Broken Bells is the new band made up of Brian Burton (aka Dangermouse) and James Mercer (the lead guy from The Shins).

They have been secretly working together for a while now to make this new eponymous album.

Cheese on Toast spoke with Brian (Mr Mouse) on the phone recently – we talked about how the collaboration came about and how it worked, given his previous self-confession ‘control-freak’ nature, we also chatted about being Dangermouse VS Brian Burton and what’s like to have a legacy of The Grey Album and Gnarls Barkley behind you embarking on something new.

You can listen to the whole interview here

Go on then, watch the music video too….

We had a bit of a chat with Nash of San Francisco’s psychedelic quartet Wooden Shjips the other week on the telephone.

We chatted about the beginning of their new tour (which is commencing in Australian and New Zealand, before heading to Europe and being invited to play the PAVEMENT curated ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES!); the formation of the band some 8 years ago; their tendency to release short runs of records and their latest compilation album; and the burning question – why the heck is there a “J” in their name?

Listen to the interview here

New Zealand is lucky enough to be the first place in the world to see the release of Vol. 2, the second compilation of hard to find Wooden Shjips tracks!

Wooden Shjips are playing Saturday 13 March at Whammy in Auckland and Sunday 14 March at Bar Bodega in Wellington

The Cribs are coming! The Cribs are coming! The Cribs are coming!

And of course, they are bringing Johnny Marr with them ‘cos, like, Johnny Marr (yes THE Johnny Marr) is in The Cribs now.

The Cribs have been around for a while now, in fact, they were probably there at the beginning of this latest wave of “British Indie” – we asked Ryan about “indie” and he said, he felt that the term had really become bastardized; “the term Indie should apply to a style of music that isn’t turning itself toward the mainstream… (it’s become) very standard music for very standard people played by very standard people…”

And of course we had to ask about how they got Johnny Marr in the band…
“We were perfectly happy being a three piece… … we never really asked him to join really, it just got to the point where we couldn’t imagine Johnny not being in the band and he couldn’t imagine not being in the band…”

Listen to the whole interview here

Stop Press :
News just to hand – MySpace have just announced their next FREE SECRET SHOW will be The Cribs at a secret location in Auckland on Tuesday February 23rd, Auckland, and it’s All Ages! Fans can find out specific location details for the Secret Show by adding www.myspace.com/secretshowsnz as a ‘friend’ and registering their mobile number on the profile from Monday February 15th. Once the secret location details of the show are revealed, they will be sent directly to the phones of registered MySpace users. Entry works on a first-come-first-served basis.

Cheese on Toast met up with Oliver from The XX the day after the Laneway Festival earlier this month for a bit of a chat.

Watch the interview here.

Cheese on Toast spoke with John from Health recently, about Get Colour – the forthcoming remix project, and stuff…

Health are playing here next week 19th at Transmission Room in Auckland and 20th at SFBH in Wellington.

Listen to the interview here

A wee while ago Cheese on Toast got to speak with Grant “Daddy G” Marshall of Massive Attack about Massive Attack being nearly twenty years old now, the trials and tribulations of the band and the new album Heligoland.

To listen to the interview click here

Yeasayer are now Anand Wilder, Chris keating and Ira Wolf Tuton (Luke Fasano has left the band) and their sophomore album Odd Blood is out this month.

Cheese on Toast spoke with Ira on the phone the other week about recording the new album and his keen mice-killing skills.

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Listen to the interview by clicking <a href=”http://audio.substep.com/cheeseontoast/INTERVIEWS/YEASAYERIV.mp3″ target=”blank”>here</a>

We’ve been spring cleaning again (only virtually so – The Cheese on Toast HQ is still a freakin’ mess IRL!) and here’s a wee post of some older interviews we still have floating around on “teh interweb” – maybe there’s something here you missed the first time around, yo….
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Cheese on Toast met up with Ruban Neilson yesterday to chat about their latest material – a new EP called Bad Buzz – which will be released in a couple of weeks time on USB Stick (not ‘next week’ as Ruban mentions; unless, of course you are watching this next week, in which case, it will be the next week… oh, now I am confused… just soon okay..?!?)

in part two of the interview Ruban tells us more about musichype.com who are launching with the new Mint Chicks EP and some exciting Mint Chicks remix, video making and design competitions.

Cheese on Toast hung out with Josh and Tom in their hotel room when they were staying here in Auckland the other week to perform at Big Day Out.

We chatted mostly about the making of their second album Primary Colours. Nice chaps.