De Baard Van

Interview The Beards

Deel op Facebook
Deel op Twitter
Deel op Google+
Deel op LinkedIn
+

Vanavond speelt de Australische band The Beards in 013 in Tilburg. Van de week hebben wel 2×2 kaarten weggegeven voor het concert. Vandaag hebben we een interview met The Beards. 

How can you best describe the band ?

We’re 4 blokes with beards, who love having beards and are committed to spreading our love of beards through song. Every one of our songs is about the virtues of having a beard. We like beards.

When was the beards created ?

We’ve been a band for about 8 years, although not all of that time was spent actually playing music – at first, we were just 4 bearded guys who would meet up to celebrate our mutual love of beards. Eventually that developed into some basic sing-alongs, and as our beards grew longer we found that our musicianship naturally increased, and we were able to start playing gigs and releasing albums.

How many people are in the beards?

There are 4 of us, each beardier than the last.

What kind of music do you make?

I think it’s best described as “beard” music. We tend not to stick too closely to any 1 genre – it will vary depending on what particular beard-related message we are attempting to convey. We kind of just let our beards guide us…

What makes the beards different than other bands?

The problem with other bands is that they don’t exclusively sing songs about beards like we do, so I guess that makes us far superior to other bands… we feel that if a band isn’t writing and performing songs about beards, it’s just a waste of everybody’s time.

What do you guys do when your are not playing in the band?

We mostly just tend to our beards, concentrate on getting them longer and thicker. John Beardman Jnr also runs a beard accessory store where he imports specialty beard waxes, shampoos, combs etc, so we hang out there a fair bit. We also like to walk around playing a game we invented called “Spot The Beard”. We’ve all become quite good at it.

What is the ritual before a gig?

We insist on having those mirrors with the lights all around them so that we can stare intently into ours and each other’s beards. We find that fires us up well for a gig.

Is life different for artists with a beard?

Having never been a beardless artist I couldn’t really say, but I do know that having a beard makes you superior to beardless people in virtually every single way. I assume that being a beardless artist is an entirely miserable experience. Hopefully I never find out..

What was the best performance so far?

Probably our show at the opening ceremony of the World Beard & Moustache Championships in 2009. All the world’s best beards were gathered together in this small town in Alaska… it was a magical time for beards. We also recently did a gig in Sydney that we streamed live around the world to celebrate World Beard Day… that one was pretty special as well.

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever experienced with a fan?

There was a girl that came to one of our gigs in Australia with an amazing-looking fake beard, it was really thick and long and looked almost real… the problem was that it was attached to her face with this industrial strength glue and it ripped half the skin off her face when she tried to remove it… the lesson is, never try to remove a beard.

What is your biggest success so far with the band like ?

Probably convincing everyone in Australia to grow a beard… we’re the biggest band in the country now, and because of us, every single person down under has a full beard. We’re now taking our message to other parts of the world so that we can hopefully see similar results.

Do you have international ambitions ?

We’ve been lucky enough to be able to start spreading our pro-beard propaganda to lots of different places – we played SXSW in Texas last year, Canadian Music Week in Toronto, and we’re now on our second headlining tour across Europe… audiences have been very receptive of our bearded message, which is good.

Where do you really want to play?

We’ll pretty much play anywhere, anytime… we love singing about beards so much that it wouldn’t even matter whether or not anyone turned up to watch, we’d play anyway. We like beards.

Which artist you ‘d like to work with?

I’d like to sit down with Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top and talk about beards… do you know that in the 80’s, he turned down one million dollars from Gillette to shave his beard? That’s the right sort of bearded attitude right there.

What are your ambitions for the future?

We just want to have even better beards – that’s certainly our main focus. We’re also committed to spreading our bearded message, and we’re determined not to stop until everyone on earth has a beard.

Do you guys have a bearded hero?

Everyone in Lord Of The Rings is awesome. We often like to watch it when we’re on tour – we turn the sound down though so that we can just discuss the various beards in the film. Gandalf The Grey is our favourite, closely followed by Gandalf The White.

How do you guys take care of your beards?

We use various shampoos, beard oils and waxes, combs… it’s also important to stroke your beard regularly and think positive bearded thoughts to maintain a happy, healthy beard. The good thing about being on tour is that we can keep an eye on each other’s beard, make sure they are looking as clean and fresh as possible.

What does the beards mean to you?

Beards are the entire reason for our existence. Having beards and being in this beard-related band is pretty much all we could ask for. We are fully focused on beards and on spreading our bearded message.

Would you like to say something about beards?

Yes. Beards are really, really good.

Deel op Facebook
Deel op Twitter
Deel op Google+
Deel op LinkedIn
+

You Might Also Like