Our favourite new band or our new favourite band or maybe even both...
"Listen to this," someone said to us a few months ago as they handed us their iPod.
"This is good," we said. "It is a bit of a Lily Allen-meets-Jamie T-meets-electro-blippy-pop sort of thing."
"It is a band called The Clik Clik," they said. "They are two teenagers from London. They're great."
"They certainly sound great," we said. "Hang on! Popjustice is based in London too - maybe we should meet up with this so-called 'Clik Clik' band and see what they are all about."
So we set up a top secret summit in a pub round the corner and asked them some questions.
Here is what we discovered.
BUT FIRST!
The band are letting You The Viewer download one of their songs for free!
It is called 'Paris Hilton'!
It's not on their MySpace !
We haven't seen them do it live!
Victoria Newton would probably bang on about 'exclusive this' or 'exclusive that'!
But we are not Victoria Newton so we will just say....
They invented The Clik Clik when they were at college. Stefan had been in bands playing terrible 'rock' and 'punk' music but then he started learning how to use Reason (we have no idea what this is it's probably a computer program of some sort and we just nodded and went 'oh right' when he told us). Then Maya got involved and now here we are.
They both studied music at college and have BTECs in that subject. They are therefore fully qualified to be popstars.
That all happened last year. LAST YEAR!
Maya listens to lots of Motown and soul and (OH GOD!!!) jazz.
Stefan stopped listening to quite as much guitar-based racket when he heard Justice vs Simian's 'We Are Your Friends' and thought 'hang on, this amazing electronic pop music is quite good after all'. "Fundamentally it's a rock tune, with all that electro around it," he notes. What is he talking about? We suppose it makes sense in his own head. "I guess electro was the thing that joined our influences together – we weren't gonna start a rocky jazz group," Stefan adds. Thank God for that.
Maya is originally from London and moved to Somerset when she was three – only 18 months after that area of the country first got electricity. Her dad is a computer programmer (so probably invents robots in the garden shed) and her mum is a florist so that's flowers out of the window for Mothers Day. Her dad was once in a band called The Doll, who were signed to Beggars Banquet. The Doll had a song called 'Don't Tango On My Heart' and if that's not a massive Girls Aloud anthem waiting to be rewritten but with the same title we don't know what is.
Advice given to Maya by her dad as regards being in a band is "Don't get fucked over! Cos he got fucked over by the business, so he's quite protective over it, as any parent would be. He didn't really have a choice though, cos I'm such a persistent person, and I just wanted to do it. And they knew and they wouldn't stop me." Woo – living the dream etc.
After moving back to London from the land of horses and carts or whatever modes of transport they use in Somerset to go to college, Maya moved in with her gran. Maya's gran's favourite The Clik Clik song is 'I Can't Take You Anywhere'. "She's 82 or something," Maya says, "and she still does yoga. She's always out. I went back today to tell her I was going out for the evening, and she wasn't there." RAVE GRAN ALERT!!!!
Stefan's dad is from Birmingham and his mum is from London. They are both full-time musicians and the family's main source of income is from playing gigs. They are like the 'new model for the music industry' but in a family. They do covers and stuff. "Didn't your dad do something for Tony Blair?" screams Maya. "Yes," confirms Stefan. "Stef's dad tried to get Tony Blair up on stage but he wasn't having it!" Maya clarifies.
'Did You Wrong'
(Amazing.)
When he was seven years old Stefan sang 'The Bad Touch' by The Bloodhound gang on karaoke. That would probably be banned now by killjoy anti-paedophile police but in those days it was perfectly acceptable.
They buy their clothes from places like charity shops, H&M, Top Shop and the like. That is one of the things we quite like about The Clik Clik: they are well presented but they're not all "blah blah East London this blah blah fashionable market stall that".
Stefan wears hats a lot.
Stefan likes colourful things.
Maya had her favourite pair of trainers stolen from London niteclub YoYo. Probably by 'Lily Allen' or 'Mark Ronson' or 'Seb Chew' or someone like that.
