So a couple months ago on a Friday night ONE found itself at a posh Hollywood hotel meeting up with England’s punk/rock-press-darlings The Enemy (UK). Even though they’d been put through the ringer during a 6-hour photo shoot for SPIN earlier that day, these lads were hospitable, upbeat, and ready to share their opinion. Check out this conversation with guitarist and lead vocalist Tom Clarke. — ONE

Guys, hey, great to be here with you all (“you all” being Tom Clarke, Liam Watts and Andy Hopkins). And I have to start out with this: Your band back home in England is The Enemy, right? But here you guys are The Enemy UK.

Yeah, thanks to all your lawyers.

How do you feel about that, having to change the name?

As far as I’m concerned we’re The Enemy, it just says UK after it when it shows up in print or something. It just sort of highlights the ridiculous lawsuit culture that America and England have these day, doesn’t it?

For sure.

The only other band called Enemy I’ve been able to find is from like 1994 7-inch vinyl when we were in (inaudible)…

Speaking of vinyl, you were telling me that tomorrow you’re heading out vinyl hunting. What’re you gonna be looking for?

Well, you can’t get vinyl in England because the big chains, the Virgin Megastores, have pushed all the independent shops out of business, so you can’t buy vinyl anywhere. The reason you can’t buy vinyl, the reason you can’t even find an independent record store there is because people are so lazy that they just stopped going to ’em.

Is that an anti-downloading stance? What are your thoughts on so-called music piracy—is there such thing as stealing music?

It’s a tough one. I think from my sort of first record-buying experience, buying early Oasis albums, getting into the que and waiting in the rain… hoping there’s going to be enough copies… and if you’re lucky enough to get one, going home and reading every word that’s on the artwork, and now people just point and click and there’s some music. It devalues the creative and artistic side of it, I think.

Whoa, yeah. I can’t even tell you what album artwork looks like anymore. I mean, I see it about this big (tiny gesture) on my iPod sometimes, but that’s about it.

No it is… it’s stupid is what it is.

But I did see your album’s artwork… the subway sign lettering, makes me think about how you guys take representing blue-collar, working-class society pretty seriously.

Essentially, we’re all pretty normal lads from really sort of typical UK background… We’re not from the privileged class. We’ve had to work very fucking hard to get here. At home you have to work hard to even be able to get a job so you can work. Where we come from, Coventry, it’s a very… it’s not particularly unique, it’s the ninth-largest city in England, and the situation there is pretty much the same as everywhere else in the UK. There’s a big unemployment problem, mainly due to the demise of British industry. Ten years ago Coventry was a big automotive town. We used to build all the black cabs for everywhere in England. We had Land Rover, and Jaguar, and Peugeot, and now all the manufacturing is being shipped off to the East when what it’s left us with is thousands of really skilled people, craftsmen, now working in call centers answering phones. It’s sad, and even more so when you realize that in a few years those call centers won’t be there for them either. They’ll be outsourced to India.

Hey, on a side note to that thought, I read recently that the demand on India’s call centers has them outsourcing to their neighbors like Pakistan… no shit!

(Laughing) They’ll outsource anything.

Let’s talk about your performances. What’s on your mind when you walk on stage, see the crowd…

Yeah, yeah, I pretty much… playing music, the whole reason the band formed was out of frustration. We’ve found ourselves locked in this vicious cycle of work, then going and spending all your wages in the pub, then being hungover and going back to work, then going back to the pub. The whole band was formed out of this massive frustration and wanting to break that cycle. So one night a week… it started from one conversation where we said, “Look, we’ve just got to do this.” We never said we were going to form a band and play gigs. We just wanted to make some noise. Then we rented a space for five pounds per hour, which was a big commitment for us, and went in there without any sort of preconceptions of what should we sound like, what should we play like, and just made some big noise. The space itself was about half the size of this hotel room, and we just turned everything up full, got it up as loud as we could. Liam hits the drums pretty fucking hard, and it was clear from that first rehearsal that this was the massive release we were looking for. We’d been working these jobs that we hated for ages, then we found a way to just let it all out… without getting arrested. It’s just the best thing, and the closest I can compare it to is having sex. That feeling right after sex where you’re just totally spent and have to go to sleep straightaway (laughing).

I guess that answers any cuddling questions for your female admirers. But before we let you go, tell us a bit about your gig at Lollapalooza in Chicago.

First time ever playing in America.

Yeah, tell me about it.

It was fun. And it was hot. Too hot; really fucking hot. And I fucked up my finger ’cause I went onstage and it was really humid, and normally my hands are usually covered in these calluses from being on tour for the last two years, and it was so humid that my skin went all soft and while playing I looked down and my guitar was just splattered in blood. Really fucked up my finger. But it was cool, looking out at thousands of people, where obviously several hundred knew who we were. I couldn’t really believe it, and when it was done I made it a point to say a massive, massive thank you to the people of Chicago for making our welcome to America something that we’ll never forget. But not just there, all the shows have been really surprising in how people are receiving the music.

Makes it all worth it, right?

Absolutely.

— JE

Photos © 2009 Wes Driver