BSP's Power Tools: British Sea Power

MARTIN NOBLE, GUITARIST for British Sea Power, is sick of being asked about the differences between U.S. and European audiences.

Maybe because it's a dumb question.

Or maybe because BSP fills enormous venues in Europe but remains the object of (admittedly fanatical) cult devotion on this side of the water.

"It's kind of a head[trip], America, at first," Noble says. "Then you realize each state is like its own country."

Especially D.C., where BSP plays this week.

"Each has its different language, even though they're so similar. At first, we were like, ‘Argh, they're ruining the English language!'"

And he laughs.

Language is a big deal for the four school friends who form BSP, as is history and science. Lyrics allude to Dostoyevsky, Einstein and Charles Lindbergh. The song "Canvey Island" refers to a 1953 flood that swept away the local soccer team's records.

"Radio 4 has a lot of scientific programs," says Noble. "So when the whole Canvey Island thing pops up three times a week, we start writing songs about it."

Big, booming, anthemic songs, littered with any cool thing they encounter. When their recordings with Efrim Menuck (from Godspeed You Black Emperor) and Howard Bilerman (from the Arcade Fire) weren't gritty enough, says Noble, "we smashed it around with a bunch of sounds. We went to this fort on the coast that the military used. It was ‘Full Metal Jacket' style — graffiti on the walls, creepy, no one there. We found an old beat-up piano and threw that down the stairs. We used all the big corridors to get the big reverb sounds."

They even incorporated helicopter sounds from a military training exercise.

Noble also confesses to a love for "more of the stupid stuff" in Jonathan Richman's catalog. Like "Abominable Snowman in the Market."

And, he says, "We recently watched a film that's an anthropological view of heavy metal." Someone noted that Judas Priest's Rob Halford is gay. "I was like, ‘Really??' But then it's so obvious," says Noble. "I think we're slowly getting into heavy metal."

That next BSP album already sounds amazing.

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; Thu., 8 p.m., $15; 202-667-7960. (U St.-Cardozo)

Written by Express contributor Bob Massey

» Read our interview from Oct. 2007 when BSP last played D.C.

Photo courtesy World's Fair