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X-clusive: Radio 4 Crash The Party

added 13 July 2004 at 14.47

Radio 4 singer Anthony Roman speaks exclusively to Xfm Online and reveals his political agenda ahead of this week’s release of the band’s new single ‘Party Crashers’ and the band’s forthcoming UK tour.

Produced by Max Heyes (Primal Scream, Doves), new album ‘Stealing Of A Nation’ is a dramatic leap forward from the band's last offering ‘Gotham’ with first single ‘Party Crashers’ finally fulfilling the promise of percussive driven nature of their live performances.

“As politically driven as some of our lyrics can be,” Roman explains, “‘Party Crashers’ is just a way of showing people a positive side to life, and deal with things the best way we can. Following 9/11, a lot of people in New York just sit at home getting paranoid, and we’re trying to get people out of that way of thinking.”

Never shying away from a political message, much of the band’s new album deals with a post-9/11 world, especially the way New York and America as a whole has dealt with the tragedy.

“A lot of the lyrics on the record are a commentary on America,” he continues. “The title, ‘Stealing The Nation’ refers to the way American values and freedom have been taken away, but it’s also to do with the way a country can just go and take over another country.

“I think our government has been very cocky, and because we were travelling around the world a lot with the band, we experienced first hand a lot of what other countries think of America.”

Roman also spoke about why the band chose to work with Heyes in the producer’s chair as they try to leave the New York post-rock punk-funk label behind.

“Max saw us at Glastonbury last year and got in touch to offer his services. We really like his work on the Primal Scream album ‘Vanishing Point’ and wanted to try something different. The new record is much more textured and melodic, but we’ll be back in the UK again soon so you can hear it for yourself.”

Tickets for the band's forthcoming UK tour are available from the Xfm Xchange on 0871 222 1049 or online at Xfm Live Gig Guide by clicking here.

The full tour dates are:

• London Islington Academy (August 17)     
• Nottingham Rock City (24)                              
• York Fibbers (25)                                               
• Edinburgh, The Venue (26)
• Leeds Festival (27)
• Reading Festival (29)
• Brighton The Beach (30)   

Tagged as Radio 4, archive

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