pretty UGLY

Cage the Elephant can do little wrong. PrettyUglyMagazine caught up with Lead singer Matt Shultz before they embarked on their new U.K. tour in Coventry. Here is what he had to say:

Have you been to England before?
Matt:Yeah we actually lived over here for about a year. Off and on.

Did you enjoy that?
Matt:I mean it was cool. It was a really good experience. It was like four of us packed in a hotel room Kings Cross for about two months.

Was that because you were recording in London?
Matt:No. It was because we wanted to set up residency here. I guess it was kinda the way we always wanted to do it. Because all the greatest bands started out here.

The Greatest Bands?
Matt:Yeah. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Even some of the great American ones started out here. Like Nirvana, the Pixies and Pavement. Hardly anyone even knows about Pavement in the States, but over here they are like legend.

How did you meet the rest of the band?
Matt:Well me and Brad met shortly after I came out of my mothers Vagina. (Laughs) I’m 24 and he is 25.

I met Jarod in a parking lot. He tried to steal our space or something. We were like “get out of the car motherfucker. We’re gonna beat your ass.” A few weeks later, I was invited to jam in someone’s basement, and he turned up. That was like a kids band. We were terrible.

And the Bass player, Tichenor ? He and I have known each other for a long time. His parents and our parents lived on a farm together.

Do you ever fight?
Matt:Oh yeah. There was one time me and Tichenor were in Hackney. We started arguing with the bus driver. Then Tich started arguing with me. So I threw a guitar at him. Spartacus style. Like a spear.

I read that you grew up with a very Christian upbringing, and your parents lived on a Christian Hippy Commune. How far is that true?

Well that was before I was born. That was the farm I was talking about. But Tich, Daniel, grew up there. We used to go to church every day though.

Every Day?
Matt:Well yeah. Not always. But there would be three month periods where we would have to go to church every day. It was like revival or something like that. And they would have, what they called ‘Church Retreats’. Where you would leave church to go to another church.

So were you allowed to listen to rock music?
Matt:Well growing up my whole life, I’ve always listened to Christian Music. Like Audio Adrenaline, The Newsboys, DC Talk, or Jars of Clay (Laughs).

I got caught with a Greenday CD once. You know the line that goes (sings) ‘I went to a whore’..Well my dad heard it, and snapped the CD. I was like (fake cries).

But when my parents first got divorced, I went out and bought Jimmy Hendrix Live at Woodstock. When I discovered the Pixies, I remember telling people they had to listen to this band. They told me everyone had heard of heard of the Pixies. Lately I’v been listening to a lot of stuff like Gang of Four, Restless Eric, and Wire.

Do you think being in a band now, is a way of rebelling against your upbringing?
Matt:I’m not consciously ‘not’ Christian. I’m not necessarily rebelling, but when you are getting to that age, when you are questioning a lot of the ideals you were brought up on. Maybe I was running away from it a little bit.

What was it like growing up for you?
Matt:I grew up in a town in Kentucky. I come from a town of 16 000. I suppose I was a bad kid. My parents got divorced when I was in High School. When I was 16. My mum just let me do whatever I wanted to do. It was great. It was fun. I guess it was cool because I had a really tight circle of friends, and we all played in bands together, and that kind of pushed us to be a better band.

What’s your favourite thing about England?
Matt:Um. (Pauses) My manager. Richard Dobbins. (Laughs). No. I really dig the people. And I know it has a bad reputation, but I really love Indian food and curries.

Do you have plans to make another album?
Matt:When we fly back in December, we go into pre production. For our next album, we already have about 30 tracks. We are trying to narrow it down to about 10 songs.

What kind of sound can we expect from your next album?
Matt: It will be a lot different to our current album. It will be a lot more, ‘shaping the music to the lyrics’, not the other way around. I’m really excited about it. It will defiantly be more on the Punk side. But we have been listening to a lot of early Beatles songs. I think if you fight influence too much, it can be just as dangerous as if you seek out influence. There’s a balance.

I’m also looking forward to singing some new songs. The songs we have now, I have sung about a hundred thousand times. Pretty much everyone’s favourite songs, are my least favourite songs. Its gonna be cool.