At first glance, the all-girl London 3-piece, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, are not what the usual music journalist or A & R man would refer to as consumable. They are not dressed in the latest trendy items, they swap instruments, and they don’t harmonize or dance. Yet they embrace who they are -- making them instantly noticeable, original and one of the most talked-about bands in London. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, pretty much every major newspaper supplement, music and style magazine frantically clambered to their gigs to be the first to announce them as the next new thing.

This most recent scramble for rights has led to the birds being the leaders of namely the grunge, Goth, ethnic band, and riot grrrl revivals. In reality -- although the birds carry elements to fit into any of these categories -- they are individual enough an outfit not to have the need to belong to any one movement.

psychoPEDIA caught up with the drummer/bassist/guitarist/vocalist D-bird, to lay myths to rest and discuss life, love and labels:

Your name comes from the famous Joseph Wright painting. How do you feel about appearing higher than your namesake on the Google search engine?
It works both ways -- our band are obviously highlighting a painting of old -- if people become curious and seek where the name comes from, then hopefully they'll find out about an amazing painting they didn't know about. As for search engine rankings and the Internet generation, I think the Internet is a great source of information and knowledge, and isn't any less of a medium than a library. However I do prefer the physicality of the non-Internet world, like vinyl to downloads, and books rather than online ones. But it's the way forward and we can't really suppress it.

Do you feel your band also depicts a revolution in how people perceive all-girl bands?
We feel that our music and democratic band approach (e.g. no front woman, instrument swapping) is something that hasn't been done before. We're quite surprised that people have embraced our music and us (we are far from the stereotypical-looking girl band) so much. I think it's a great thing because we are real women creating real music.

I’ve read more than one article that refers to the band as ‘scary’ -- do you think this is related to you all being strong women?
The strong misconception of us being 'scary' has come from, I think, our pure, raw attitude. I don't think people have experienced this from a lot of other recent girl bands and therefore don't know how to process it when they see and hear us for the first time.

You have been heralded as spearheading the Goth and grunge revivals among others. Is it hard for you to have this pressure on your shoulders?
We're definitely not trying to spearhead any type of movement. The grunge thing is a contrived antidote to the Goth thing. Our music is influenced by both those genres as well as pop music, soul music and swamp music. I'm obsessed with social experiments and people being told what to like, and this is just an exploration of that.

Are your lyrics actually from past experiences, or are they part formed to tell harrowing tales that match the mood of your music?
Personally, my lyrics all come from personal experiences and challenges. 'Smear' is about an awful experience and the stem of it coming from the physical side of a relationship that was going wrong at the time, and 'Unveil' is about the faux happiness a lot of people I know get from one-night stands. I'm not into that and it's just my way of telling people wake up and see what you're doing as the momentary pleasure will fuck you up in the long run. We're all worth more than that.

Do you have any relationship tips for our readers that will help them avoid these kinds of situations?
Unfortunately I don't think anyone should listen to my tips on love. If I were lucky in love then I wouldn't be writing some of the songs we do. I'd be churning out songs like that brother and sister duo who almost won "X Factor." The world would be a very different place for me....

~Kevin Soar


First photo by The Female Zoo
Second photo by Gigwise.com
Third photo by Al De Perez
Fourth photo by Ren Rox