BREAKING OUT
LATE OF THE PIER
cheeky leaders of Britain’s underage scene tackle disco, new wave, each other

Sam Eastgate, frontman for English electro rockers Late of the Pier, recalls when he swore off the synthesizer. “I found one behind the shelves in our living room,” says the 21-year-old, whose father played in obscure ’80s rock act My Dog Has No Nose. “It was a weird plastic thing covered in dials. I thought, ‘I’ll never learn to play that.’”

Long story short: He did.
It was during science class in
2003 that Eastgate and his lab
partner, Ross Dawson, decided to
form a band. So he, Dawson (on

Recession-eRa fashion at its finest Ross Dawson, sam eastgate, andrew faley, and sam Potter

drums), and pals Sam Potter (keys)
and Andrew Faley (bass) began
ditching school in Castle Donington
to write experimental pop songs.
“We liked to change the key and
the speed in the middle so that it
sounded kind of wrong,” he says.
All those skipped classes resulted
in Fantasy Black Channel (Astral-
werks), a kinetic debut replete
with—whaddya know?—hiccupping
synths and distorted bass lines, the
perfect foundation for nonsensical
anthems about getting drunk and
dancing. The album was released
last year in the U.K., where the hype

surrounding the band was enough to make Eastgate and Dawson’s original dream of “being the next Beatles” seem slightly less fantastical. Of course, the songs, especially addictively aerobic singles “ Bathroom Gurgle” and “Space and the Woods,” owe their inspiration to an entirely different era. “I really liked Gary Numan until we started getting compared to him all the time,” says Eastgate of the “Cars” auteur who helped usher in ’80s new wave.

Now Late of the Pier (so named,
Dawson says, because the words
sounded mellifluous together) are

looking forward to bringing their raucous show—Potter and Eastgate sometimes wrestle onstage—to the States this month at Austin’s South by Southwest festival. But Dawson says their favorite audience forever remains the teenagers they first performed for in West London, when they were stars of the underage scene. “Kids are amazing to play to because they’re very excitable,” he says. “And I’d like to think they aren’t just incredibly drunk.”

BY PHOEBE REILLY

PHO TOGRAPH BY BEN RAYNER

34 march 2009 / ExclusivE mP3: sPin.com/latE