We did an inteview with Chole and Jon from Pure Reason Revolution and chatted about their current album, how they pick set lists and much more.

Hello guys introduce your selves to anyone that might not know who you are?
(Jon) I’m not very good at these ones
(Chloe) Hi I’m Chloe from Pure Reason Revolution and we are a band that play fantastic music (laughter)

So guys where have you been since the last album what have you been up to?
(Jon) em let me think when did the album actual come out? Was it 2 years ago?
(Chloe) three I think?
(Jon) well we kind of got shuffled down Sony and when that finally went tits up. We landed a new deal with a label insideout, who Sony had licensed the first record out to for Europe, and so we switched record deals and that process took a bit of time
(Chloe) and now we have readjusted to the new label and have planned what we are going to do, we have been recording and that took a long time mostly
(Jon) I supposed we have been touring but we have not done much in the UK, we have done a good few tours in mainland Europe over the past 3 years,
(Chloe) so I supposed UK side we have looked a bit dormant, but we haven’t it’s been really hectic

You said you recorded a new album, what was that like? Since I have heard a bit of it and it seem like you have more electronic sound to it, even though the first record has always had elements of electronic to it.
(Jon) Chloe and I have been DJing allot of the past 3 years, and I don’t know we have big record collections to take influence from, lots of different types of music, but we definitely wanted to push it more electronic, big influence from bands like Depeche Mode, 80s era Fleetwood Mac, allot of the newer stuff coming out of Paris. The harmonies of Pure Reason Revolution are ever present but we always said from the beginning that anything goes really, if we want to use any kind of instrumentation, song length, basically use anything for instrumental textures, there are no boundaries or rules. It’s how we create music.

You mention a few influences there, care to elaborate on anymore?
(ELO) huge fans, digitalism are really cool, Sebastian tellia, simian mobiles disco, joakim,

You re-released your first record, what was the premise behind that, was it a marketing thing?
It came out in UK on Sony, then it came out in Europe on insideout, that was the European version

When you listen to your record you can see the song writing isn’t standard, how do you guys go about to create music like that?
(Jon) I have an old Dictaphone that I record ideas on, something like a verse or a chorus, I’m basically always churning out those ideas, then that might be a rough idea like piano or guitar and then basically I go back through those tapes and then finish songs. So ill go find that verse, chorus idea I had then I take it on the computer and make a rough session. Then play with some synthesisers, program in some drums or live drums or whatever. So its always a piece by piece recording progress, its never all four of us in a room playing, it just a couple of us working on something, so its all done in stages and layers I suppose.

So you have been on a tour, how has that been so far?
(Chloe) Tiring, it nice to get out there been so long in then making. It’s good to get some direct reaction from people and find out how the new stuff is going down. We have been surprised by the turn outs,
(Jon) it’s been really busy
(Chloe) we didn’t have high expectations, but we sold out a quite a few venues on the tour and it’s great
(Jon) we have been away for so long people are like what the hell are they doing now

So what are the fans like? The ones you didn’t think you had.
(Jon) we always get a mix bag in the crowd, 18 year olds to 40 year olds,
(Chloe) even plus 40 we get the old prog heads, they are really dedicated fans and then we get really young kids, its sweet. It’s a good cross section

Any eventual things occur on this tour?
(Chloe) God we always have several disasters when we go away, but thus far….
(Jon) well the projectors not working, but its not very exciting not crazy tour stuff
(Chloe) we have so much equipment that something inevitable always goes wrong, we are hanging on by a thread
(Jon) we saw John legends crew taking his stiff next door, and we were like we need that so much.
(Chloe) they have 3 tours buses
(Jon) Just turning up to a gig and not doing anything and just performing would be amazing. But we have so much stuff then we have to take it up the horrible stairs, do the sound check then remove all the stuff from the stage, its like missions.We do have a small crew we have a tech and are tour manager. But it’s not enough
(Chloe) we want another 2 bus full
(Jon) I just want to do nothing, we have really rambled about this (laughter)

What can a set list can we expect tonight?
(Jon) We do quite a big set off the old and the new stuff. It’s been quite a challenge with the new stuff because it is more electronic so we are doing some of those electronic things on guitars and stuff like that.
(Chloe) we always give it our all live, you know its always a energetic show, that probably why we are so knackered, we cover allot as band members to re produce what’s on the record, everyone has to be doing everything all the time. We do give allot live.

So a big set list then?
(Jon) hour and a half with a 50/50 ratio old to new

Now I usually ask a band if I gave you an acoustic guitar what pop song would you cover, now for you guys since you’re a bit different, what song would you pure reason revolutionise?
(Jon) I don’t know if I can say, since the idea might go out there, we definitely do something Fleetwood Mac, but watch this space for a Fleetwood Mac thing, we cant tell you the track since you might nick are idea, then you might pure reason revolutionise it (laughter)

So any support acts tonight?
(Jon) No support acts tonight,
(Chloe) Expect for London its domino vaie, the essential thing for us with support acts is that he band finish quickly since we have so much stuff, since we have to bring on and change over its so hectic that it has to be quick.

Like a singer songwriter?
(Laughter) (Jon) yeah that’s perfect

Any band that you have supported that it’s been an honour to play with?
(Jon) We supported porcupine tree, and that always a pleasure.
(Chloe) and they are an amazing musicians, so we can learn allot. Steve Willson is a good friend of ours.
(Jon) I always have a tech off, like a little tech talk, like how he is getting on with logic and if he has bought any new exciting new recording things bit geeky.

What are the plans after the tour?
(Jon) more recording, bunch of festival over summer, more promotion for this record, it also being released in Japan. So a Japanese tour at some point

Ok one random question if you had to choose animal out of a zebra and a giraffe to be, what would it be?
(Chloe) I would blatantly be a zebra, since there semi cool and well designed
(Jon) very fashionable, I think I would like to be a giraffe since it’s massive, I would love to have that vantage point

Thank you very much for doing this interview guys and is there anything you would like to say to the people reading this?
(Jon) standard buy the record
(Chloe) we don’t come with the massive epic mission statement.

Interview By Ashik