James, Louise and Adam VEGClub: one carnivore and two vegetarian crusaders.

The Victorian English Gentlemans Club headline wombatwombat's Peel Day celebrations on Friday 07 October 2011 @ NAC

The racket make by The Victorian English Gentlemans Club will be welcomed by fans of…

…Wire, Liars, The Velvet Underground and people with a mild mental illness.

Just how happening is one of your gigs?

Not sure how happening it is, but we always try and make an effort with the stage, fill it full of flags or flowers or child mannequins or all of the above.

I think we want to create more than just some humans holding guitars and singing words. Plus most venues are pretty dull to look at so to try and break out of this feels right.

What's the most challenging situation you've had to deal with on stage and how did you handle it?

On the whole no horror stories really. We performed on a kids TV show called Pancake Mountain in America with a puppet, which was really odd. We could see the guy operating the puppet and speaking, so the illusion was lost a bit.

We played at an underage festival to hundreds of 14-year olds and they just didn't get us at all. It was a sea of blank faces.

What's the deal with the meat references in your current album and the video for My Imagination Can't Save Me Now, given that Adam and Louise are vegetarians?

Lou does all the covers for our records and thinks she liked the idea of cut up processed dead animals on the cover, but loads of meat lovers have commented on how hungry the cover makes them.

The guy who makes our videos is an odd one and usually will make them for free as long as he has total say over what we do in them. He seems to get off on making us uncomfortable is some way, ie meat. The video for A Conversation was filmed in a room done for an art piece made entirely of chewed bread that was then stuck in a soggy mass to all the walls and ceiling.

The smell alone made me [Adam] want to be sick.

You're on the uber-cool This Is Fake DIY label – how important is the DIY ethic to TVEGC?

I think DIY for us means if we don't do it, it does not get done. We don't really have a manager who is always on our backs so Lou and I take control over everything, other wise nothing happens.

What's your best piece of advice for anyone thinking about starting a new band?

We didn't do this, but if we were a new band now I would get really good at playing live, then try and do your first gigs in your nearest big city in interesting places, to try a create a bit of mystique. To compete against five bands doing similar things playing every night in the same places seems too difficult.

When we first formed we avoided Cardiff and tried to play London as much as possible. We wrote to lots labels inviting them down and it seemed to work.

Which other Welsh acts should we be tuning-in to and why do you love them?

I can't think of any at the moment.

You're playing the SWN Festival later this month: how important is this as a celebration of Welsh music and what else does it offer?

It is a good weekend. We opened it one year in the national gallery, which was one of the best gigs I have ever done. It has a lot of bands that are really small, then become big in the following year, like The Drums.

Also saw a band called Swans last year, who were amazing, really hypnotic.

What's next for TVEGC?

We go off on tour around Europe, which I am really looking forward to: it's always fun. And there is talk of playing Russia in December, which would be nice because I like snow and have not been there before.

Social media snapshot

Which social media do you use and how do you rate them in terms of the best way to promote your band, with 1 being the best?

* 1 = best

The who club?

Adam = guitar.
Lou = bass and mandolin.
James = drums.