Infadels

In New York, London, Berlin and Barcelona something is happening. It hasn’t got a name, it probably doesn’t need one, but, across Europe and North America, a network of cool nerds and sonic visionaries are engaged in a feverish revolt, a wholesale shredding of the musical rulebook, as they mix electronics and rock influences, into a potent new underground sound. It is a collision of art, ideas and energy unrivalled since the heyday of post-punk, a chaotic, ever-changing scene which, at its extremes, takes in everything from Franz Ferdinand’s indie-disco through Mylo's ultra-modern house to the mangled sonic aggro of UK grime.
This is the 'INFADELS’ world. To understand the above, is to start to understand; Bnann, Matt, Al, Richie and Wag, five London-based upstarts determined to fuse Talking Heads, Steve Reich, Bob Dylan, The Stooges and The Rolling Stones funkier moments into tunes capable of both rocking clubs and engaging brains. If dance music got dumb and rock music got lazy, this is the band to stop the rot, the band to produce something wholly new and uncategorisable.
But, first… some facts. Sort of. Back in the dark mists of time (1999), Matt [guitars/ programming] was playing in a rubbish avant-garde electronic band, while Al [drums], who he knew from university, was playing in a rubbish guitar band. By night, they would clean ceilings at Heathrow. And moan. Meanwhile, Bnann [vocals], whose previous band Greenship had been caught up in the post-Britpop major-label meltdown, was working as a courier. “I went from signing autographs,” he says, dryly, “to delivering letters.”
Briefly forming a band called Balboa that quickly disintegrated, the band becoming disillusioned with ’cool’ London they used that anger, to fuel the 'INFADELS’ passion. When the trio, now joined by Wag [bass] and Richie [percussion, onstage mixing, backing vocals, crazy dancing], reconvened a few months later, an informal INFADELS manifesto wrote itself. They wanted a raw sound, chaotic gigs and to unapologetically follow their instincts.
Even the name, INFADELS, was a deliberate, provocative break with the past - a declaration of their status as heretics and outsiders. Taken from the Bob Dylan album, ‘Infidels’, Bnann - notorious for, previously, suggesting they call themselves, ahem, Citizen Kaner! - came up with it : “I looked it up to see exactly what it means, and it said a non-believer in society, politics and religion. Well, that’s totally me.” Matt’s spelling mistake later, and THE INFADELS were born.
Determined to do things on their own terms - “The whole DIY ethic is rebuilding British music,” enthuses Richie - they immediately started throwing their own U Wot? parties, at London’s notorious Rhythm Factory, and set up their own label, Dead At Thirty.
Their debut 12” ‘Leave Your Body’ was supported by the likes of the late John Peel, XFM and Gary Crowley, while it’s release saw THE INFADELS being invited to play some of the UK’s cooler underground clubs, such as; Manchester’s Club Suicide and Glasgow’s SoCo, the latter ending in a farcical police raid. A whip-smart, unctuous slab of electro-rock, ‘Leave Your Body’ was inspired by Jeff Noon’s sci-fi classic, Vurt. The b-side, meanwhile, ‘Brandon Vegas’ flirted with controversy, taking its title from an American, Brandon Vedas, who, egged on by friends in an Internet chatroom, died after OD’ing on prescription drugs.

In contrast, follow up single, ‘Can’t Get Enough’*, was gloriously dumb, a pounding apocalyptic club track, literally bashed out by chief songwriters Matt and Bnann in their tiny Hackney Road studio. Word was spreading, though, and shortly afterwards THE INFADELS picked up two gongs at the 2004 Diesel U-Music Awards, Wall Of Sound pounced, their larger-than-life MD Mark Jones welcoming the band to the label in typically provocative style: “The Infadels are one of the most exciting bands I have seen. Watch your back rock music. Or, better still, have a bath and buy a synthesizer!”

After which, THE INFADELS’ late summer tour with Radio 4 was the perfect package, a glorious mixture of method and madness, punk and funk, style and bile. It’s a schizophrenic life for the band, nowadays. One minute they’re in Ibiza, playing Manumission surrounded by naked models or playing to packed out tents at V2005 and the next they’re back in Hackney, dodging moody local hoodlums, building snare drums from ironing boards abusing their instruments and rowing about magicians (don‘t ask). If it all sounds a bit chaotic, it is. But, THE INFADELS love it.
Matt: “The other day we heard Erol [Alkan] playing in Belgium and the biggest dance tune he dropped was The White Stripes’ ‘7 Nation Army’. It’s a rave record! That’s surely a sign that there is no rock versus dance thing anymore, that there is open-mindedness.” More importantly, it is, surely, a sign that the world is ready for THE INFADELS. Prepare yourself.