They play live quite a lot and they are quite good at playing live so we suggest you go and have a look and a listen next time they are performing near you.
They like to play at 'all age' (ie full of screaming toddlers) gigs but they don't think there are enough in London and would like to change that. Well they should start their own club up then, shouldn't they, rather than moaning about it. Come on, The so-called Clik Clik, pull your fingers out.
"I wouldn't say MySpace as been as big a part of our career as for a lot of bands out there at the moment," Stefan says. "I mean I just want people to hear and cotton on about it rather than shoving it in people's faces." Wise words Stefan. Wise words.
They don't have jobs because they are basically unemployable. "If we were working we'd get sacked," Maya says. "We'd be missing work all the time because we were playing gigs."
Stefan's first job was selling perfume in Boots in Oxford Circus. He was one of those people who stands around trying to spray you with scent when all you want is a pair of nail clippers. Stefan has one anecdote and one anecdote only from his time at Boots. "One guy ran in once and he was like 'do you know where the lubrication is?', and I was like, 'I think it might be over by the condoms', and then he shouted across the whole shop 'CHEERS! I'VE FOUND THE LUBRICATION!'." We don't think that anecdote is good enough to be used on a Parkinson-style chat show but it will do for the time being.
Maya used to work in a pub in Somerset. It must have been quite difficult working by candlelight and using a clockwork cash till. "I walked past this shelf once and all the plates fell on the floor and they took it out of my wages!" Maya says. Again, not exactly Parkinson-worthy but it's a story which passes a bit of time.
Stefan – THIS IS AN AMAZING FACT – was the voice of the Milky Bar Kid in a TV advertisement.
They have a Clik Clik group on Facebook. "Facebook is fun cos you can stalk people," Maya says. "You can add people you fancied when you were in Year 5 at school, and you can look at what they're doing, and they don't have a clue. I mean that sounds quite scary and psychotic but everyone does it." Not everyone, Maya. Do not judge everybody else by your own standards.
Let's go back to this 'jazz' business. Can Maya explain? "Well, I used to sing jazz, but I'm not a jazzer!" she says. She is obviously 'on the back foot'. "A lot of it's just musicians trying to complicate things. It's nice, some of it, but more the commercial stuff like Ella Fitzgerald, when it was the pop music of the time. Some jazz is ridiculous."
"The people we don't want to be compared to are people who are nothing like us," says Maya. Adds Stefan: "I've nothing against emo people, but it's so far away from what we do." "You were an emo until I turned you!" yells Maya.
When Stefan was emo he couldn't aggressively straighten his hair like proper emo kids because it was so curly. This made him even more emo, sending him into a spiral of emoness from which he has only recently recovered.
If they were required to explain The Clik Clik's music to aliens, they would say "poppy choruses, with really just everything really manic and intense - electro indie pop" (Stefan) and "pop with a twist – each different song has a different fusion, so if you don't like one song you might like another" (Maya).
Stefan once played Clik Clik song 'So Many Problems' to Ne-Yo. "I went to a songwriting masterclass, some random thing where I was picked from my college. It was last year. And he was like 'it's not to the point enough, you need the 'woah woah woah' to come in even quicker', that sort of thing. But I didn't change it." You see, Stefan, what you should have done is taken his advice, given him some sort of nominal writing credit as a result, and then chucked it on the press release and then everyone would go 'ooh, The Clik Clik are amazing and bound to be big because they have been working with Ne-Yo' and then it just be a fast-track to the Radio One playlist innit.
'My Dunks'
(Amazing.)
Stefan and Maya say that they have never got off with each other but we bet they have and are just hideously embarrassed about it now. Maya says things like "I'm not attracted to him! We're friends!". *Entire world raises eyebrow*
They used to not have a drummer but now they don't not have a drummer. They literally have a drummer. Here at Popjustice we're always a bit iffy about the whole 'live drums' thing but it works alright for The Clik Clik.
