DOWN THE PUB WITH CANDIDE

Eddy Dexter and Jasper Pollitt, two thirds of the dimension-bending band Candide (drummer Milo Garland is otherwise occupied), are perched across a sticky wooden table at the Bow Bells, the East End institution with a lineage going back to 1860 and the kind of Friday-night karaoke you suspect might be hosted by the Ghost of West Ham’s Greatest Missed Penalty. The pub’s family-run character is obvious: punters here banter freely, one eye on the TV sports screen and another on the well-worn brass bar taps. It’s a stripped-back setting for a conversation charged with theatre, and Candide wouldn’t have it any other way.

We’ve settled in with a round of lime sodas — which Eddy gamely manages to dribble into the mic at one point — to talk about their new single, Domestic Statistics. We are weeks away from their single release party at the Finsbury (presented by Are You Entertainment, 10th of July, N4 1BY) smutty opera and what they’re calling “tabloid nonsense jazz.” It’s theatrical, it’s chaotic, it’s basically the entire Tudor royal court if someone had swapped out the lutes for fuzz pedals.

Photography: Fetch London/Joaquin Baerga

I ask them the question that needs asking: why Candide?

“It was our previous drummers birthday, and he was fucking around alot, and I thought he might relate to this [Voltaire] book.” says Eddy, after I get the pronunciation right — “as Luddite Little Englanders we can't pronounce any French,” he teases — “We were all hanging around trying to pick a name, late nights, pouring over roll-ups in the dark, coming up with nonsense. We had purple circle, Briefcase Opera, the Bow Street Runners, at one point." But it was Candide that stuck as a name, and it's hardly surprising. This is a band who met each other at a party of "smutty opera and guys swinging across the hall", playing bongoes while Jasper did a Pink Floyd cover in his pants — so a tongue-in-cheek Enlightenment reference is practically polite.

Photography: Fetch London/Joaquin Baerga

Candide emerged, they tell me, from a whirl of comedy-opera parties in Dalston Boys Club. Eddy’s old band broke up, then Jasper’s did too, and the pair fell in together to keep a handful of booked gigs alive. “The drummer was on borrowed time,” Eddy laughs, “so we just kept going.” Somewhere between stolen gigs and new line-ups, they found something that sounded distinct. But it took a while. “Honestly,” Jasper shrugs, “I think it’s only since Milo joined the band properly at the end of last year. We sat in a rehearsal room sweating for six months, working it out, and now I’d say this is Candide.”

Their songwriting is a confluence of bits and bobs. Domestic Statistics began as one of Eddy’s own songs, written before the current lineup solidified. Other tracks on their four-song run came from Jasper, including a tune he wrote as a kid. “There’s a kind of Johnny Marr vibe, I thought,” Eddy says, while Jasper admits he had no idea who Johnny Marr was at the time. “That innocence worked,” Eddy grins.

It’s a layered, almost collaged approach to building a band. There’s Lonely, a simple pop song; I Don’t Care, something they threw together organically; and then this latest track, Domestic Statistics, which feels to them like a statement of intent. “There’s no manifesto,” Jasper says. “I don’t want one sound. That’s boring. We’re mixing things up. Visually too.”

Ah, yes, the visuals. Candide’s aesthetic might best be described as “Tudor disco apocalypse,” and that is only a mild exaggeration. Their new video, they note, is a sort of half-therapy, half-fever dream, filmed over two days with a bigger crew than they’d ever managed before.

“First video we did, we were running around in velvet military uniforms, in summer, played a gig straight after — we could barely move for two weeks,” Eddy laughs. “So this time, we took it a bit easier.” Their last video, I Don't Care, is a glorious, hallucinatory romp through half-sinister, half-slapstick tableaux. There are gorilla masks, hypnotic crowd shots, and tongue-in-cheek nods to the hypocrisy of the music industry, all delivered with the band’s trademark theatrical grin. Domestic Statistics's initial script was an explosion of Winston Churchill, and basically every half-baked historical trope you could name. Their director wisely vetoed half of it. “She made us focus,” Jasper says, “which is good, because otherwise we’d have just made total nonsense.”

They’re not that fussed about people finding a grand political message in all of this. “It’s not post-punk misery,” Eddy insists. “It’s joyful. Satirical, sure, observational, but not all doom.” I bring up Voltaire again, and they both nod. “If you want to read into it, fine. But you don’t have to.”

Photography: Fetch London/Joaquin Baerga

Between rounds, I ask about their place in London’s scene — it’s a question every band has to face eventually. “Look, we don’t think about it,” Jasper says plainly. “We’re here. We’re making music. That’s it.” Eddy adds, “London is good for opportunities, there’s loads of bands, loads of venues. You’d be mad not to be grateful.”

There’s a certain resilience in their attitude, forged maybe from the fact they’re still booking, recording, shooting, editing, releasing, all by themselves, all on a shoestring. “No label telling you what to do,” Eddy says. “So you just learn. And you make mistakes. That’s fine.”

They have a single release party lined up on July 10th at the Finsbury, along with gigs at the Bow Bells (with the gleam of drag karaoke still on the walls) and a handful of other dates through summer. There is talk of breakdancing, talk of Shetland ponies, talk of dwarves. None of it sounds like a joke, exactly, but you get the sense it wouldn’t matter if it was.

Photography: Fetch London/Joaquin Baerga

In a moment of unhinged pub philosophy, I ask where they’d time-travel if they could. “Ancient Rome,” Jasper says, then corrects himself, “or Tudor England, but only if I was in one of those big human hamster balls.” There is a long pause. “That would be alright.” Eddy references Julian the Apostate, a Roman emperor with a tendency to get drunk and refuse to clip his fingernails, and Jasper brightens. “Yes! Domestic Statistics is as powerful as the Eastern Roman Empire,” he declares, deadpan. “That’s the pull quote.”

As for the future? The pair are determined to stick with their rinse-and-repeat approach — gig, record, artwork, video, gig again — until something else breaks. “Bruce Lee said don’t fear the man who knows a thousand moves, fear the man who’s done one move a thousand times,” Jasper quotes, eyebrows raised. “That’s us. But with EPs.”

I look around the Bow Bells — a pub that has weathered a few eras of its own — and can’t help thinking Candide fit here perfectly. Their vision is equal parts chaos and charm, with a grin, a wink, and a refusal to be boxed in. If they do manage to eat themselves to death on a dozen chart hits, as they half-threaten, I suspect there will be at least a few London pub regulars ready to toast them.

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Down the Pub is an interview series by Fetch London, where we treat creatives to a few rounds at their local and chat about their art. If you and a group of friends would like to apply you may do so here.