Our Club’s Cooler Than Your Club

New Young Pony Club guitarist/producer Andy Spence hardly has time to chill at home with friends, write movie scores or listen to music anymore, but he’s not complaining.

One would hardly pick New Young Pony Club – ice-cool English dance-poppers with impeccable dress sense – to be social misfits. But this sense of exclusion was partly the impetus for the group’s inception. Guitarist Andy Spence explains on the phone from home that the band’s name is about “saying to all those people that wouldn’t let us into their clubs: ‘fuck you, we’ve got our own club now and our club’s much cooler’.”

The amiable writer/producer is downplayed and modest on the phone, but on stage with band mates Tahita Bulmer [vocals], Sarah Jones [drums], Igor Volk [bass] and Lou Hayter [keyboards], they light an electro-pop fire! He says that’s the essence of NYPC: to dance the dance electric. “That’s what we’re about, you know, being a bit more energetic and exciting and dynamic… I think it’s a waste to create great music and not try and present it well. I enjoy seeing bands that make an effort and I think that’s the way it should be. You’re in a position there, you’re a focus if you’re making music, and if people like it… you should make an effort.”

They’ve certainly been making an effort, and it’s paying off. NYPC have been propelled into the all too familiar tour mill because of this. “That’s what we’ve done all summer and that’s what we’re doing for the next six months!” he says. It should see them in New Zealand around the New Year, perhaps even ready to showcase new material that he and Bulmer have “already started writing”.
“I mean I’ve only just come out [of tour], so you know, it hurts a little bit, I’m getting a little bit sick of it now,” he croaks. “Pony Club is kind of taking over at the moment, I hardly have time to even hang out at home or listen to music anymore, it’s crazy.”

Despite the demands of pony life, Spence keeps an ear to the ground. You can hear the smile in his voice as he recounts the Club’s inspirations. “The more recent kind of guitar bands that kind of push things forward a little bit”, was his unexpected response. And Franz Ferdinand: “They were really different to everyone else, I think that was an influence on our music.” Spence also credits “the DFA movement – the Rapture, LCD…” as influential for NYPC’s modern new wave.

The band is enjoying their whirlwind ride of success, but are wary of the trappings of fame. Spence cites pushy PR reps as detracting from the magic of musical discovery. “It’s great to see how things are taking off… but record labels get very excited, they try and push these bands on people. I think we always wanted people to discover us. It’d be nice if we had a bit more help from the radio over in UK here, but I think people eventually are finding us, and each time we do a live tour we do much bigger venues, so the numbers are swelling. And that’s fine you know, and it carries on like that, and I’m happy! But I’d rather let those fans find us organically and by their own means than having it shoved down their throat.”

Manufactured pop with no prefabricated jargon, NYPC is the real deal. They just happen to be of the extremely photogenic, unfazed-cool and stylish ilk of the Outsiders. Spence maintains they are not elitist though. “The thing about our club is that the rule of entry is that you have to be unique to be in the club. Most clubs are about conforming and being the same, but we want people to just be themselves and enjoy and dance and hangout, you know, sing, have fun. That’s the difference between our club and other people’s clubs.”