The Horrors Combine An Aesthetic With Music They Like

It's too early for the freaks and weirdoes to be out. Yet even at the very unbewitching hour of 7 p.m. on a Monday evening, they started coming in droves to Toronto's Mod Club — all spikes, tattoos and platform boots. There was an obvious split in the gathering crowd between the devoted fans (you could spot them by their multiple facial piercings and carefully planned outfits) and the simply curious who'd come to experience one of the U.K.'s most talked-about young bands: goth rock/punk quintet The Horrors.

The Horrors' word-of-mouth fame hasn't always been kind. When informed that some people still dismiss them purely on their reputation of "overhyped British band," bassist Tomethy Furse — lanky and wide-eyed with a smile that easily betrays his supposedly gloomy image — lets out a slightly pained sigh.

"Well, I can see where they're coming from, but you can't possibly..."

Furse stops himself in mild frustration and starts again.

"How can a lover of music dismiss one band or one musician just because someone else has been talking about them? I don't see how that could possibly factor into it. If you like music, then you literally shouldn't be thinking that way at all."

Try telling that to the legions of closed-minded people in The Horrors' homeland of England. There appears to be a love/hate relationship with the band over there, what with the venue destroying (like a riot in New York City during last year's CMJ festival), video banning (MTV won't show their disturbing first video, the Chris Cunningham-directed "Sheena Is A Parasite") and magazine cover stardom (they landed an NME cover story after two singles and no album).

Even Furse attests to the double-edged nature of the hype machine.

"It was great for us. We got to play to people and be in a position that most bands would never get to be in. But the other thing was that people would get the wrong idea about the band and what we do. Then when the album was received really well pretty much universally, I think a lot of people were surprised that we were actually good."

Surprised, perhaps, that there was actually substance (not to mention entirely talented substance) behind the snarls of bed-head hair and meticulously applied dark eye makeup.

"That's a real problem with us," Furse confirms with a shrug. "But the way we look completely goes with the music that we play."

"And it's only a problem because we've got a strong aesthetic," interjects big-haired guitarist Joshua Von Grimm. "All good bands do.

"The Arctic Monkeys have a strong aesthetic. They talk about being normal people and they dress like anybody else you'd see on the street. Joy Division had a strong aesthetic. They played dark, gloomy music from Manchester. They wore long overcoats... People dress like the music they like. Our look is just the natural conclusion of the music we listen to, and how it comes out. I think bands that shrug it off and say that a strong aesthetic is not important should look at every great band out there. They'll see that it doesn't work that way."

"As for substance, I think the music is quite intense," Furse remarks. "It's not easy to sit down and listen to it in the background.

"Even at our early shows playing places we'd never been to before, when we played, everyone watched. There wasn't anyone who let us stay in the background. They might have hated it, but they always watched."

"It's not music that someone puts on at home while they're cooking their dinner," chortles Von Grimm.

Furse laughs along with his bandmate for a second and continues.

"There's so much safe and bland music these days that when we started playing, people were just taken aback by it. They hadn't seen anything like that for a long time. It might have come about because we all actively listen to music. We put a record on and pay attention to what's coming out of the speakers. So the music we create is in the vein of what we all happen to listen to."

Von Grimm sums it up with a satisfied grin.

"I think it just illustrates how we're selfish and how we make music for ourselves. We make music we like. We make videos we like. We'd never follow what's popular on the charts."