International Teachers Of Pop: Murder On Hollyoaks

International Teachers of Pop formed out of a chance meeting between Adrian Flanagan, Dean Honer and Leonore Wheatley at an electronics workshop in 2018. Since then, their eclectic blend of icy electronic sounds has gained them a cult following. After releasing their debut LP this year, they've played shows up and down the country, educating the masses. We caught up with them in Chester, at The Good Life Experience... 

How has your festival been so far?

Adrian: I’ve never been here before; I’ve been to Chester – for Hollyoaks. I’ve been on Hollyoaks.

Leonore: You’ve been on Hollyoaks?

Adrian: Yeh I was a murderer, back in 1999. I was a teenage murderer on Hollyoaks.

Leonore: You weren’t.

Adrian: I was.

Leonore: So if I went on IMDB, you’d be credited for that?

Can you give us a flavour of your story?

Adrian: I was an extra, I robbed somebody, but accidentally killed them.

Leonore: I am actually star struck, I really didn’t know that about you.

Adrian: I’m a man of many mysteries. A Myst of many mamories, that’s the pull quote!

You guys are both in other bands, Adrian you’re a part of the Eccentronic Research Council and The Moonlandingz, have you always wanted to be a part of several projects?

Adrian: Not many people pronounce that right [Eccentronic], not even Maxine Peake. But yeah, if you do music full time you tend to have a lot of time to do other stuff, Leonore is in another band called Sound Carriers. We’re just creative people so naturally we do a lot.

Leonore, you’re also a teacher, how do you find the balance between two polarising professions?

Leonore: Well I was a full-time teacher until April, then I quit.

Adrian: Until the crack incident...

Leonore: We wont talk about that. No I left to become a supply teacher; I became a teacher because I wasn’t making much music, but now I’m making more music that’s taken precedent. So the kids don’t come first anymore, I’m afraid! You never know what’s going to happen so I can’t say that I’ll never do it again.

Adrian: Most bands have day jobs these days. Unless you’re at the higher echelons of showbiz or whatever you don’t really make any money. Until you’re pulling well over 600 people, it ain’t happening, you know what I mean.

Leonore: And teaching still allows me to be creative, some of the kids will be playing a tune and I’ll think – I can use that!

You release your self titled debut album this year, can you tell us about the recording process and how you feel its been received?

Leonore: It started off as Adrian kind of asking out to the internet, does anyone want to start a new collaboration with him and Dean, as Moonlandingz was coming to an end for a while, so he was looking for a new project.

Adrian: Lias [Saoudi], our frontman, is in Fat White Family so when they’re touring, we’re writing and then when they’re back, we’re off on tour.

Leonore: I’d sort of known Adrian for a while, well Idolised Adrian...

Adrian: Which is hard because you’re taller than most blokes.

Leonore: Then I went over to Sheffield and it started from there. So Adrian and Dean do a lot of the instrumental stuff then I come along and do the lyrics and the melodies. We all contribute.

Adrian: We’ll get a tune together then Leonore will come over and she puts some vocals down. We don’t wanna give too many secrets away!

Leonore: The themes always come from things that have ben on our minds that day or just day-to-day worries. Turning benign frustrations into something creative. 

Finding the beauty in the mundane?

Leonore: Yeah exactly.

Adrian: I’m beauty and she’s the mundane. That’s our next project!

You’ve covered Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’, but it’s the ‘Remoaner Remix’. Is this a political statement? 

Adrian: We did that song because when we first started we only had about four songs. Then we got offered some gigs by Jarvis Cocker, so we had to quickly write a couple of extra songs so we stuck a cover in, but it went down really well and its kind of still there now. In regards to the ‘remoaner’ thing, we purposely did that version in German. We think the way all this Brexit bullshit is going, if we didn’t have Europe, we wouldn’t have all this great German music and French bands.

Leonore: Kraftwerk are in the remix as well.

Adrian: If you haven’t listened to Kraftwerk, you definitely should. Let that be your first lesson from the Teachers!

You added a fourth member this year, Katie Mason, could you tell us more about that?

Leonore: Up until a few weeks ago, we’d lived together for three years. I’ve known and been best mates with Katie since we were both 15, so it was very convenient for us that we lived together and were best friends. We got her in and she’s just absolutely smashed it. We’re a ready made double act!

As well as adding Katie to the line-up you also began to include dance routines in your live performances, how did that happen?

Leonore: We’ve always made up dance routines for parties or inside cracks, so when Katie joined the band we started doing it on stage, making everyone a part of that friendship and that the beauty about the band. People go away feeling uplifted and a part of something.

Adrian: You can’t fake that dynamic either, you see bands with dance troupes behind them and it looks stiff. This isn’t stiff, it’s more free and natural. You can’t fake that.

We love Confidence Man for that reason, their stage presence is insane.

Adrian: They’re good friends of mine. That’s it though, with electronic music it can be boring. Especially if its just some dickhead with a laptop and his head down, it’s just boring to watch. Most dance music is boring in general, unless you’re on drugs, then its good for the audience.

Leonore: We make everything up in the lounge, just me and Katie at home. Normally when we’re pissed. With the costumes as well, we’ve gone through a few changes in the last year. At the moment, it’s loads of patches, so we’ve got Yamaha and Farmfoods and lots of Dominos belts. 

Adrian: We’re trying to get some sponsors.

Leonore: It’s like we’ve gone back to being 15 again. What would you want to do and be. When we were fifteen it was like the year 2000, so it was still mainly girl and boy bands – I’m still trying to channel and relive that.

So final question, lets talk about politics… I’m only joking!

Adrian: We haven’t got enough time. If the fucking parliament can’t sort it out we’ve not got much chance. But, he should fucking die shouldn’t he, Boris. All of the Tories, bomb the fuckers man! Get rid of them. What do they do other than look after their mates? Seen it too many times from Thatcher up.

And you’ve got David Cameron worming his way back in…

Adrian: But he fucks pigs!

Finally, have you got any funny tales from festival season or from your time spent touring?

Leonore: That thing that caught on fire when we were in Heidelberg.

Adrian: Oh yeah! The driver, Chris, on our first European tour. We played Heidelberg in the Black Forest region of Germany so we’d been driving for like four or five hours. So we got to this hotel and went in to the old town and had some nice German food.

Sausages?

Adrian: Yeah we had a load of sausages, they were all tiny things.

Leonore: Richard [the Drummer] ate like twelve.

Adrian: But afterwards everyone went to bed, but me and the driver went to the van for a spliff. We were having a smoke outside and we were like “what the fuck was that”. We saw these two guys running off and then all of a sudden this skip right outside the hotel went up in flames.

Leonore: Our hotel room was right above it and I filmed the whole thing, the smoke filled the rooms.

Adrian: We were blazing. We were thinking fuck man; this is good shit. We picked up some good weed in Amsterdam. It was mental. Then the police and fire engines showed up, so we had to get and put it out before the German police turned up.  

Leonore: You couldn’t get out of the van though.

Adrian: I thought I was gonna burn to death, put a proper downer on it.