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Nothing was going to get in the way of Rob Maddison’s vision of being in a true band of astronomical proportions that even Jefferson Starship would not be able to get a handle of. There was no looking back for Rob Maddison when he first formed first Spaceships Are Cool as he knew that his lo-fi electronical acoustic sound was going to blast off. And it did! Already with some major festivals played already under their belt, Spaceships are Cool are ready to take down any asteroid or Tie-Fighter that gets in their way. Despite their musical galactical relationship with space, Rob Maddison still has a true concern for Mother Earth. FERNTV finds out how by talking to a true “Rocket Man”...
FERNTV: How did Spaceships are Cool first blast off in 2006? How did this idea come about?
Rob: I have always wanted to be in a band called Spaceships are cool, but every band that I had been in before refused to call their band that!
So I said to hell with that and started my own band, mainly doing weird lo-fi electronic instrumental tracks to begin with and heavily influenced by watching old sci-fi movies.
We soon be came a 2-piece, then a 3-piece, then jumped up to a 6-piece band.
As soon as we started playing live shows, the decision was taken to get hold of some retro flight suits to wear on stage, (I think that bands who just wear jeans and t-shirts could really make more of an effort, it's show business after all)
FERNTV: Can you tell us what is it like for a band to have a song on MTV "Cribs" and what that actually does for the band? Can you tell us as well how this came about?
Rob: You know, we haven't actually seen the clip yet!!! ( I personally don't even have a TV) but it feels great to be on a show that we all find really amusing. It all came about from some of the Licensing agencies with work with in the US had passed on our CD to MTV in LA.
We have had tracks on all sorts of places recently, The stylist (another MTV production), a lot of BBC use in the UK, on a Greenlandic feature film and even on american airlines & Finnair in flight radio. As we are self-released, all this helps to raise our profile and we get to be heard by a whole loada people who would not normally get a chance too.
FERNTV: Did you manage to keep all the old toys around like Speak and Spell, Texas Instruments, Fisher Price toys when you were younger or did you end up buying them again at a vintage store?
Rob: I did have some of the Fisher price toys hanging around already, but I had to re-buy the Speak and Spell, and then got carried away and bought a Speak and Read, a Speak and Math, and a Speak and Spell in French. Those were sourced mainly from Ebay, which I always see as good recycling!
FERNTV: You have performed in many festivals, which is your favourite one to perform in?
Rob: We have done some great festivals over the last two years, my personal favourites has been the Glastonbury festival in the UK, which was just amazing being there with 60,000 other people for the whole weekend, and it was sunny on the day we played! YAY!
My other favourite was last year at CMJ in Newyork where we played at this great little venue in Greenwich Village and had guest synth players from Icelandic electro band Bloodgroup playing with us.
It also meant that we were there for Halloween, which is really crazy in Newyork.
FERNTV: There's the Millenium Falcon, The Enterprise, Star Destroyer, Visitor Motherships, Deep Space Nine...what ship best represents the Spaceships are Cool and its music?
Rob: Now that's a great question! I reckon that it would be 'Dark star' from John Carpenter's film of the same name. Like us, the whole ship has a bit of a ramshackle vibe to it, with lots of panels filled with bleeps and flashing lights that look like they have been repaired with sticky tape. The crew have been in deep space for sometime and kinda make stuff up as the go along, looking after an alien made out of a beach ball and a talking smart bomb that won't cooperate (that's our sort of humour!).
FERNTV: You also have a concern of the our planet earth, can you tell us how your band shows this?
Rob: We are naturally concerned about the environment and ethical issues when it comes to working in the music industry, that lets face it, is incredibly commercial. We work closely with I DRESS MYSELF ethical screen printers, in our home town of Nottingham, on all of our merchandise. All the T-shirts are hand screen printed using water based inks, the CDs, LP & 7" single sleeves are all on recycled card and again made with water based inks.
I Dress Myself maintain high standards of ethical practices including sourcing of fair trade materials and like us, do their banking with the Cooperative bank, who are the only bank in the UK that solely invest in companies with a highly ethical track record.
Obviously, traveling and touring with lots of equipment is a real environmental problem too.
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