn’t a unanimous decision to have you join and Danny pushed for that to happen. Can you tell us what was the reasoning for that dissent?
Evan: Yeah, so, um. Danny fought for me to join. He saw me play at Little Johnny’s—
MDI: Nightclub in Brooklyn, right?
Evan: Yeah, great spot. I’m from NYC, and I was just playing around at an open mic with a looper and some Sex Pistols tracks, and Danny happened to be in the audience. It wasn’t a big deal to me so I didn’t believe the offer at first, but Danny thought I’d be perfect to round out the group. Chris and I butted heads a bit at first, but we got along. He’s not a huge fan of sampling, and prefers generational algorave techniques. We found a middle ground.
MDI: Nice! It’s worked out well. Chris, you’ve got a reputation as the hothead of the group. With all these stories, I can’t help but wonder what happened the last time you had to deal with your volatile emotions?
Chris: Who said I had volatile emotions? I’ll kick their ass! [laughs] Kidding, kidding. Yeah, so, I vent. A lot. I go on walks and scream into the night. Pretty much to avoid hitting someone. That has happened, I’ll admit. I’m not proud of it, but it’s a thing.
MDI: A band member? Evan, I recall reading something about that. How did you get hurt in one of Chris’ rages?
Evan: Ok, so, it wasn’t Chris so much himself. You see, Chris got angry at a promoter. They were supposed to focus on a technopunk kind of crowd, but they didn’t understand that, and promoted a gutterpunk show. It didn’t go well. After the show, Chris had some words. Loud ones. And when the promoter dismissed the arguments and went to leave, Chris threw a punch, promoter ducked, Chris clocked some dude with a face full of metal and ink. We got into a big brawl that night. That was the night I broke my hand. On some asshole’s face.
MDI: Was that Liverpool? Danny, you’ve said you’ve had to deal with Chris’ difficulties with authority before. How does that show up for you?
Danny: Nah, that wasn’t Liverpool. That’s a whole other thing. Chris has his heart in the right place. He just doesn’t think before he acts.
Chris: It’s true.
Danny: Chris’ difficulties with authority go along with respect. I mean, you earn his respect, and you’re good. But until then, there’s no trust. That’s fair to me. It’s a challenge for this industry though. There’s so many people who don’t value respect, or deserve it, but they often happen to be gatekeepers to something or another. Like this promoter asshole with his so-called connections. We burned that. To be fair, the connections looked good on paper, but they weren’t worth it.
MDI: Evan, let’s go back to you. You’re newer to the group, and you’re young too. How does that dynamic work out in performance?
Evan: Yeah, true. I feel like the kid sometimes. On Danny’s note about respect, yeah, I feel like I have to earn it a bit more, because I have the age thing against me. The guys here have helped me to grow so much beyond Brooklyn though, that I can’t help but feel grateful. Still, I feel like I could get the benefit of the doubt a bit more and Chris could just try to sample something good one of these days.
Chris: I sample instruments, not songs.
Evan: Fine, fine. One day, I’ll convince you that songs ARE instruments.
MDI: Danny, you mentioned something in one of our pre-screening calls, about Evan “owing you” something. Was it just for the opportunity? Can you go into more detail about that?
Danny: Oh yeah. No, it wasn’t just for the opportunity, it was for his sister, Emily. Turns out, Evan’s sister was a long time fan of Teacup Riders, and had gone on some of our earlier tours before Evan joined us. When we brought Evan along, we got to talking and found out about it, and found out his sister had gone missing around the time of our tours. We searched and searched through our audience footage to see if we could find her, and a bit of facial recognition coding later, we did! The timelines of her visiting the shows actually turned out to be crucial evidence that allowed her to be found. It was really remarkable.
Evan: It was unbelievable.
MDI: That’s amazing. I had no idea.
Evan: Yeah, we kept it fairly quiet for privacy reasons, but it’s about time for the story to be shared now that it’s out of the courts. Publication bans and all that.
MDI: I think we might have to get a producer on this to do a follow-up story. I’m floored. On a lighter note, we’ve heard about Teacup Riders’ love of pranks. Chris, there was one that went a little far and terrified Evan, didn’t it? What happened?
Chris: Oh. Yeah. That was a bit much. So yeah, remember Evan’s love of sleeping under the stars? Before the van brake situation, he’d be up there every night. He used to drag up an inflatable mattress up there and have a good ‘ol sleep. We got a bit jealous being crammed in the van one night and him going to bed early, so we grabbed a couple friends and lifted the air mattress off the van. And tossed it in a lake. Evan didn’t wake up until the morning, when he rolled off into the water. Hilarious! We made sure it was a shallow lake so he didn’t drown. More like a bog really.
Evan: I smelled like swamp for weeks.
Danny: Yeah, we know. That backfired a bit when we realized we had to drive with the Swamp Thing.
MDI: That must have been something! Ok, we need to move along to the Live Wires tour itself.
Stay tuned for the continuation of the interview with Teacup Riders in the next installment of Mic Drop Interviews!
This article is the result of transcribing a single player game of Mic Drop, an interview improv game (or tabletop larp, if you prefer) about a dumpster fire of a band on a train wreck of an album tour.
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