08/04/00 nme 'on' 

Imagine, if you will, a band entirely stripped of ego. A band to whom magnanimity is paramount; with pop star hubris vanquished and each - equally important - member's ideas welcomed with open arms. It's the musician's dream; the pop person's Oz and, for most, a situation about as viable as a good Geri Halliwell single. Meet The Animalhouse.

Formed in early-1998 by Mark Gardener, former singer and guitarist with indie noise-pups Ride, and erstwhile Supergrass producer Sam Williams on guitar and vocals, the collective (completed by purple-haired bassist Hari Teah, keyboardist Jason King, and fellow Ride refugee, drummer Loz Colbert) have turned the seemingly impossible into a reality.

"Nowadays, bands seem limited to one singer, one ego and one person's ideas," muses Sam. "The emotional range is so limited. What's ground-breaking about our set-up is that everyone sings and writes, so there's a constant cross-pollination of ideas. Everyone has equal input and we truly support each other. You've got to go back to bands like The Beach Boys and The Beatles to find anyone trying anything similar."

But while The Animalhouse may appear closer in spirit to a hippy commune than any pie'n'mash indie combo, their music betrays a far more forward-thinking outlook. Their debut three-track single, 'Animal', embraced everything from shivery, neon-lit pop-noir ('Sodium Glow') and pastoral atmospherics ('Essence') to the beat-laden buzz of the title track. Current single 'Small', meanwhile, sounds like Devo. As mixed by a mad monkey with a car alarm fetish. There's not, as you may have gathered by now, a trace of Ride to be found.

"I ended up feeling very constricted by Ride," frowns Mark. "It just wasn't creative any more. By the end, I had very different ideas than Andy (Bell, guitarist and recent addition to Oasis' ranks) about where I wanted it to go. I wanted to move into new, more experimental areas while Andy was still into the older stuff." "We're mixing reference points in the same way as a DJ would mix records," continues Sam. "And there's no limit as to how far you can take that." And what of that name? "It just seemed to have a basic humanity about it, and reflected the nature of our collective. It's an embracing term."

The Animalhouse: open and ready for business.

and, from the same issue of nme.....

small review

('small' is...) An unforgivable, creatively sterile collaboration between two ex-members of Ride, the chap who produces Supergrass' records and two of their friends, The Animalhouse arrive with the enviable reputation of being one of the worst live bands NME has seen for some time. This is their second single and what it lacks in flair, imagination and general competence it more than makes up for in its uncanny resemblance to a Supergrass B-side. The second track is called, irresistibly, 'What Happened To The Future?'. You make records like this, you find out fast. "

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