Troube & strife with LA rap rockers Iglu & Hartly
The Sunday Times (London) * September 21, 2008
by Dan Cairns

Most encounters with musicians contain a moment, usually early on, when it becomes clear how the interview is likely to go, or what is going to be required to rescue it. A lack of eye contact tends to indicate some reluctance on the part of the interviewee; a clipboard-Nazi publicist invariably means that the singer is on a tight leash, or is concealing his or her own control-freak tendencies behind those of the PR; whereas face time with an obviously troubled but gabby chatterbox simply necessitates the pressing of the play button, and off they go.

It is when Jarvis Anderson, singer, co-rapper and principal songwriter with the LA-based five-piece Iglu & Hartly, dives off the yacht anchored near the coast of Ibiza and proposes a beer at the beachside bar in a distant cove that I realise there may, in fact, be no interview at all on this occasion. Ten minutes later, with the drummer Luis Rosiles and the guitarist Simon Katz in tow, we emerge, dripping, on the shore, and drinks are duly ordered. Later, once a dinghy has been chartered to sail out to the yacht to fetch money for the bar bill, the small matter of a sound check for that evening's gig is remembered. They make it, but only just. The show is a predictably riotous affair and celebrations continue long into the night.

For a group already burdened with a bacchanalian reputation, Iglu & Hartly are not exactly working overtime to present a different version. They sort of mind about the label, and sort of don't. Mostly, you suspect, the former: when we finally sit down to talk, it's one of the first things to come up. "If it was only me in the group," Anderson says, "we'd probably be seen as the biggest party band in the world. Simon's always like, 'F*** it, we can't be a party band'. I think we've found a middle road, though - we party and we have a little bit of a serious vibe, too. We make good music. If you want to call us that, well, I'm sorry for partying, you know?" "Everything is so corporate in music now," adds Katz, "that if you're not totally serious, you don't get respect." "Guys that have an overtly serious side," Anderson continues, "are. . . " he pauses to find exactly the right phrase, "f***ing dog shit."

The fact that I&H shared, until a month ago, an infamously iniquitous house in LA - think of the commune in the film Knocked Up and you're getting close - hasn't helped. Nor has the music: their debut album, & Then Boom, is a brutally effective and escapist electro-pop/rap blend of Prince, Beastie Boys, Cameo, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Outkast and Madonna that demands to be danced to. Yet it's surely significant that it was made at their LA house. Its 11 tracks may compel you to kick back, but they contain clear evidence of craftsmanship and an almost scarily sharp ear for radio-friendly hooks, tension-releasing choruses and the euphoria/despair duality of great pop. In other words, amid the empty tequila bottles, work was being done.

"If you're playing music," Katz says, "how can you not have fun and enjoy your life? But we really care about what we're doing. We all dropped out of college. I was a semester away from graduating." He, the rapper/keyboardist Sam Martin and Anderson all met at university in Colorado, moving west two years ago and joining up there with Rosiles and the bassist Michael Bucher. "We were like, 'Come on, dudes, let's blow our college cash and do it'," Anderson says. Their earliest material was, he admits, "hip-hoppy, weird rocky shit". It was only when they wrote the tracks Violent and Young and Jump Out of Your Car that things gelled. Songs followed in a rush, including the album's brilliant opener, the Hall and Oates/Eminem mash-up Believe, and the currently inescapable single In This City. "We'd just get up in the morning, smoke a bunch, sit down, make a beat," Anderson recalls. "We'd have moments when a song was turning out so good, we'd be like, 'Whoa, we're going to be the best band ever.' But everyone says that."

The insecurity of that last remark is very Anderson: his proud exterior and surfer-chic good looks make him a born front man, and his initial wariness and evident protectiveness of his band mark him down as an ego to be reckoned with. He is also, noticeably vulnerable, aware that the band's prerelease notoriety could hurt them and mean that people overlook the skill and soul that has gone into their music. Thus, even his most bombastic statements - at one point, he says: "There was a three-day period after I wrote In This City where I was like, 'Goddamit, I think I just wrote the best song ever', and then I wrote Believe" - seem forgivable. The band have performed the difficult trick of writing music that seems both strangely familiar and shiny and new. So, if Anderson walks and talks like he knows very well that he's written a raft of hit singles, well, wouldn't you in the same position? When they signed a worldwide contract with Universal last year, I&H came prepared. "With 99% of bands who sign with a major," Katz says, "they haven't made their album yet. We already had ours. And the cost of making it was about $1,600." Nevertheless, the deal came just in time. "When we moved to LA," he continues, "we knew that we were either going to be broke in two years or something was going to happen. Right when we started to run out of money, it did."

The band had to give up their LA house when they decamped to London, which Anderson still regrets. "That was really heartbreaking," he says. "The dynamic in that place was awesome. There would be little tiffs going on, but there was always that overall glue. Okay, we were in each other's faces, but it was perfect." He looks dejected. Katz, used, you sense, to the role of cajoler, comforter and fixer, rides to the rescue. "It doesn't matter where we live, man. It's us, the brotherhood, wherever." Then he slightly undermines his efforts by informing Anderson that the band have been asked to vacate their London flat, apparently after complaints from Take That, who own a property downstairs. "We're really getting evicted?" Anderson asks. "Yes," the guitarist replies. "But, hey, we're a liability."

Two days later, back in London, a still fragile Anderson and Katz are already waxing nostalgic about the boat trip and thinking about where In This City will chart. Katz is wondering aloud if our swim to the shore was when the day went horribly wrong. "But it took us away from all the nonsense," he concludes cheerily, "to a better form of nonsense."