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The five members of Bibelots took the time to sit out in a tiny dressing room before their show at Lennon’s to talk about their band, their songs and what’s awaiting them in the future!

Where does your name Bibelots come from?
Ben: It means the kind of things in life that you don’t necessarily need but if you’ve got them it’s nice. I think in French it translates like trinket, like an ornament, a pretty thing.

How did you all get together and decide to form a band?
Ben: Me and Neil met, match.com. No we met through mutual friends at a gig in Camden. Bobby and I had been in a band previously and me and Gaz had been friends for a number of years, we got on, Neal got on, had similar interest in music and it’s just mutual friends and like let’s play the bass, let’s play the drums, and that kind of thing. It’s quite normal for a band.

It’s just happened naturally, you found a mutual interest in music.
Tim: Yeah
Ben: I think we’ve all got similar but a bit different tastes
Tim: We’ve all got sort of different tastes in music but at some point they all overlap. I’ve never thought of it like that. We’ve all got different influences but at some point in the middle, there’s something we all agree on. We’ve influenced each other.
Neil: you know the Venn diagram.
Tim: It’s like the sweet spot.

So what would you say the common influences are?
Tim: I think there are loads really. There are bands we all really like but they are loads of influences that each of us add to like Primal Scream. They are a massive influence that we all love. But oh god, there’s a bloody hundred.
Neil: It’s sort of indie bands with dance beats.
Tim: Yeah, with electronic elements.
Neil: Each of them might go off in a different direction and in the diagram; it’s probably the indie struck, dance.
Tim: There are a lot of guitar bands about but I find it hard to think of us just as a guitar band, I think we’re a bit different. Within your Venn diagram
Neil: We’ve got a lot of electronic going on and stuff, samples and to do with new music and the new technologies, but we’re also going back as far as blues and the sixties, the whole spectrum.

So how do you get that mix of rock’n’roll and sixties and dance beats together? Do you have any specific processes to write your songs?
Neil: I write a lot of the songs on a computer really. Usually it starts with the rhythm, the feel of the beat and then it evolves from there with the guitars and the electronics and then we work on it together and bring it live.
Ben: As we said, Neal writes them and does them at home and he brings a complete sort of song demo to the band and we pull it apart together and go through it together in the studio and put it back together.
Neil: The demo will be kind of, not monotone, but quite flat. the structure’s there but we’ll have to add the live parts, the drums…
Ben: It feels like we add our own personality and style and feels to what Neil’s done before. We’re not one of these bands that jam, we don’t jam out our songs to come to ideas. It goes back to what Tim said about different influences and cross overs, which is where you get that Bibelots sound, which might sound wanky, but we’ve been compared to Kasabian – not recently though-

Kasabian is definitely the band you’ve been compared to the most, but are there any other bands you’d like to be mentioned, or associated with?
Tim: I think people make their own minds up. It’s not for us to dictate what we want to sound like. It’s for people to decide and if people decided that we sound like Kasabian, then that’s fine. As long as people make their own minds up and don’t just believe. If you’re not a Kasabian fan, and if you listen to our music, it would be sad if you didn’t listen to our music anymore because you thought it would sound like Kasabian and it doesn’t. I’d like people to make their own mind, whether it’s bloggers or others.
Neil: I think the Kasabian thing comes from the dancing beats and bass guitars and people are a bit lazy sometimes, aren’t they? And Kasabian is the big thing at the moment.

And how’s been 2013 been for you guys? Any highlights?
Ben: Cold!
Tim: It’s been good. We’ve recently recorded a track with a producer, Jags Kooner. We all said before we actually worked with Jagz that if there was one person we could work with it would be Jagz Kooner because, he kind of gets us, guesses things, you know, or produces things close to us. He’s worked with Primal Scream, done remixes for Kasabian Oasis, whatever. He’s just an amazing guy. It was actually Bobby who out of the blue tweeted him and started getting to know him a bit and then we ended up recording a track with him which was just a dream come true for all of us. He’s an incredible bloke, and we’re releasing that in May, and hopefully that will do well.

How did he help you?
Ben: It was nice to work with someone who cared about it, as in he’d come to the studio before and give some ideas on how the song might be structured a bit differently, whereas before we’d go in with an engineer and do the song the way we want to do it and it was nice, one that he took the time to do that and work out how to restructure and two it’s even better that he didn’t really change the song that much did he? He changed a few little dynamics of it but if Jagz things it’s good, then that’s good.
Tim: But being in the studio with him, it’s just a very talented guy, and he’s an amazing producer and we’d never really worked with anyone like that before. He’ll just hear things.
Ben: I don’t enjoy being in the studio at all, but that day was brilliant, I really really enjoyed it. He picks up things.
Tim: He’s so immersed in the music as well. To him, we’re nothing really. But it wasn’t like that at all, he’d listen to something and he’d be like right, this is what it needs. He was completely animated throughout the whole thing
Neil: Like a professor
Tim: Yeah like a professor almost. he is, isn’t he?

Is there anything you’re looking forward more than anything else this year?
Ben: well, peace
Neil: and love
Ben: Festival Dates!
Tim: yeah festival dates. We never chase record deals, but if someone wants to put a record deal on a table, how good would it be to tour around the world with 4 of your best mates. It would be amazing. Obviously, we’re always looking for that, but not actively. It’s the last thing we’ll ever do. But festival is the big thing we’re looking forward to.
Neal: Just getting the word out there, really. We’ve got quite a decent following in London at the moment, so I think we need to take out to other places
Tim: which is why we’re in Southampton!
Ben: the last few gigs in London, when we did our EP release it sold out, the Barfly, which is good for us. A few gigs earlier this year have gone well so, it’s nice to know we can book a gig and know that there’s gonna be people. So the next step is sort of to keep growing I think. That’s what we’re looking to do.


Well, thank you Bibelots, and we’ll make you sure to spread the word for you!


Coralie Pilté.