Credit: Max Schwartz New Politics will be playing Riot Fest in Chicago this weekend. Playing a festival sometimes means that you aren't necessarily performing for a crowd that's there specifically to see your band. Perhaps they've only heard your radio single, if anything at all. However, New Politics likes to use that position to their advantage.
"It gives us a chance to prove ourselves and show that there's more than a song," frontman David Boyd tells ABC Radio. "For us it's very much about writing our music and touring. We have a bit of that old school -- not old school, but, you know what I mean? -- it's like that sort of approach to music, so we like that liveness in it."
"So for us it's important to open up and show the kids that this is something that you can do, and it gives us a chance to shine that way," he adds.
New Politics will play Riot Fest in support of their latest album, Vikings. Being that two-thirds of New Politics is from Denmark, the title demonstrates the band's humor while also pointing out something deeper about the record.
"Looking at the record now and listening to it, there's a bit of like a nostalgic feel and us, maybe, trying to hold on to what we have left of Denmark living in America now for five years and stuff," Boyd says. "There's that as well, but then there's also a humorous sort of thing to it, the whole idea of maybe invasion, 'This is our shot!'...it's like a mix of different things."
The band's current single, "West End Kids," illustrates that nostalgia -- the track is about the West End of Copenhagen where Boyd and guitarist/bassist Søren Hansen met.
"Dave and I, we met in Denmark, we were living in that area," Hansen tells ABC Radio. "We didn't know each other, so it was just the place where everything started. So we wanted to celebrate that."
"West End Kids" also brings the hilarity in the form of its video, which features the members of New Politics squaring off with the members of Fall Out Boy in a Mortal Kombat-like fight. Fall Out Boy has long been supporters of New Politics, who have learned a lot from Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz's band.
"To see how hard they work, why they're so good at what they do and why they're so big as a band, they work so hard for it and they put everything they have in it," Boyd explains. "That's like a big, inspiring reminder for us if we want to take [New Politics] where we want to take it."
Riot Fest Chicago will be held September 11-13. The festival will be headlined by No Doubt, System of a Down, Modest Mouse, Faith No More and Iggy Pop.
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