Interview: Manière des Bohémiens

You’ve had a pretty busy year...
Rob Rosa (violin): We’ve been really busy. A few festivals over the summer starting with Southwell Folk Festival, which was an amazing local festival. Being a folk festival we were probably the most lively band there and we ended up with a crowd of about 500 people which was brilliant. Then there was Port Eliot Festival down in Cornwall, which was probably the poshest thing we’ve ever played. Then we did a tour of the south-west at
the end of October.

Best moment of the year so far?
Jonny Kerry (accordion): The end of the tour, I think. We sold out the last two gigs - in fact they turned away about fifty people at the last one. 
Rob: Summer Sundae was the biggest we’ve ever played. Oh, and of course the album launch at Contemporary, although I don’t remember so much of our performance…
Jonny: We got pretty drunk.
Rob: But I remember the jam at the end; it went on until 2am and was fantastic. We recorded the LP - Where The Road Bends - at Paper Stone studios in five hours. It’s a great space; it feels like it’s got a lot of history in there. It was actually recorded quite a long time ago, so we were very used to it by the time it came out. We always feel that what we’re doing now is better than what we did before and we’re all pretty hyper-critical of what
we do.
Jonny: I’ve only listened to it once - I think I’ve improved so much since the recording I don’t like to listen to myself back then…

You sound like perfectionists, but how does that marry with the fact that most of your performances are improvised?
Jonny: It’s quite exciting, actually, constantly pushing yourself.
Rob: There has to be a lot of humour involved; we all have to be pretty laid back, really. We’re critical in that we’ll admit if something could have been better, but we’ll give praise when its due. So if someone plays a great solo you’ll give them a look and a nod to let them know, or if something went a bit dodgy we’ll all give a ‘whoops’ look.
Jonny: We have to laugh about it really, sometimes we’ll try something like a famous tune and it’ll just go horribly wrong, you can only laugh at that.
Rob: And at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, if you muck up at your job you might get fired, but so long as the audience are enjoying what’s going on, it’s fine. Plus nine times out of ten they might not notice, because there’s no ‘right’ way in this sort of music; just a good way and a better way. 

How do you feel you’ve evolved as a band since you started?
Rob: We’ve been going about two and a half years, and now we don’t even really think about it when we play - we just play, and we’re a lot tighter. For me, as I kind of conduct the band, it’s just become quite natural. Everyone just knows what they’re doing. It means we can try more complicated stuff now.

Your most obvious quirk that sets you apart is the gypsy influence and your fascination with that culture. Where does that come from?
Jonny: It all started with Django Reinhardt, who really started the genre. There are a couple of bands in Notts who play in the same style - Hot Club and Swingology, who we’re really quite influenced by. There’s a great community in this city of gypsy jazz-style music.
Rob: When my brother and I were little, our Dad pretended to play the violin to get us started and we were introduced to many styles including Hungarian-style gypsy music. Our grandfather was a violin player too, so it’s in the blood I suppose. In terms of influence it was at first Stéphane Grappelli, Chris Garrick and, when I saw him at the Hand & Heart, Ben Holder, who’s a local violin legend.

Can we clear up the rumour about you living in a caravan?
Jonny: Yeah, I did, but it might have been more to save money than anything else. I just wanted to experience what that sort of life was like, living with nothing. It was fun actually, but I’ve just moved in with Rob because of the cold, I wussed out on that! I gave it a good shot though, I think. 

When The Road Bends is also the name of a film about Roma culture and music. Coincidence?
Jonny: It’s an American film that came out quite a while ago; the title is based on a gypsy proverb. So we’re kind of paying homage to that…
Rob: Because we do go where the road bends. It’s very relevant to the music we make since we never know where it’s going to go, being almost totally improvised.

Not only is Google auto-completing your name as you start to type ‘manie’, but your album is also up on torrent sites. How do you feel about that?
Rob: Whoa. Really? Seriously? I’m kind of honoured really, I mean it’s bugger all to buy it really, and you can buy it online, but because we’re not that well known the main way people get hold of our records is at gigs. So I suppose if people are nicking it online, fair enough, they haven’t been to see us live... 
Jonny: Hopefully it’ll bring people to our gigs. It’s the way things are going, though.

Do you think your genre of music could go mainstream?
Rob: I think it already is, in a way. There are electro-swing nights on in town that people like, lindy hop dancing is making a comeback, people want to learn that style…
Jonny: I think it’s because a lot of people actually want to go out dancing now rather than just going to a rave and doing big-fish-little-fish-cardboard-box all night.
Rob: You can’t really take classes in banging a few pills and raving. I think in these, quote, ‘times of austerity’ people do want to go out and do more interesting things.

You’re totally instrumental at the moment. Has it crossed your mind to get in a vocalist?
Jonny: Well we can all sing, so we’re hoping to start adding some harmonies to the music.
Rob: We also do have guest vocalists too. Last year we had Lisa de’Ville, Irina Muha and Motormouf join us for a bit which was great. We might be planning some more collaborations for the next album, but we’re keeping that under wraps at the moment.

What’s next for Manière des Bohémiens?
Jonny: Definitely a European tour, that’s the next step.
Rob: We want to go all over, Django’s birthplace, Paris, Brussels, hopefully Marciac festival, maybe Toulouse. We just really want to play more venues, to more people and with a higher profile. We see ourselves as a young band; we have the potential to go on for a long time. The type of music we play, it’s very much not about image or age. I think as you get older the image part of it gives way to talent, which hopefully we’ve got a bit of.

Anything else you’d like to say?
Rob: We’re good music to take someone out on a date to, apparently. So there you go, fellas.

Manière des Bohémiens website