Interview: MISS COSMOS

Construction House met with "sensitive punk" trio Miss Cosmos in Mile End's Victoria Park to discuss cassette tapes, money and girls' music. Here follows the result of our encounter.

Is the name Miss Cosmos a reference to any feminine aspect of your music or your personalities?
Danny (Stead, guitar/vocals): I think we're all quite feminine and quite sensitive. I think a lot of the music is quite soulful and quite deep as well, in a way.

So you think you can relate more to your own femininity, as opposed to your masculinity?
Danny: Yeah, definitely. We're never going to be really brash or stereotypically masculine, because none of us are. It's... music for girls.

You're definitely a lyrical band, does being so focused on your lyrics ever take away from your musical content? Is it particularly important if it does?
Danny: It does and it's not important.
Josh (Stevenson, bass/vocals): I think [the lyrics] are more important. For us, anyway.

So, do you think that the music could be described as a vehicle for the lyrics?
Josh: Pretty much, it's just a background really... Obviously it's important but not as important.

Would it be fair to say that you've put quite a lot of yourselves into your music?
Danny: Yes.

As such, is it ever annoying or irritating that bands can become successful by coming up with annoying or stupid stuff?
Danny: No, it's not annoying because everyone sings about what they want to sing about. If you're quite passionate singing about those things you relate to then that's fair enough.
Josh: If it makes them happy it's not really a problem. It's not really anything to do with us.
Danny: I'm not going to say that anything doesn't sing like this doesn't have anything to offer because that's a sort of narrow minded way of looking at it...

What I'm getting at is, is it ever irritating when someone in the charts sing songs that don't seem to make much sense becomes successful?
Danny: Well, it's quite ambiguous in a way. Just because it doesn't mean anything to me doesn't mean it means nothing to them.

Having experimented with cellos, electronic drums and other instruments and ideas in the past, where do you see yourselves progressing musically?
Josh: I think over the past six months or whatever we've really experimented quite a lot so I think it just depends on what ideas pop into our heads.

So you don't plan anything in advance?
Josh: No, I think it just comes with the situation that we're in at the time.
Danny: If you try to plan it, or have a set way of doing things it tends not to work out that way.
Josh: It can turn out pretty messy, as well.

So it's better just to be spontaneous?
Danny: Yeah.

Seeing as you all sing together both live and record in a fairly equal measure and you all play instruments that are integral to the band's sound, is anyone considered a front man in any way? Do any of you ever want to be more prominent within the band?
Danny: I think we're all the front man.
Josh: Yeah, I think that's the most important part, that we're all just exactly the same. We all sing everything, any one of us could be at the front and it wouldn't matter.

So the reason that you all sing everything to do with the sound or more to do with the fact that you care about being equal?
Josh: Probably more to do with the sound. It sounds a lot better, not a lot of people do it... [We momentarily pause to admire a passing jogger's tomato red running suit.]

So the whole front man thing is something you've never really given thought to?
Danny: I don't think any of us are really natural front men. No one's going to say, "that's the front man"...

Do you prefer it that way?
Danny: It's not something that's really important.

Do you have any plans to release any of your music and where can people get hold of copies of your songs?
Josh: I imagine in the new year, that'd be an obvious next thing to do. Not in a big way or anything, we'd just give it away for free or something and if it works out then maybe we'll put out a tape with someone else.

So do you just want people to hear your music? Are you concerned about money at all?
Josh: Not really. Obviously it'd be nice if we didn't have to work or worry about rent and things like that. It's never really a big issue; as long as we can carry on playing and we're satisfied with what we're playing...

Other than the release, what are your future plans?
Josh: I'd quite like to go to Europe, just to see how far afield we can go.
Danny: I'd like to take the music really far... Really concise, with a lot packed into it. Conceptually, so it's really perfect... Perfect by our own standards, pushing it as far as it can go.

Find songs and show updates online at http://myspace.com/misscosmos