Ideals

Ideals are signed to the highly ambitious London imprint Intruder Records, who together, have mapped out a huge plan for 2011, including the release of six singles in one year!

With this already planned for 2011, we were intrigued to find out more about the band.

Ideals draw favourable comparisons with everyone from the Maccabees and The National to White Lies and The Cure.

We caught up with Ideals bassist Simon to learn more.

How did the band come up with the name ‘Ideals’?
We wanted a name with just one word, something that rolled off the tongue and was easy to remember. We’d been in a band before called “It’s a Trap” and that was a nightmare for people to remember. Ideals is also meaningful, it sounds dark and optimistic. I think that reflects our sound as well.

You’ve supported Pete Doherty, how did this come about?
We’d played a show for a promoter in London and did really well on the night; we also brought in a big crowd for that gig. The promoter decided to reward us with an opportunity to support Pete Doherty; he actually booked us to play with him twice. The first time was great; it was at the Rhythm Factory in Whitechapel which is a 300 capacity venue and about 600 people turned up. The second time we were meant to play with him he didn’t turn up!

How did it feel securing a deal with ‘Shout It Out Loud’ music?
Yeah that’s a nice feeling. It’s really great knowing that someone in America is working with us. They have some really great bands on their roster and the actual company does some massive adverts. It would be great to appear on one. I think if we ever get the chance to play in the US we’ll be doing one of their gigs in New York which would be amazing.

If you could collaborate with any artist/band who would you choose and why?
Wow, that’s a difficult question. I can’t really speak for the whole band but personally I would choose either The Cure or Interpol. They’re my biggest inspirations in this field of music. Interpol are probably the best “indie” guitar band in the world. Their music is put together so well. And The Cure have some of the most interesting songs. I’d love to write a song with Robert Smith. Working with Damon from Blur/Gorillaz would be pretty amazing too, I love Blur.

Which of your own songs, is your personal favourite?
That’s difficult. We have songs we’re working on at the moment that no one has heard; one of those songs would probably be my favourite. From songs we’ve released or are in our current live set I’d say either “Lady in the Radiator” or “Forever Leisure”. We started writing Forever Leisure whilst on tour in Leeds. That song is dedicated to our band brothers Black Mass for letting stay at there’s while we were up north. We also started writing it in their basement.

How do you decide which singles you are going to release?
We tend to play them live first, see how they go down and then decide from the reaction really. We have a lot of songs that aren’t “singles” that we want to release, I think they’ll be on the next EP or album so look out for them, they show a different side to us that we’re quite fond of. People that see us live will know what we mean.

What can we expect in 2011 from ‘Ideals’?
A lot of tours, a lot of new material, loads of music videos and hopefully our debut album at the end of the year. We’re really excited about releasing our new songs in 2011. We feel they’re our best work yet, but I think every band would say that about new material they’ve written. In terms of tours we’re going over to Europe at some point, so that will be really exciting for us. We want to go back to Scotland as well; we met some lovely people up there. I think we’re also hoping to play a lot of festivals this summer. Summer festivals are something all bands get excited about. Fingers crossed we might even be playing some outside of the country.

Do you have any 2011 artist/band predictions of your own that you’d like to share with us?
I’m really excited about Chapel Club. There already doing really well but I think their album comes out next year and I’m a massive fan, so I can’t wait to see what kind of year they have. I’m also really getting into a girl group from America called Warpaint. They just released their debut album and I think they have a really original sound, so I’m interested to see how they do. Other than that I think 2011 will be a really good year for music.

You can find out more about Ideals by visiting their MySpace page here.