The band have an AMAZING song called 'My Dunks'. It is about footwear. Notes Stefan: "When I started writing it, I was on my way to school with my dad in the car, and we saw this kid stopping and cleaning his shoes every ten seconds cos we were in a traffic jam. They were these bright white trainers. I thought it was so stupid, and I looked down and I was wearing bright white Nikes as well." Maya is less than impressed with bright white shoes, and has no objection to some mild scuffing.
Stefan considers 'My Dunks' to be a "modern day love song".
Their logo is amazing.
Despite being influenced by Bobby Darin, the decade known as the 1990s, Frank Sinatra, Christmas and hip-hop, 'This Is Life' by The Clik Clik is not a mess of big band, jingle bells and 2 Unlimited. It is, much like 'My Dunks', amazing.
Stefan considers getting mugged to be a common occurence in modern London. Maya is appalled at this way of thinking. Stefan does have a point to be honest. What has this country become? We're all going to Hell in a handcart etc.
Maya did not cope well at the approach of her 19th birthday. "I want to be 18 forever," muttered the gnarled old crone before falling asleep during an episode of Countdown prior to hitting the big 1-9 a few weeks ago.
Growing up, Maya and Stefan had different interests but both encountered the darker side of human behaviour. "Growing up in Somerset, you've got the dens and petty crime. I remember once, one of my friends got in trouble for going to the church and drawing some rude pictures in the guest book," Maya recalls. What with this being Somerset it was probably done with a quill and some ink, or perhaps a stone tablet. Ball point pens were only introduced to Somerset in 2004.
Stefan is 'a bit handy'. "I used to be into fights when I was younger," he says. "I'm not an angry person at all, but it's just when it builds up and builds up and then it really kicks off." Readers, please note that this is not 'carte blanche' to kick the living shit out of him if you see him out and about in London town because he is really quite a pleasant chap.
Their song 'Paris Hilton' is about an actual person – but that person is not Paris Hilton. "There was a girl at college I liked," says Stefan. "That song is a love song to her in disguise." The song is about infatuation and "not wanting to bite the bullet and be with her". The girl in question was obsessed with Paris Hilton, which would explain why the song was not called Tara Palmer Tomkinson. The song itself "goes off the point, reverses and comes back," in case you were wondering.
Controversially, Stefan likes his women to be good looking and to have a personality.
Stefan did not write 'I Can't Take You Anywhere' about Maya, although things nearly 'kicked off' when she thought for a moment that he might have. Instead, the song is written about others' observations on him. Stefan considers the song "the most Frankmusik" of their tracks, an observation which will currently make sense to about 112 people in East London but will make a lot more sense when Frankmusik is an internationally-platinum-selling pop phenomenon nine months from now.
The Clik Clik do not share the Government's concern over binge drinking in the UK. In fact, The Clik Clik are the REASON for the Government's concern over binge drinking in the UK. "We went to a free bar in Mayfair with the guy who plays drums for us and we took advantage in the bar," Stefan recalls fondly. "They were lying in their sick. One of our group was drunk for two days - he had alcohol poisoning and he was really ill. We either had to take him to the hospital or my house." They took him to Stefan's house.
Further The Clik Clik tales relating to the hilarity of alcoholism involve Maya sleeping with her head in a bucket. "She wasn't vomiting, she just slept with her head in a bucket," says Stefan. "That's a complete lie," says Maya - like a big girl in denial. The bucket in question, we have discovered, was either green, turquoise or beige. Reports are conflicting.
Stefan has a strange illness which makes him a difficult sort to take for dinner. "He has a condition called achalasia, which is where the muscles which push your food down don't work," says Maya. "He has to get me to order a tap water everytime we go out to eat – he has to push his food down with water." We don't know how serious the condition is so we won't make too much of a joke of it. "1 in 100,000 young people have it," says Stefan, which means the condition has something in common with the Mutya album.
Maya once mistook a hangover for whiplash.
So anyway, those are a handful of the reasons why The Clik Clik are amazing.
'My Dunks' is out as a limited edition 7" at the beginning of December.
They are called Stefan and Maya.
