Hot Chip interview | 'If we were a football team, I'd definitely be the goalkeeper'
Egeskov Castle doesn't seem a bad place to be on a Saturday night in summertime.
Extraordinarily picturesque and sat in the centre of a lake on the Danish island of Funen, the 16th-century fortress will this year host everyone from Kris Kristofferson to Lewis Capaldi as part of Heartland Festival 2019, taking place from May 30 to June 1.
But for at least one of the performers on that third and final night of the festival, there’s one other place they would much rather be. Estadio Metropolitano in north east Madrid, to be precise - with setlists and sound systems taking a back seat to line-ups and tactical systems for one night only.
“I do have plans for the [Champions League] final…” Felix Martin, one-fifth of electro group Hot Chip, tells Liverpoolfc.com somewhat ruefully. “But unfortunately they’re not football-based plans - they’re based around playing a festival in Denmark. I’ve been trying to work out whether I’ll be able to see it, and I think we’re playing at 11.45 that night, so I should be OK… unless it goes to extra-time and penalties!”
Heartland will be the second of 17 festival appearances across Europe between now and the end of August for Hot Chip, the band behind club classics Over and Over and Ready for the Floor. With their seventh studio album, A Bath Full of Ecstasy, due to be released on June 21, eight days before they make a first appearance at Glastonbury festival since 2015, it’s looking like being a rather epic summer for the London outfit come what may, but will be doubly special for lifelong Red Felix if it begins with Liverpool winning a major trophy.
“If we win it, it’s going to be a great summer,” he enthuses, speaking just days after concluding a 13-date tour in San Francisco, with the band’s biggest headline tour taking place in Europe and North America later in the year.
“Glastonbury is definitely pretty unique as a festival, and the fact they don’t really have corporate branding and sponsorship everywhere makes it feel like a big wedding or something. It’s wicked, a really cool experience.”
Renowned for quirky humour, movie references and tender evocations of social alienation, Hot Chip doesn’t seem an obvious haven for aficionados of the beautiful game. And, strictly speaking, it isn’t, according to Felix, who describes bandmates Al Doyle and Owen Clarke as ‘football agnostics’.
It just so happens, however, that those who do take an interest - Felix and lead singer/lyricist Alexis Taylor - support Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, the two clubs that will do battle for European football’s most prestigious club prize this Saturday, respectively.
“Alexis is a Spurs fan, but not really a committed one,” Felix explains. “His mood doesn’t live or die based on how they’re doing, which is probably the true measure of whether you support a team or not! But, yeah, he’ll probably be supporting them in the final.
“My initial gut reaction was disappointment when they eliminated Ajax, because we play Spurs twice a year anyway and they’re not really games that I look forward to. I like them as a team, they’ve got some amazing players and Mauricio Pochettino is a good manager, but Liverpool-Spurs games always seem very tense and tight in this era. I’m still confident that we can win it, but I’m not sure I can stand another tense finish, or penalties!”
Almost every member of Hot Chip plays several instruments and contributes to vocals - a level of multi-tasking that would almost make James Milner envious, and a collective spirit that Jürgen Klopp would surely approve of. For his part, Felix plays synths and drum machines, although he has a more colourful way of putting it than that.
“If we were a football team I’d definitely be the goalkeeper. Coincidentally, that’s where I used to play in my school days - being a foot taller than everyone else helps with that!”
The story of how Felix came to support Liverpool in the first place goes all the way back to World War II, and involves a Scouse grandmother, Peter Beardsley and some Evertonian cousins.
He says: “My gran was from Liverpool; she had to leave with her family because of the bombing during the war and could never go back because she was traumatised by her experiences. But she always had this great passion for Liverpool, so when I was growing up she encouraged me to be a Liverpool fan and we used to watch games on her TV, she was really into it.
“The first season when I got into Liverpool, Peter Beardsley was coming through, and he was really exciting to watch, the way he developed during that season.
“My dad wasn’t really a football fan at all, but he used to come to the games with me. Whenever Liverpool had a game in London, at Selhurst Park or White Hart Lane or whatever, he would come along, although he wouldn’t necessarily enjoy it!
“When I actually met the rest of my Liverpool family - which wasn’t until I was about 18 or 19 - it turned out they were all Evertonians. They couldn’t believe it, but there was no way I was going to swap colours at that time.”
Nowadays Felix makes regular trips to Liverpool as part of Hot Chip’s touring schedule, and the last visit - to headline BBC 6 Music Festival at the end of March - coincided with a dress rehearsal for the forthcoming Champions League final. The gig took place at the Liverpool Olympia, and that afternoon the musician took the short walk up towards Anfield, where a scrambled late goal gave Klopp’s men a 2-1 win over Spurs and a massive three points in the Premier League title race.
“I had this incredibly frustrating situation where a friend actually had a ticket for the match but it was in his house and he was on holiday!” he recalls. “I ended up spending the match outside Anfield, wandering around like a sad little man listening on my radio, taking in the crowd and the atmosphere. I had to start walking back to the Olympia before the end but when that goal went in you could still hear the roar quite far away from the stadium. It was a great experience actually.
“I think Klopp, from day one, seemed to understand that there was at least a potential for that special bond between the team and the crowd at Anfield, and that’s something that he’s consciously developed, because maybe the atmosphere wasn’t something you could take for granted for the last 10 years. It’s through his effort, as well as fan groups like Spion Kop 1906, that that very unique atmosphere has been brought back.”
Unfortunately for Felix, there seems to be a clear correlation between the games he doesn’t attend and big results for LFC.
“I was at home,” he replies when asked where he took in the sensational 4-0 victory over FC Barcelona that rubberstamped Liverpool’s participation in club football’s grandest one-off game.
“I watch a lot of games on my own at home, basically because I find it incredibly stressful. I don’t know how to describe it, but it really takes all my focus and attention, and I find that if I’m watching it in the pub or even at a mate’s house, it just doesn’t feel right, and I’m also very superstitious about things. If we lose a game - not that that’s been happening very much recently - I always think, ‘I’m not going to put myself in that situation again.’
“I had a bit of hope, but it was buried beneath a lot of writing off. I suppose I was just hardening myself and preparing myself for ending the season with nothing, but when the first goal went in, I thought, ‘This could be interesting.’ My main thing was that I just couldn’t believe we were going to keep a clean sheet. With Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho there alongside Lionel Messi, it just made it all the sweeter. It was amazing - difficult to put into words.”
Listen to Hot Chip's new single, 'Hungry Child' on the Liverpool FC playlist...