Interview: Age of Consent
Published on June 7th, 2012 | Jonny Abrams
Electro-pop duo Age of Consent release their utterly splendid new single “Heartbreak” today, so Rocksucker fired some questions over to drummer Darren Cullen to find out a little bit more about the whole operation. First, though, check out the video for the song, which you can choose your own price for right here…
How did you all meet, and how long has the band been going for?
We met at art school in Glasgow – we’d started a band with some friends around the time we graduated and when that finished we found ourselves living in London and decided to start Age of Consent. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now but just released our first single near the end of last year.
How would you describe your music, if pushed?
If pushed, I’d say something like ‘jittery sinister pop’.
Where are you based, and what do you use to record with?
We’ve got a windowless little hot box of a studio in Hackney. We generally record into a pair of malfunctioning laptops through borrowed microphones and broken guitar pedals. The only thing that works properly is our speakers.
Are you signed to a label? If so, how did you come to their attention?
We signed ourselves to our own label but it was a terrible contract, we really screwed ourselves over.
Is there a full album in the works? If so, what can you tell us about it? (Feel free to be as abstract as you like!)
At the moment we’re working on getting our next single together. It feels like we’re just figuring out what we sound like with each finished track, so probably a bit early for an album right now. But we’ve been talking about doing an EP at some point towards the end of this year. We’ll have to see how things pan out.
Where can we hear your music online?
For our released tracks our bandcamp page www.ageofconsent.bandcamp.com or our soundcloud www.soundcloud.com/ageofconsent which has stuff like remixes we’ve done for other bands and things like that.
Which have been your most exciting gigs and/or overall moments so far?
We’ve had some great gigs in Italy, one in Turin where the crowd were going mental, singing along to our cover of Ghost Rider. And we did a tour of Australia in December which was great. More recently hearing “Heartbreak” on Radio 6 has been amazing, quite a head fuck when you’re just sat there listening to it and your own music comes on. It’s like, “I know this song.”
Got any more coming up? (Gigs, that is…)
We’ve got our single launch party in London on the 13th June at The Macbeth and we’re in the middle of sorting out a few gigs in Italy for July hopefully.
Are there any obscure and/or up-and-coming acts that you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?
We’ve both been big fans of VALIS (http://soundcloud.com/v-a-l-i-s) for awhile now since their incredible remix of The Beach (http://soundcloud.com/ageofconsent/the-beach-valis-remix), they seem to have got a bit of a scene going in Chicago of the exact type of music we’re into, namely things that sound like the soundtrack to Terminator 2. Also, New Look (http://soundcloud.com/newlook) and Miracles Club (http://soundcloud.com/themiraclesclub) are great and our old bandmate Visions (http://soundcloud.com/visionsfiend) just did a great remix of “Heartbreak” for us (http://soundcloud.com/visionsfiend/heartbreak-visions-r-p-gemix), hopefully be seeing more about him soon.
Finally, if you were forced to spend the rest of your days in solitary confinement, but were allowed to bring the entire works of five different artists along to tide you over, whose would you choose?
For music, Radiohead (boring and obvious choice but this is the rest of my life we’re talking about) and Vangelis. He did the Blade Runner soundtrack which I must have listened to 700 times, and nearly all his other work is brilliant. For literature probably Cormac McCarthy – I was introduced to him through The Road which was one of the best books I read in years and I’ve just been devouring his work since then. His stuff is intensely gorgeous and bleak and vast.
If I’m allowed to bring sculpture in with me then I’d probably go for Carsten Höller, the guy who built the giant metal slides in the Tate Modern a few years back. That way I can slide around in my loneliness and all his other work is quite large and if you put them all together you’d have a relatively expansive and interesting cell. It’d be like the Wonka’s chocolate factory of prison cells.
Also I’m not sure if he counts as an artist exactly but if I can take Armando Iannuccci’s lifes work I’d be happy. Everything he’s been involved in, from The Day Today to Alan Partridge and The Thick of It has been incredible.
Darren Cullen, thank you.
“Heartbreak”, the splendid new single by Age of Consent, is out today. Click here to name your own price for a copy.
About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
