Together, British Sea Power stands out
Published March 14, 2008
When Scott Wilkinson, or “Yan,” from Brighton band British Sea Power speaks, it is with hesitation. The band’s singer and guitarist then consults his bandmates to give more collective answers. Often, the answers are jokes.
“When we started the band, we used to search the words ‘British,’ ‘sea’ and ‘power’ on the Internet, and you’d find out a lot of stuff about imperialism or some things from the old days,” Wilkinson said. “But there is no imperialism inside the band, of course — quite the opposite, actually.”
Unlike other rock bands such as U2 and Coldplay, BSP places importance on the group as an entity rather than having a talking frontman. This lack of imperialism inside the band shows on stage. In 2004, Time Out London awarded the group “live band of the year.”
Now that they’ve conquered Europe, BSP has made it the band’s mission to win over the American public.
“It is just fun to get somewhere and play outside of England,” Wilkinson said.
He paused a few seconds to think.
“Stadiums are really a little bit soulless though,” Wilkinson said. “Three or four thousand is about as big as a band should play, really.”
The band, more accustomed to small venues, performed last November in unusual places including the UK’s highest inn, where ducks, chickens and sheep surrounded them. Some critics denounce the band’s more mainstream recent record, Do You Like Rock Music?
“I’ve never had any problem with records appealing to people, you know,” Wilkinson said. “You can sell records, even though we haven’t sold a lot of records, and still make something worthwhile. The idea is that we’re mainstream - maybe the sound of our album is a little bit like that.”
The members of BSP, whose musical influences include Julian Cope and Sir Francis Blake, compose songs dealing with very diversified topics.
“Not a lot of British Sea Power’s music is influenced by politics, or maybe in a sort of personal way,” Wilkinson said. “Protecting the countryside, the trees (and) nature is important, and that’s quite a political thing today. We don’t like shouting about it, really — it’s just the things which we find interesting and beautiful and that we like to put in our music.”
The British band, whose lyrical purpose Wilkinson said, is to “take good things and turn them into something better,” does sometimes write songs about political issues, like the stirring tribute to Polish plumbers “Waving Flags.” BSP does not include consciously controversial political matters.
Wilkinson admits his home country creates a new rock sensation everyday to replace the previous ones, but BSP, formed in 2000, is on the right path and continues to charm audiences.
“Becoming early Oasis would not be so bad,” Wilkinson said. “Nickelback would be bad though. I mean, ending up with Nickelback’s beards and 57 fake amplifiers on stage.”