Team Robespierre are the latest hot look to blast its way out of Brooklyn. Taking their name from the 'uncorruptable' Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre and bursting with opinions and excitement from the minute they turn up for the interview (20 minutes late) the team clearly have the personality, originality and presence to make it in today’s new-band-every-five-minutes climate. Playing the Social alongside Maths Class, we’re forced to wonder if venue’s ultra-tiny stage and dance-floor areas will be able to contain the fivesome and their enormous beats and rhymes.

The TR sound is decidedly all about BIG vibes, barely-contained energy, lots and lots of keyboards, shouty, call-and-response lyrics alongside their many and diverse influences ranging from Fugazi dance-punk to CPWK style audience invasions and hip hop style shoutalongs. We sit the band down for a few minutes before they go onstage and question them about everything…

DP: So how long have you guys been going?

TY: Since around '05

DP: What’s the scene like over in Brooklyn since Tony died?

TY: There’s a pretty good scene out there at the moment. Lot’s of bands coming through and some decent parties are starting to happen again finally. There were a lot of clubs closed down but it’s led to a re-interest in the warehouse scene.

DP: We had a big warehouse revival a few years back. There’s even a club in Shoreditch that used to be a car-park that hasn’t even bothered to get rid of the massive holes in the floor or re-plaster anything. Sure you’ll probably die of asbestos or falling into a construction pit but you get that ‘real’, underground type feeling when you’re in there you know. We lost that for a while.

THOMASZ: There’s only so far a scene can go whilst it’s completely dependent on superclubs. It’s good to do warehouse and private party type stuff as people seem to let go more at these events.

DP: You looking forward to playing the UK? Have you done any gigs here before?

THOMASZ: Not yet, this is our first UK gig. We’ve heard a lot about the UK scene and people not always being so energetic but everywhere is different. We know we’re going to put in 100 percent, the audience will react as they will.

DP: So you guys are pretty DIY. Do you actually record all your music yourself?

TY: Yeah, we produce and record everything ourselves. We get somebody else in to master everything before it goes out but that’s just literally ‘here’s the finished record, make it sound good’. We don’t have a producer sitting in studio sessions with us wanting everything done this way or that. We really want our music to be our own.

DP: *spots drum set being wheeled into the tiny, tiny venue* Wait. Wait. Do you guys use a live drummer? Where the hell is the drum kit supposed to go. There’s clearly no room on that stage for a drum kit.

Sound engineer: Okay guys, so the drum kit is going to have to go over there by the toilet door as there’s no space anywhere else for it.

DP: So how are people supposed to go to the toilet?

Jim (drummer): That’s a point. I don’t want people pushing past me every five minutes.

SE: To be honest guys I’m not sure.

FIN

Check out Team Robespierre's myspace here, you should check them out at one of the many gigs they are doing over here over the coming months. Any of you with skills behind the decks should enter their remix competition. Go team!