Firstly, I’d like to say thank you to Gareth Campesinos! for agreeing to be interviewed for our site. I’ve been a fan of this band since I first heard the phenomenal You! Me! Dancing! and it made me grin like a Cheshire Cat. They released their excellent first album “Hold on now youngster!” and since then have been on several tours and released 3 more albums. Their latest album “Hello Sadness” was released on November 14 and believe me when I say that the album is excellent! They are announcing a UK tour shortly, details which will be found at www.loscampesinos.com
The rest of the band consist of Ellen, Tom, Neil, Kim, Rob and Jason. 4 of the boys of the band are reds whilst Rob is a Newcastle United fan.
Gareth, Sir Alex has recently celebrated his 25th anniversary as the manager of Manchester United, on a recent 7Cantonas podcast, we all told of our favourite moment of his reign, what’s yours?
Well, what a huge many there are to chose from. One that sticks in my head is my being at Wembley for the ’99 FA Cup final and it being the first time I saw Manchester United play, and the second trophy of that particular treble. Also, the Moscow Champions League Final is a big one, personally. We were playing a gig in Boston that day. The venue was next to a bar showing the game, but it being the middle of the day when it kicked off, it was just us and some authentic American ‘Jocks’ watching the match. Sound-check was, accommodatingly, delayed for us to watch the football, but of course that ran later and later as the match went to extra time and pens. When Terry fell over, and then when VDS saved from Anelka, tables were flipped, drinks spilt, and the American college boys who’d been chatting shit for the past 3 hours didn’t know what they were seeing. That was pure exhilaration right there.
Why did you become a United fan?
My family all support Welton Rovers Football Club (my local side, for whom I’m a season ticket holder) and they were always my priority, but when it came to choosing a bigger team to support a mixture of my Dad having a soft-spot for Utd from his youth, and (I’m not gonna lie) the fact that my schoolfriends followed United, kind of made the decision for me. The first time I can really remember supporting Manchester United was on the last day of the 94/95 season, and then the FA Cup Final, so quite a damp introduction.
Who has been your favourite player to watch as a United fan? Both a United player and a non United player?
Paul Scholes, undeniably, is my favourite United player of my generation. I completely modelled myself on him as a player throughout my teens (pinnacle being representing Somerset at the age of about 14), and I was a bit ginger, so that probably helped my connection! Other than that, certainly Ole. From 4 goals in no time at all against Forest, to scything down Rob Lee deliberately in the last minute as he ran through on goal, so much to like about the man!
Outside of Manchester United…I was a huge Gascoigne fan (largely because of being called ‘Gazza’ myself as a kid, I’d imagine) and Ian Wright too.
What’s been your lowest point as a United supporter?
Well, being 26 years old I’ve not had to go through many United related lows as of yet (I get all my low footballing moments from Welton Rovers and England). Losing to Bayern in the quarters in 2010 was a tough one to swallow though.
As well as the highest…
Wellllll, Andy Cole side-footing over Ian Walker in 1999, and me subsequently spilling my pint of coke over the floor of Radstock Working Mens’ Club was pretty euphoric.
If you could choose a LC! song for the pre match music at Old Trafford, which song would you choose and why?
I’d be so embarrassed if we were the pre-match music, honestly, it’d be horrific. And I’m enjoying talking about football rather than me shitey band 🙂
Who has been the best player of the season so far for you?
That’s a tough one to call. Obviously Jones and Smalling’s cementing themselves as top-class footballers has been much needed and enjoyable to see. I’ve also really enjoyed watching Danny Welbeck (although not necessarily “the best player”). He obviously massively benefitted from his time at Sunderland, and I’m excited to think of he and Daniel Sturridge as the future of England’s attack, whereas at one point I expected him to go the way of Frazier Campbell.
United fans have lauded the displays of Phil Jones and Tom Cleverley this season, what have been your thoughts on the two?
Gutted that Clevs has been out as long as he has, as we could really do with him right now, of course. As for Jones, I’m excited for him to get back to playing at centre-half. Doubtless his midfield performances have been exemplary and solid, impressive in fact, but I don’t think many people see him as the future of our midfield, or even would want him to be. He’s very quickly justified the money that was paid for him though, especially considered with the likes of Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing, who Liverpool splashed on.
With Vidic now out for the season, who would you have as captain?
Well it seems Evra’s taken on the mantle, and as a personality and for his experience that seems more than appropriate, but not so much for his form this season. It’s probably the case that we don’t have an obvious choice at the moment, but you’d expect it to be shared between he, Rio and Giggsy.
How do you get to watch United on tour? Do you ever get to games?
Sadly, my game-going has really dried up since my life’s been taken up with touring. I find it near impossible to plan anything in my spare time, so this goes by the way-side. Touring, though, I very rarely miss a gam. It’s completely normal for us to submit a fixture list to our tour manager at the beginning of a tour so he knows when we need to be in a pub, or have internet access in order to watch a game. Touring in America, obviously they have a lot of Utd games on ESPN or Fox, so, if we’re on the West Coast of America, it won’t be unusual for my alarm to be set for 4am in order to catch a mid-day kick off.
Rob is a Newcastle fan, is there a lot of football jibes?
Not really, no (especially not at the moment!). Rob’s a really knowledgeable guy with football and if anything we have sympathy for the stories he tells us about Mike Ashley and co. I think it’s good to have a non-MUFC fan in our number, he provides a welcome bit of context and perspective!
What’s the strangest thing that’s happened to you on tour? (I should add at the LC! gig at the Night and Day café in Manchester, I stole the band poster off the wall and got Gareth to sign it for me!!)
(You accosted me in the toilet, as I remember, Mart!) – This is true, I have no shame!
On a football theme…after playing a gig in Buenos Aires we found ourselves as part of a hundred-strong pub crawl of the city, with people who came to watch our show. On the walk from bar to bar they sang a whole songbook of Argentinian football chants with the words adjusted to be about our band. It was an incredible evening, made us feel proper famous. Non-football related…once when on a two day drive in our tourbus across the deserts of mid-America a whole, massive window pane just fell out of the bus, with no warning, creating this massive vacuum and, sort of, indoor hurricane. That was mostly just scary, rather than strange though.
Los Campesinos! winning a Brit award or Man United winning the Champions League?
I wish I found this question harder to answer, but us winning a Brit, 100%. Man United don’t need my help winning Champions League Titles, but we need all the wishes we can get!
