Phantom are Elsie Martins and Jonny Martin. The pair met in London when Elsie decided to leave her native Canada and her TV presenting job at Musique Plus behind. They released their debut single Great Pretender last year, which garnered praise from the press and their piers alike. Now they’ve dropped a drummer and are pushing forward as a stylish, avant-garde two-piece. This year they have a second single planned – Voodoo Romantic (released August 2nd 2010) - and a debut album – Smoke & Mirrors – planned for release on August 16th 2010. The pair also plan to tour Italy end of July and have an album launched planned on August 24th 2010 at The Lexington. Busy bees indeed! Read on to find out more…

1. Why did Elsie decide to leave her lovely job at Musique Plus in Canada?

Elsie: I loved working at MusiquePlus but  as long as I can remember I wanted to live in London. So I took a leap of faith. It’s a simple answer, but it was a difficult decision to leave a job I loved and move to a country where I didn’t know anyone and really had no idea what was going to happen to me. Phantom was a beautiful accident, I was planning a TV career. Life happens and you just have to go with the flow sometimes.

Photo by David Llewellyn Griffiths

2. How does the music scene in Canada differ from the UK?

Elsie: I find things in the UK move very fast, there is an appetite for new sounds and for novelty, which is driving the industry to look out and take notice of new bands. The UK singles market and national radio impact means that a relatively new band can have a radio single played and it can be heard all over the country. That doesn’t really happen in Canada, where radio isn’t broadcast in the same way so the impact localised and it’s far more difficult for new bands to break and take-off. Having said that I also think that the brits are completely obsessed with new music, which can sometimes mean that they are fickle and turn the other cheek too quickly once something has passed its’ craze.

You should bear in mind that I’ve been here for 10 years now…. so am hardly up-to-date on what the market is like in Canada now and I worked in mainstream music TV and journalism so my experience is very specific. That’s not to say that they are no magazines, blogs, radio shows championing new Canadian music out there, because am sure there are.

3. Scottish band The Phantom Band are another well known band with “phantom” in the title of their band name. But what makes you guys – Phantom – differ from these “great pretenders” (ooh sorry!)?

Hmm… we use the sound of the Mars space rover in our music – that’s different enough!

4. You write very interesting lyrics. In your debut single Elsie sings “I am the thief, I am the liar, watch me steal, steal her desire...” We’re intrigued, what’s this song about?

Elsie: It’s about being free from people who poison your life with negativity and learning not to feel bad about having to be selfish to survive. It’s also about feeling a little guilty (nothing is ever black and white). So it’s my conscience exorcising, purging. I had a friend a few years ago that I had to cut ties with in order to pursue my dreams and do things I’ve always wanted to do but never knew I could… but maybe I’m just pretending that I can.

5. You’ve changed your sound a little from the first single (Great Pretender). Why did you decide to drop a drummer and go down a more avante-garde route?

It mainly comes from listening to a lot of experimental sounds and wanting to push the envelope a little. For us ”traditional” drumming was not an option. There was a lot of sounds and ideas we wanted to explore and to be honest a drummer could not give us the sound of, say for example, a lump of earth falling on the ground with a thump followed by a trail of rocks and sand that ripples and echoes. Repeat that sound in time and you’ve got a really interesting beat. So you see our dilemma? The rhythms on Smoke & Mirrors were all created using sounds we found around us. We really wanted the album to be an exploration of rhythms found, created and used outside of the “usual” musical contexts. Smoke & Mirrors is a first attempt at introducing sound art to a wider audience by amalgamating this practice into more traditional song-based compositions.

We really want our music to be accessible, we’re not into trying to cater to a specific niche market, we want this album to be heard widely so we decide to release the single as a free download on our website www.thisisphantom.com. No trick, no fee, no need to sign up to a mailing list either. A few clicks and it’s all yours.

6. The forthcoming single, Voodoo Romantic, sounds like it was inspired by the darker side of 80s indie. What are your influences?

