I Formed A Band (Eddie Argos and Joe Sparrow)

Ep. 3: Eddie and Joe chat to the funny, erudite and extremely dapper Dunstan Bruce – he of 90s Tubthumping BEHEMOTH Chumbawamba, and, latterly, Interrobang. This was a great interview: Dunstan has so much thoughtful stuff to say about life, music fandom, art, anarchy, pranks, learning, growing – and selling millions of records well over a dozen years into your career.

Eddie came away from the interview with a renewed love for Chumbawamba, and Joe, who pretty much only listened to Suede in the 90s, came away with huge admiration for them and their music. (Both Eddie and Joe especially loved the band’s deep-cut “Mouth Full of Shit”, although that didn’t stop them repeatedly getting the name wrong when discussing it at the end of the podcast.)

Dunstan's story is also about trial, error, long-winded conversations with band-mates, tricking journalists into saying rude things bout them, maybe-accidentally writing a enormous global hit, and how it felt like their “breakthrough moment” was many years before “Tumbthumping” when the band finally stopped sleeping in their van and got a sleeper coach on tour.

(Joe also accidentally compares Dunstan to Kier Starmer, and is sincerely sorry, Dunstan.)

And we got to meet Dunstan’s cat right at the end, too!

Plus, in a bonus Argos Catalogue section, Eddie explains how he was once in a lift with Mark E Smith AND one of the Wu Tang Clan... but how many members of the Wu-Tang has Eddie actually met?

Chumbawamba’s excellent “I Get Knocked Down” documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsAVHNPpUtQ

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumbawamba

Dunstan: https://www.instagram.com/dunstanbruce/

Interrobang: http://interrobangband.co.uk

Ep. 1: Eddie and Joe talk to the deeply lovely Manda and Steve from the amazing Bis - possibly the most DIY of all the British bands that also managed to break through to the big time. They talk about how the band formed as teenagers; how Manda migrated from the side of the stage to centre-stage, transforming their fortunes overnight; drawing your own artwork; and how they stuck resolutely to their DIY guns - and why this was so important to them.

Oh, and once the band was formed, a load of wild stuff happened: they were the first unsigned band to appear on Top Of The Pops (much to Eddie’s delight); sign to the Beastie Boys’ record label (and hang out with them by the pool in LA); have a bespoke Casio Baby G watch created in their honour; write the Powerpuff Girls closing credits theme song; Bis’s ace song “Kandy Pop" came 49th in an NME reader poll of the "50 Greatest Britpop Songs Ever"; and whole load of other fantastic stuff.

(Also, maybe they weren’t the first unsigned band on TOTP – we find out the SHOCKING TRUTH.)

Anyway, it’s a great chat, and it went so well that after recording it, Art Brut and Bis played some shows together. Oh yes: this was recorded a while ago, so you might have actually been to one of these shows already.

Finally, hang around for after the Bis interview for THE ARGOS CATALOGUE: the part of the show where we try to capture the life, times and tribulations of one Eddie Argos, one absurd story at a time. This one involves extremely smelly feet – but who did they belong to?

Bis: https://bisnation.com

Bis bio: Since forming in 1994, bis have continually mutated their initial influences of Synth-pop, Riot Grrrl and DIY Punk into weird and wonderful songs with a natural gift for melodic earworms with a disco heartbeat. Sci-Fi Steven, John Disco and Manda Rin first caught the UK underground’s attention with the “Disco Nation 45” EP in 1995. Its cross-breeding of Huggy Bear, Blur and Devo made it stand out in the dreary death of Britpop, fanzines had new saviours and before long the underground went overground. With the next release, “The Secret Vampire Soundtrack”, suddenly bis were playing “Kandy Pop” on Top of The Pops - as the first unsigned band ever to appear - and riding high in the “proper” charts.

A frantic bidding war resulted in bis turning down big-money from big business and opting to sign for Wiiija Records in 1996, a spiritual home where the band could maintain absolute control. Choosing the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal label in the US was based on the same philosophy. The first album “The New Transistor Heroes” came out in early 1997, the album sold 100,000 copies on release in Japan and saw bis support acts as diverse as Bikini Kill, Pavement and Foo Fighters across Europe and the US. The band were even seen as the ideal candidates to write and record the theme tune to Cartoon Network’s classic cartoon, “The Powerpuff Girls”.

Ep. 2: We begin to document the life, times and tribulations of the much-storied, celebrity-beef-starting, indie troubadour Eddie Argos  – and then compile the stories in... The Argos Catalogue. Yes, indeed, it's the inevitable "readers' letters" episode, and boy, do we learn some eye-opening stuff about Eddie's career. So join Eddie and Joe – the Richard and Judy of indie music podcasting – and learn:

> How Eddie was a traffic warden and used to let Mel C from the Spice Girls off from getting parking tickets
> How Eddie once got into an escalating feud with Kele from Bloc Party that ended in him being karate kicked
> He then reveals that he has moved on from starting beefs with famous singers – before immediately starting a beef with Thom Yorke
> What Eddie's dream Top Of The Pops line-up would be and yes of course David Devant and His Spirit Wife would be performing
> Eddie invents a hypothetical but plausible band called “Wellington Boot”
> Eddie and Joe also recall the glory days of Landfill Indie, and whether it was " one of the least exciting things to happen to music this century”
> And in a new, possibly one-off, show segment called “Me and yer granny on bongos” Eddie theorises which bands could survive if you ejected all the members except the singer (and replaced everyone else with a bongo-playing granny)

We’d also like to point out that Richard Madeley was acquitted of all charges of shoplifting, and Eddie was simply making a joke. Send your own questions for Eddie via eddieandjoe@iformedaband.com! They'll probably get answered by him! 

Links mentioned:

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/art-brut-a-record-collection-reduced-to-a-mixtape-and-yes-this-is-my-singing-voice/

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thefall/the-granny-on-bongos-quote-t42821.html

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-top-50-greatest-landfill-indie-songs-of-all-time/

Eddie Argos is a man so obsessed with forming bands that he did it, recorded a song about it, wrote a book about it, painted pictures about it – and now has a podcast where he can ask other people the timeless question: "why did you form a band?"

Join him and sort-of journalist Joe Sparrow (who didn't form a band) as they talk to artists about the part before they got famous: why did they form a band, what did it take to get there, and what was life like while they were doing it?

There’s a huge, secret story behind every successful band: a heady mix of ambition, desperation, perseverance, daydreams, sleeping on sofas, surviving hangovers in the back of a Transit van, and dumb luck. That's what this podcast is about.

(And it's also about compiling The Argos Catalogue: a comprehensive collection of Eddie's various stories of meeting members of the Wu-Tang Clan in a lift, or singing Half Man Half Biscuit songs with Liam Gallagher, etc)

We love hearing from you – if you've got a question for Eddie, send us an email to eddieandjoe@iformedaband.com

Oh, also sign up to our email newsletter here – we’ll send you the latest episodes first, and some bonus podcast bits (maybe).