Leng Pleng

A new set of bands is beginning to appear on the horizon, just before they all head off on vacation.  LengPleng checked in with Gary Custance, formerly of Little Thieves, to see how his new band We Are Ewe is shaping up and what else is on his dancecard.

“We Are Ewe just did our third gig, the fourth will be on Saturday,” says Gary.  “I’ve been close friends with Robin Narciso (Sangvar Day, Blood Bricks) for many years, and he was almost a member of Little Thieves.  We’ve been writing songs together, becoming more focused as Little Thieves came to an end, taking it a little bit more seriously.  We now have 11 or 12 songs, filling the sound out with Boom Baar on the drums and Joe on bass – his first band in Phnom Penh.  The gig last week at The Birdcage was the first time it was starting to feel cohesive, there was a really nice energy.”

How does We Are Ewe differ from the much-loved Little Thieves?  “It’s an extremely different sound, a very different approach.  Rob and I share a love for early 90s, unpolished rock’n’roll, and we’re not trying to do anything too shiny.  It can be quite heavy, and quite melodic, but it’s always aimed towards a garage band feel – a lot of the bands that we like and listen to are of that style, like The Pixies, the Seattle grunge movement, basically punk bands that aren’t from California.  Just being in this city is helpful – you’re playing in venues where the sound is rarely going to be perfect.  Rob’s got a great punk spirit, no logo, edgy, and I’m all for that as well.  Performing with this band is very fun.  It’s not the most intricate music, but it’s interesting, it’s got parts and breakdowns.  I’m not the greatest guitarist, and there were of times in LT where I was really having to focus on what I was doing musically to make sure it was good.”

Is the band writing together or as a group?  “So far a lot of the songs either Rob and I wrote together or separately, but from here on we will be writing as a band.  Rob will often come up with a riff or an interesting guitar parts, and he’ll warble some kind of melody over the top, I’ll take the melody and apply lyrics, then bring it to practice and we’ll present it to the band.  Joe writes as well, I’m quite excited for that.  I prefer to be in a band where all members are bringing something to it and taking ownership over what you are doing, it takes it to another level in terms of the cohesiveness of the band, and enjoying the work.”

What was your experience of music prior to Cambodia like, and what has changed for you here?  “I was in a six-piece folktronic band in the UK called Grandma’s Hands for years, but I found the music scene in Oxford to be cliquey and pretentious.  Having been in this local scene for a while now I know I prefer it.   It can be more spontaneous – you can pull together and make things happen.  Lewis (McTighe, ex-Little Thieves, ex-Japan Guitar Shop) has his new Absolute Zero band, they’ve been together for about seven hours and have a gig arranged for Saturday.  As long as you’re willing to put in the leg work and get things sorted for yourself.  It suits the garage rock early 90s punk spirit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gary with We Are Ewe

Our interview was taking place upstairs at Cloud as players arrived for an exploratory jam around another of Gary’s projects: Daisy’s Daytime Radio.  “Once Little Thieves was wrapping up I started writing towards a concept EP, which will involve six or seven different musicians, purely a recording project.  A close friend of mine, Eugenio, is really into the experience of hanging out and making music, not so keen on the performing side.  There will be cellos and pianos, Dave from Little Thieves is going to be playing bass and recording remotely from the UK.  We are just about to do demo tracks, and then we’ll aim for a few days at 60 Road in Siem Reap and lay all that down.

“Daisy is a character who’s run through a lot of Little Thieves songs and a lot of songs since.  The idea is that she has a daytime radio slot, and in my mind the EP is going to have this congruent feel of you listening to a radio show, lots of varied songs drifting in and out with a bit of radio static in between.  Daisy is a poetic device who appears in the songs – she was originally someone that I wrote a song about but couldn’t use their name.  Daisy was doing something in that song, and I wasn’t best pleased with her.  I like the cadence of the word.  One of the themes of my songwriting is resentment about certain aspects of the modern world, and perhaps the use of an archaic name speaks to that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moptop Gary with Little Thieves

“The initial idea was that after the band folded I really wanted to hang out and play music with people.  I don’t think I quite believe that anything would come of it, I was just using it as an excuse to go around to people’s houses.  Then people got behind it, and we’ve now got different parts written all over the place, we haven’t met together as a group yet.  I meet with Eugenio once a week to work on drum parts, trying to get some guide tracks that we can share.  The dream is to have everyone fairly familiar with their parts the first time we come together in the studio.  There are still lots of questions to be answered as to what the sound of it is going to be.  When Eugenio and I play together it tends to be my guitar as loud as possible, making a lot of noise, but I’m sure that will get dulled down once Michelle starts bringing cello loops, and there’s some piano parts and things like that.  There’s going to be a lot of freedom, to let something to form organically.”

We Are You play on a triple bill at The Tin Hat with the aforementioned Absolute Zero and MAOZI on Saturday night.