In the flick of it

Matt Bishop, singer with English quartet Switches, is heading towards Bath in the band’s tour bus, although as he tells Hot Press, he and the band recently visited Ireland on a trip that mixed business and pleasure.

“We were in Dublin last week for a magazine feature,” he explains. “We went to a poker tournament and spent the night there. It was the Irish Open and it took place in some hotel, I can’t remember which one. Jimmy, our drummer, played with a journalist, although it only lasted for a couple of hours. We had an absolute blast!”
When not trying their hand at card games, Matt and the boys have been busy touring their debut album Heart Tuned To D.E.A.D., a rather beguiling mixture of catchy pop melodies and danceable rhythms. Switches recorded the album in LA with producer Rob Schnapf, whose previous credits include Beck, Elliot Smith and The Vines. Did the band press him for stories on what it’s like working with such renowned artists?
“All the time,” admits Matt. “I was asking him about what it was like to work with Craig Nichols, 'cos obviously everyone knows that Craig Nichols is an interesting young man. Rob said Craig was a really reclusive kind of guy who would never leave the studio. He’d stay in and order loads of fast food. Apparently, they also set up a ramp for him to skateboard inside the studio. He just didn’t like going out very much, he liked staying in and doing his own thing, which I suppose is why all the touring got on top of him in the end.”
Do Switches find it a challenge standing out amongst the plethora of young indie bands around today?
“Certainly,” acknowledges Matt. “There are a lot of groups who are having some real, huge success, like The View, for instance. But, we’re not anything like these bands, and I think in years to come we’re gonna have a really loyal fanbase who are going to understand what we’re doing.
“Without trying to sound pessimistic, I’m doubtful as to how some of these bands are going to fare in years to come, when trends change and what not. I think that we’re a really shrewd bunch of guys who’ve studied music for a long time, and we’re not going to disappoint anyone.”
Finally, I mention a track called ‘Joystick’ from Switches’ debut EP Message From Yuz, which they've explained is about “trying to convince your girlfriend to let you shag her sister.” This sounds like the narrative of a Prince song, I suggest.
“Well, I’ve been getting into him so much lately,” enthuses Matt. “He’s done a song called ‘Sister’, which was… well, it was a bit controversial, I think. But that song was written quite a while ago, around the time we supported The Darkness when we were at university. It was called ‘Joystick’ because I entered it into a composing competition at university called ‘The Joyce Dixie Award’, so it was a pun on that.
“It’s about ‘Getting her Daddy on your side/And keeping her sister satisfied’… lyrically it is a bit Prince-like, I suppose. I think it was my lawyer, actually, who said, ‘Matt, you should get into some Prince, it’s fantastic.’ I was a bit dubious at first, but then I got some of his early albums and found them really enjoyable, and became a bit of a Prince fan. It’s another thing I wanna explore in the future.”b

Heart Tuned To D.E.A.D. is out now on Atlantic Records.