they took a chance and went against the
norm and the results has been a success
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with guitarist and bassist wil
from alt-j to learn more about the
band’s origins and background in fine
arts and English literature why don’t
you give us an idea about how alt-j came
to be well we kind of start off his
friends we went to the same university
we met there and we basically started
hanging out playing guitars kind of like
students do you know you get together
you guys you cook at our level guitar
but what was kind of interesting was the
Joe who’s the you know kind of prey to
rats and lyrics and then there may
master song we had our own parts he had
had some really good songs and they
hadn’t shown anyone who sort of showed
them to me and I just really interested
them and we started recording on very
basic way just on my my computer with
GarageBand and then that kind of
developed we were really enjoying it and
so we so asked our two other friends who
University with us if they were
interested in doing it and it just kind
of continued we spent four years at
university writing without any pressure
no worry about kind of a record deal or
having a job because we were at
university so that was kind of it and we
finished University and decided to
continue the music so what kind of music
did you grow up listening to I mean who
or your kind of idols and icons I think
kind of like a lot of people are right
we’ve grown up with phases master phases
you know when you’re at school like you
have different groups that are into
different music and and I wasn’t in a
good music group of school because I
grew up to know quite a rural place in
the majority of my kind of early teenage
years was into hip-hop and no one else
was and damn it was kind of completing
my thing and then I grew out of that and
I started playing guitar when I was 18
because my brother my younger brother
was playing it and
he introduced me to some so look at our
bats I liked and I wanted to start
playing it properly because I thought it
would get me laid
I think of that kind of age you’re kind
of like you’ll try anything sort of make
yourself more I’m appealing I think I’ve
been through kind of like dance music
phases I think as a band we all have but
as I also as a band were from very
different backgrounds I would say I
don’t have a musical background that I
wouldn’t describe myself as a musician
Jose would have grown up listening to
kind of classic singer/songwriter stuff
his dad if that kind of goes around pubs
playing guitar and kind of the classics
and Gus pace keyboards is for he went to
a Cathedral School in Ely in the UK and
he grew up as a chorister in the in the
in the Cathedral Choir and Tom the drama
was in metal bands he was only
interested in metal on my metal and then
I don’t know how his drumming style has
come out of that metal background but it
somehow felt I have that now with all
those diverse influences is there do you
guys see eye to eye on any one band yeah
I think there’s Radiohead we do not on
all the album certainly though in the
rain I thought would say actually I
would say in rainbows it’s not actually
about Radiohead I’d say it’s about that
album
metronomy I think we will agree on and
someone called princess Chelsea from New
Zealand whom no one really knows
like you said you met at school and I
think you were also you three or a bunch
of you were studying Fine Arts and then
somebody was studying English Lit I mama
see how did that background kind of
affect the music that you found me
I think they’re both critical courses
and I would say Gillian asked before
like why didn’t you do a music degree
instead of doing an article for me
personally that’s simply that I wasn’t
interested Ashley into music as Korea if
we had done music degrees then we would
have been taught kind of how to make
music how to structure music in a way
that its kind of identifiable as
music and and the you don’t necessarily
get taught anything on a fine art course
but you do get taught to be really
freaky really critical about everything
and that includes each other so that’s a
really important part that as a group of
people I think that we don’t have much
of an issue
telling one another if we don’t like
what we’re doing and I think that’s
really important because I think you can
oh really achieve make something of
value if you kind of drop your own egos
and that’s kind of I think that’s quite
easy for me because like I said I don’t
would never describe myself as a
musician so if I’m playing guitar as
someone’s like I’m not feeling it mate
I’m not gonna be like what you know I’m
like fair enough I don’t know what I’m
doing like each time you know I try and
play I don’t know what’s gonna happen
because I don’t know what I’m doing I
think that’s quite a good thing I think
if I changed that I wouldn’t necessarily
be able to function in the same way in
the band
norm and the results has been a success
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re
speaking with guitarist and bassist wil
from alt-j to learn more about the
band’s origins and background in fine
arts and English literature why don’t
you give us an idea about how alt-j came
to be well we kind of start off his
friends we went to the same university
we met there and we basically started
hanging out playing guitars kind of like
students do you know you get together
you guys you cook at our level guitar
but what was kind of interesting was the
Joe who’s the you know kind of prey to
rats and lyrics and then there may
master song we had our own parts he had
had some really good songs and they
hadn’t shown anyone who sort of showed
them to me and I just really interested
them and we started recording on very
basic way just on my my computer with
GarageBand and then that kind of
developed we were really enjoying it and
so we so asked our two other friends who
University with us if they were
interested in doing it and it just kind
of continued we spent four years at
university writing without any pressure
no worry about kind of a record deal or
having a job because we were at
university so that was kind of it and we
finished University and decided to
continue the music so what kind of music
did you grow up listening to I mean who
or your kind of idols and icons I think
kind of like a lot of people are right
we’ve grown up with phases master phases
you know when you’re at school like you
have different groups that are into
different music and and I wasn’t in a
good music group of school because I
grew up to know quite a rural place in
the majority of my kind of early teenage
years was into hip-hop and no one else
was and damn it was kind of completing
my thing and then I grew out of that and
I started playing guitar when I was 18
because my brother my younger brother
was playing it and
he introduced me to some so look at our
bats I liked and I wanted to start
playing it properly because I thought it
would get me laid
I think of that kind of age you’re kind
of like you’ll try anything sort of make
yourself more I’m appealing I think I’ve
been through kind of like dance music
phases I think as a band we all have but
as I also as a band were from very
different backgrounds I would say I
don’t have a musical background that I
wouldn’t describe myself as a musician
Jose would have grown up listening to
kind of classic singer/songwriter stuff
his dad if that kind of goes around pubs
playing guitar and kind of the classics
and Gus pace keyboards is for he went to
a Cathedral School in Ely in the UK and
he grew up as a chorister in the in the
in the Cathedral Choir and Tom the drama
was in metal bands he was only
interested in metal on my metal and then
I don’t know how his drumming style has
come out of that metal background but it
somehow felt I have that now with all
those diverse influences is there do you
guys see eye to eye on any one band yeah
I think there’s Radiohead we do not on
all the album certainly though in the
rain I thought would say actually I
would say in rainbows it’s not actually
about Radiohead I’d say it’s about that
album
metronomy I think we will agree on and
someone called princess Chelsea from New
Zealand whom no one really knows
like you said you met at school and I
think you were also you three or a bunch
of you were studying Fine Arts and then
somebody was studying English Lit I mama
see how did that background kind of
affect the music that you found me
I think they’re both critical courses
and I would say Gillian asked before
like why didn’t you do a music degree
instead of doing an article for me
personally that’s simply that I wasn’t
interested Ashley into music as Korea if
we had done music degrees then we would
have been taught kind of how to make
music how to structure music in a way
that its kind of identifiable as
music and and the you don’t necessarily
get taught anything on a fine art course
but you do get taught to be really
freaky really critical about everything
and that includes each other so that’s a
really important part that as a group of
people I think that we don’t have much
of an issue
telling one another if we don’t like
what we’re doing and I think that’s
really important because I think you can
oh really achieve make something of
value if you kind of drop your own egos
and that’s kind of I think that’s quite
easy for me because like I said I don’t
would never describe myself as a
musician so if I’m playing guitar as
someone’s like I’m not feeling it mate
I’m not gonna be like what you know I’m
like fair enough I don’t know what I’m
doing like each time you know I try and
play I don’t know what’s gonna happen
because I don’t know what I’m doing I
think that’s quite a good thing I think
if I changed that I wouldn’t necessarily
be able to function in the same way in
the band
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