After quite a spellbinding year which saw Funeral Party play Reading, Leeds and Download festivals in the U.K. Goldenplec caught up with the L.A group on the phone ahead of their Irish date in February 2011,as they arrived in London from France. Speaking on behalf of the band are James and Chad.

Not everyone will have heard of you in Ireland so for those who haven’t, tell us a bit about the band?

“Ok, well the band formed around two years ago. We’re all high school friends who grew up together and it just felt right to set up a band. We started out playing back yard parties at the weekend as we wanted to be a part of that scene in LA.

The name of your band’s quite strange – How did you come up with it?

“The name comes from the Cure song of the same name. Chad discovered his sister playing it one day when she was really depressed and it just seemed to fit. The other guys didn’t like it at first, but eventually we just went with it.”

When you were starting out you borrowed other bands kit to play – Why was that and did it cause you much hassle?

“We actually had no gear at the start which caused some hassle when trying to organise gigs but it was a lot of fun trying! We used to roll in a caravan to our gigs and we almost always played around 10 as the cops were guaranteed to break it up by 11 as they were normally pretty crazy!”

I read somewhere that one of your gigs got out of control and a fan was injured? I suppose that freaked you out a bit?

“Yeah someone got stabbed at one of the backyard gigs we were playing! At another one of our gigs kids started throwing bottles at the Police so they were being showered with glass. The gig didn’t go ahead as it got shut down when the cops swarmed the place.”

On that note, let’s move onto your music! NME described you as ‘Reigniting indie rock and roll’s embers’ – How would you describe your particular style?

“Ahh, someone else asked us to categorise our sound and it’s quite difficult to – we said they should make up a teenage category as we basically play music for teenagers”.

Ok, who would you cite as being major influencers on your sound?

James – “I personally love the strokes so have to say they have a big influence on my approach to music”.

Chad – “One of my biggest influences is a band that sadly never made it out of L.A. They were called Friends in the Mountains and were the first band I ever saw. They were great and made me want to join a band”

You’ve played the Reading and Leeds festivals and Download in the UK. Obviously they attract quite different crowds, so did your music go down the same at all three festivals?

“Yeah our music went down pretty well at all three as we filled every gig we were at. I think on some aspirational level we come across to everybody as our music relates to everyone. Almost everyone wants to get out from where they are and we try to capture that with our music and lyrics.

Did you find playing there was much different to playing in the States?

“Yeah a bit. People are more receptive in the UK and a lot of the bands we like are from there. We found that people were generally just observing when we first started playing here and they didn’t really know us, but the more times you come back the more receptive they are. You start to notice heads bobbing and eventually they start to move a bit more until eventually they’re jumping around”

You’ve been on a tour of the States not that long ago with Two Door Cinema Club – How did that go?

“It was cool, they’re cool guys. We played 4 or 5 venues with them and it was interesting as we hadn’t heard of them before, but it went quite well.”

You’re new album on Jive Records is out in 2011. What should we expect from it?

“Yeah, the album is a hot pot of songs written both when we first formed and more recently. It’s an introduction to us as a band and what our sound is about and there’s a lot of teenage angst and energy in the album.”

You worked with Lars Stalfors on that album. He’s done some excellent work with other bands. What was it like working with him?

“Lars is cool. He’s an old friend of ours. We met him at one of the back yard parties we were playing, I’d say about the fourth show in. At the time he was just interning but something about us made him come up and ask had we a recording. We ended up doing a short demo with him and we found that we were comfortable with him because he knew what sound we were trying achieve and from there we started to properly record our material.”

Cool. One of your earlier singles New York City Moves to the Sound of L.A was pretty successful. Was this some sort of statement and were you pleased with the reception to it?

“The statement we tried to make with that song got a bit muddy. Everyone keeps coming up to us asking why we hate NY so much, but we weren’t trying to talk about new York itself or how we hate it. We were trying to talk about the repeating of trends and how things go in a vicious circle. We wanted to pick on NY people’s sense of pride in how cool and trendsetting they think they are and generally just pick on anyone who thinks they’re cool.”

You were named in the top 50 bands for 2010 by NME, got a spotlight feature in Q magazine, got added to Zane Lowe’s hottest record in the world playlist and named his record of the week. That’s a pretty good year by anyone’s standards? How did you feel about it?

“Over-excited definitely! It’s weird as we don’t want to be egotistical and say we deserved it, but we did work a lot for it. I think we’re growing up and appreciating what we’ve worked for and the rewards that come with all this hard work.”

With that in mind what would the ideal 2011 hold for Funeral Party?

“Well we hope our record’s received well for a start and we want to play as many places as possible. We also want to make a start on record number two – so yeah that would make a great 2011.”

Is life on the road touring as fun as it’s made out to be or are you guys generally quite reserved?

“Life on the road can be a bit crazy. It’s much different over here than in the U.S. In the U.S there’s a lot of drinking involved but at the end of the day we’re always primed and ready for our show no matter how much fun we have!”

Where’s the craziest place you’ve played so far?

“Japan – over there it was like we were playing in the future or something as everything is so different! We were only there for a weekend so it was like we had to absorb all of Japanese culture in the space of a day. It was also strange to see so much synchronised jumping. We’ve never seen so many people jumping together at exactly the same time!”

What’s the most outrageous thing that’s happened you on your travels so far?

Chad: I’d say it was the first time I ever crowd surfed which was at Download. I wasn’t planning on it but we got a really good response out of the crowd, I think because we didn’t really fit in with the style of the rest of the bands. So I leaned out, sort of into the crowd and got pulled into it! It was a strange sensation – like floating on a river – so that was pretty cool.

Ok, finally before you come over here in February, have you anything you’d like to say to your Irish fans?

“Yeah! Lets Party!! We can’t wait to get over and play and do some drinking!!”

So there you have it. A rapidly rising band from L.A who are dying to get over and play in Ireland, and what better way to start the Spring than their show in the Academy on Feb 1st 2011. Tickets available from Ticketmaster.ie