Elsie:  I’m a huge Chameleons fan so maybe they’ve crept up in there. Other than that we listen to a lot of non-80′s music, a lot of experimental and instrumental stuff like Svarte Greiner and Tim Hecker, I also love Billie Holiday and Nina Simone and I think Maryanne Amacher is a genious. Nick Cave is, in my opinion, the best story teller of my generation.

Jonny: A constant for me is late Talk Talk – I’m always finding myself gravitating back to their last three albums, which get progressively darker (the last two were made amid relationship break-ups and general madness), but I hear them more as “intense” rather than “dark”. Elsie and I get pretty intense talking about music, and much of it is dark – miserable, even – but we’re not miserable people!

7. You’re a band with a very unique style. Is this deliberate and how much do you think style influences the way people choose to listen to bands these days?

Elsie: It’s not deliberate in the sense that we talk about what we’re going to wear on stage etc. – we really don’t! We’re not that fussed about it. But we do love to dress up and I think cultivating a certain style, or image, is fun and I like to indulge in it, on and off stage. But there’s a flip side to everything and I’m conscious of the dangers of style over substance. Fashion can help make you feel wonderful, seductive, confident… and it’s liberating to dress up but it’s not what Jonny and I talk about at rehearsals and in the studio.

Style / Fashion / Aesthetics in music has always been a good selling point but I like to think that the music is really what’s more important.  If a band doesn’t look the part they might not be as easily marketable (from a label/pr point of view) but that doesn’t mean that their music is shit. I don’t like the idea of style having that much influence on what people choose to listen to – that sounds a little shallow to me.

Photo by David Llewellyn Griffiths

8. There are many female fronted bands in pop, indie and rock – do you think this stands Phantom in good stead or are you against going down the “female fronted” route?

Elsie: I’m very comfortable with people putting Phantom in the female fronted band category; I think that having strong female musicians and performers is a massively important thing. I wholeheartedly support female artists becoming healthy role models to young girls and inspiring them to learn to play an instrument (and beat the boys at their own game!).

Unfortunately though, it’s not all black and white when associations are gender focused. I think the whole female fronted selling point can have an adverse effect and end up fuelling the sexist clichés that so many women have fought (and still fight) to bring down. I really can’t stand some of the pop music divas who shamelessly wiggle around on stage doing very little but exaggerated sexually explicit dance moves, just as much as I can’t stand bands who rely on the “sex-shock” factor and have female performers who do more damage than good – it’s so clichéd and cheap. So there’s a fine line that needs to be drawn so that females performers are not seen as marketing opportunities and cheap props to get attention and sell music.

9. You’re music has been described as a “black cat sneaking across silk sheets”. If Phantom were a cat, what kind of cat would you be?

Elsie: I would be all cats of all shapes and sizes. I could be a moggy one day and a black panther the next. Felines, no matter what size or breed, are the most beautiful and fascinating creatures to my eyes. I wish I was a cat.

Jonny: I have a cat called Alvy, named after Woody Allen’s character in Annie Hall. He’s a bit of a fighter, but seems to have a pretty interesting life, so he’d be a good choice.

10. You’ve made it, you’re the biggest thing in avant-garde experimental indie-rock and Hollywood come knocking at your door. They want to make a film about Phantom! Who would you get to direct your story and who would play you both in this film and why?

Elsie:  I love this question! Let’s indulge then.. Okay, a director would be, for me, without a doubt no other than Jean Cocteau – I adore him. Man Ray would be pretty cool too though. And as far as an actress to play me… I’m not keen on your typical Holywood actresses; I’d love someone like Anna Karina, she would be fantastic (that’s because she’d be playing someone idolising her!) or Louise Brooks, I’d also say Samantha Morten - she’s pretty cool.

Jonny: I’m thinking Ridley Scott as director and Johnny Depp to play me – he has a great sense of style and no need for a name change!

You can download Phantom’s forthcoming single – Voodoo Romantic – for FREE from the bands official website.