When New Young Pony Club (NYPC) hit the scene in 2005 they helped defined a generation of sound. New Wave had just exploded across London with all the swagger and poise of a Gen Y kid in neon brights and a half shaved head. NYPC were leading the charge, all lipstick and attitude.
Now, almost half a decade later, the veritable queens of New Rave (Klaxons being the kings) have toured the hell out of their debut long player – Fantastic Playroom – and are polishing off the final bits on their highly anticipated follow-up. This March, their sophomore album The Optimist drops.
It’s a more serious affair. The monotone and superficiality of hits like Icecream have been discarded for deeper more enlightened tracks. Yes, it’s still dance punk in parts, but a more rounded and mature sound.
‘Well yep, I’d say that’s the first thing about it,’ NYPC producer and band mate Andy Spence agreed on the phone from London. ‘Just darker and better songs, really. We really, at the start of this album, decided that we wanted to write songs, you know, proper songs that could be sung on a guitar.
‘Not that we wanted to lose the kind of edge that we had before or the kind of groove element; we still love all that but it just felt like we needed a bit more depth in there on some of the stuff. So we’ve kind of written some better songs, we produced a better album, I’ve been working on tech production to another level. So yeah, we just choose to be better.’
As Spence is speaking you can hear, in the background, the bustle of a busy London café as he pops in to grab a coffee. It’s nine in the morning there and he’s on his way to the studio to finish off some B-sides. He’s not only a world away from here, but he’s a world away from the heady start of his career when NYPC exploded across London.
‘I felt amazing, you know, it felt like complete justification,’ Spence said of their sudden rise to fame. ‘That was one of the greatest things about it- that we felt this sound coming through and we felt it for a while.
‘We kept kind of checking our style every time, actually, that we saw a new band that looked like it might be like that, we kind of kept thinking “Oh, someone’s beaten us to itâ€, but it seemed like no-one else really was feeling that, so when we came out it was just like yeah, of course this is great, of course we love it because it just felt right to us. That just felt like putting on a perfectly fitting pair of trousers that you just bought in the shop or something, it’s just one of those great feelings.’
And like a pretty pair of pants, NYPC stayed in vogue for a while just like their New Rave contemporaries Klaxons. And just like Klaxons, NYPC have experienced a lengthy time between their debut and their follow up (even though Klaxons don’t release until mid to late 2010), even though that first album took three years to perfect.
‘I think to be honest, there was a lot of confusion back then because all that was happening is that there was a new renaissance, if you like. New Rave is such a fucking overplayed term but there was a feeling that things had been stale, indie bands had been ruling and pop bands had been ruling for way too long and it needed a shake-up.
‘We felt that, CSS felt that, Klaxons, Hot Chip; a lot of bands who came out of that time all felt that and we were all from completely different parts of the world, that’s the thing, different scenes. There was no ‘scene’, but that’s just why it was right, in a way, because so many different people were feeling it.
‘Everyone’s really noticing we’ve just all followed our own paths and I think the same thing’s happening now; we’re following our new path to somewhere different, somewhere we need to go to as people and Klaxons are probably going through that journey as well. For them, I think it’s a different reason for the time they’re taking – for us, it’s just we do take a long time.’
So what can fans expect from their new album?
‘It’s a dark and light record. Really, we should have called it the… what’s the middle of the optimist and the pessimist? Realist! We should have called it The Realist because really, it’s a mixture of the ups and downs we had in that time writing it, in that year or year and a half. There’s some really good, positive moments when we were feeling really up and there’s some really big, banging pop tunes on there we should be proud of. It’s probably (also got) the biggest dance floor song we’ve ever made, We Want To, on this record.’
Of course, it’ll be the fans who will agree with Spence, with their feet dancing, their hands waving and their iPods playing.
The Optimist is out March 19 through Liberator Music with lead single, Chaos, out now. www.newyoungponyclub.com
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
