Interview: Oui Legionnaires

Last week we premiered the latest EP Cheltenham trio Oui Legionnaires – ‘It’s Not What You Need, It’s What You’ve Got (so shut it)’, a five-song collection of brief, punchy emo/math punk that demands to be heard again and again.

Having undergone the typical early line-up changes of any band, ‘It’s Not What You Need… sees Oui Legionnaires finding their feet as it displays plenty of self-confidence and vigour throughout. Nevertheless the bands self-described “yelpcore” still remains in tact, and when combined with a strong DIY ethic, the end result is highly admirable and makes Oui Legionnaires an exciting prospect for the future.

To find out more about Oui Legionnaires, their history, the new EP, “yelpcore” and more, Already Heard recently spoke to Chris from band.

AH: Can you introduce yourself and tell us what your role in the band is?
Chris: I’m Chris, I play bass and there’s also Charlie on guitar and Rob on drums. We’re what has been described as “South West yelp-core puzzle-pop” (which I’ll try to explain later…)

AH: Let’s start off with an easy question; bring us up to speed on the story of Oui Legionnaires?
Chris: The short version is we formed in 2010, released a couple of EP’s and have probably been to nearly every motorway service station in the south of England. The long version involves losing a guitarist along the way, having other people fill in on drums and bass while we tried to figured out what to do and pestering some lovely independent labels to give us shows with some of our favourite bands.

AH: Your new EP ‘It’s Not What You Need, It’s What You Got…’ sees you taking a more direct, DIY approach. What was the initial aim when you started writing the EP?
Chris: We’ve always recorded, produced and engineered any recordings ourselves. Charlie and me are also sound engineers and producers, so luckily we’ve got access to the facilities and a bit of know-how, and it always seemed logical to do all the recording ourselves without any time or money restraints. It’s always good to hear tracks back and then make any changes we want on our own time, rather than going back into a studio and spending extra money just to re-record one vocal or add in a new riff.

AH: Before the EP stream, you released 1 song from the EP – ‘Million Dollar Shark Punch.’ How was the response been to that song?
Chris: It’s been really nice that people from bands we wouldn’t expect have asked about the EP and shown some real interest. Generally the response has been great, it also obviously helps when you get reviewed and the site or zine will stream the track and expose it to others who might have not of us yet. We’re just pretty excited about getting is out there and touring it right now.

AH: Your past releases have been self-described as “Yelpcore”. What is “Yelpcore” and how would you describe this new EP?
Chris: “Yelpcore” is a tongue in cheek thing, and it came about around our last EP release – ‘Facts about Stars & Everything Else…’. We’re all too nerdy to be a heavy band, it’s that space between indie and punk where we lie.

The new EP is definitely a big change from the first one we released – it’s like that was the support act for everything since. Each release is getting progressively more grown up and honest, which just comes as a result of having a hell of a lot of things , both good and bad, happening in the space of the two years since we released ‘Facts…’

AH: In recent years you’ve shared the stage with the likes of Tall Ships, Gunning For Tamar, Tellison, TTNG and Johnny Foreigner. Have playing with those type of bands influenced you in anyway?
Chris: We’ve been massively fortunate to have been given the opportunities to be able to play with some of the bands we love. They’re the bands we listen in the car to on the way to gigs and for someone to give you that chance to play with them is great. Influentially, we’ve always been “odd” and it obviously shows up in our song writing, just look at the titles.

AH: With song titles such as ‘Dear Charlie, please write a hilarious title for this song, lots of love Chris.mp3’ and from reading your bio Bandcamp, it seems you’re a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously?
Chris: This is why people think we’re weird, It’s not that we don’t take ourselves seriously, we really do. It’s just when you’ve spent so much time together in a car travelling up and down motorways for the last 5 years, your collective weirdness syncs up creates in-jokes, that’s essentially what our song titles are. We have a 50 strong list of song titles that we’ve not written any music for that are more like passages from a James Joyce novel than anything a self proclaimed ‘yelpcore’ band would write.

Trying to explain the titles to people who don’t know us is difficult, but it does bring back hilarious memories of why we wrote it and I think it’s a good thing that we’ve made it so personal to us. It’s intimate and we’re all on the same page but on the other hand we might not be as accessible to other people, we’ll figure out the middle ground at some point but it’s too much fun being odd. Saying that, ‘Dear Charlie…’ simply comes from the irony that I couldn’t think up a song title so I named the original demo as a message to Charlie to sort out a title for it… obviously we never got around to naming it properly.

AH: Following the EP release on March 21st, you’re going to be touring in the coming months. How would you sum up a typical Oui Legionnaires show?
Chris: 87% awkward. 63% punx. 100% shit at maths.

p>‘It’s Not What You Need, It’s What You’ve Got (so shut it)’ EP by Oui Legionnaires is out now. You can pick up the EP from Bandcamp and Big Cartel. Oui Legionnaires will also be on tour in June with dates to be announced soon.