Maths Class interview

I caught Maths Class (minus drummer Rick who has since announced his decision to leave) just before a support slot with Shitdisco, to discuss the past, the present and their plans for the future. Maths Class have been together as a band for just over a year, and as expected are still extremely fresh faced, full of youthful abandon and eager to prove themselves.

Maths Class differ from many of the other bands around who have been labelled with the ‘Nu Rave’ tag. As Andy explains, "We haven't set out to sound like any one in particular" while Piers later adds "We're influenced by everything, the things we see and hear - and pop culture in general." and it evidently shows in their music.

Sound wise they are a mixture of whining synths, rumbling bass lines, tight drumming and fast paced single note guitar lines. These all viciously collide with each other to make a sound that borrows the energy of Test icicles, Ex-Models style noise and early Help She Can't Swim style melodies. Over the top of all this lies the vocals of Tim Sketchley, which are ranted, often indecipherable and only bare the loosest of resemblance's to that of The Falls Mark E Smith. Your browser may not support display of this image.

For a band that are very much still in their infancy they have already gained the attention of Vice Magazine, and earlier this year played at a couple of their parties in Barcelona. Tim has the following to say about it; "None of us had done anything like that as a band before. The whole experience was amazing, and for a while it was unbelievable". Previous to this they had already caught the attention of Shitdisco after playing a riotous house party with them last May, where the room was ram packed and crowd surfing took place to the extent that Piers describes "The floor was not just bouncing but swaying."

Their recent demo was recorded and produced by Steven from Blood Red Shoes. Tim explained how this came about; Maths Class’ "first gig was supporting Chikinki at the Freebutt which is now non existent, and Steven was doing the sound at the time. He knew one of our friends, we became friends …He offered, he knew we were looking to do a demo and was more than happy to do it, so it all fell into place really nicely." On listening to this recording it’s evident that they are still changing as a band, a notion which Tim agrees with; "We're in our 2nd year as a band now. If you played the first song we wrote and compared it to the last, we're a completely different band …. It's a natural progression".

In the last year or so there has been an explosion of new and upcoming bands like Blood Red Shoes and I Say Marvin rising from the city, venturing outside of Brighton and making an impact both in the UK and across Europe. Maths Class have similar ambitions, and there are hopes of releasing a single later this year. Meanwhile plans are currently being made to play a small UK tour in July. They can also be seen at the Great Escape festival playing the Artrocker stage on Saturday the 19th of May.