Iglu & Hartly

October 2008

THEY look like a retro hair metal outfit, love to talk about girls and like, pardies, dude and crowd surfing is a staple of their live show.
But while there’s a trace of Van Halen synths on their debut album & Then Boom, musically Iglu & Hartly are closer to a mash of Maroon 5 and 5ive.
“So does it look like we’re bad, is that what you’re saying?” says singer/rapper Jarvis Anderson.
“Like troublemakers or something?”
Yep.
“I think we just look how we look because that’s the way it happened. There’s never been a big mission.”
The 80s are a strong influence, something the band members picked up from their mothers. Anderson grew up listening to his mum’s record collection, artists such as Stevie Wonder, George Benson and Tina Turner.
“That left a big impact on me. I really try and put a good melody in to the music.”
But his first concert experience was in his hometown of Chicago, aged 13, watching Oasis with his big sister.
“That was cool. It was funny, the guy came on stage and was like ‘If anyone throws any bottles on the stage Oasis is going to walk off’. I thought that was so weird at the time but I guess people say that kind of stuff sh*t out here all the time.”
Iglu & Hartly are less precious about maintaining a barrier between band and audience. They often invite girls on to the stage. Just the good looking ones?
“No, we’re pretty much equal opportunity employers,” he says.
Girls are a big part of your live shows, it seems.
“Girls are a big part of everybody’s lives I think. They’re walking around every day. Are you in the office?”
Yeah.
“Are there any chicks that work in your office?”
At the moment I’m in an office on my own.
“Oh no, so you’re all by yourself.”
Tsk.
The five-piece got together in Colorado, relocated to Los Angeles but since August have been living in London.
“At first it was the accent,” he says of the biggest culture shock.
“But then it’s kind of similar. People are people. The weather is a little bit more challenged here. Other than that it’s all good.”
Apart from being evicted from their flat because of Take That, who complained they were making so much noise they couldn’t rehearse properly.
“Yes that is surprisingly true,” he says.
“They let us stay until we went on tour, so that was nice of them.”
The tour is their first headliner.
“Everyone pretty much went nuts, it was cool,” he says when I ask how the previous night’s show was.
“But I fell, in to the freakin’ gate. some chicks were, like, pulling me like so hard. Cut my leg up.”
The tour comes to Nottingham next week but there’s some confusion as to whether Iglu & Hartly have been here before.
“No I haven’t. We had a good run there.”
You had a good what?
“A good run. Like we had a good time. It was good while it lasted.”
So you have been here then?
“Yep. It was fun. We partied there at the carnival...”
He thinks I mean Notting Hill.
I meant Nottingham, the city.
“Yeah actually we have. We were in Nottingham last time we were out here in May. It’s a good city you have.”
The name Iglu & Hartly was picked up by band members while at a history class in college in Colorado. It was a British ship that went to Hawaii in search of pineapples. The local tribe wouldn’t let them take them but another tribe offered to trade them cinnamon, which turned out to be a more lucrative deal.
“So the metaphor is that you might go searching for something in life and end up finding something else that’s better.”
That’s deep, man.

Listen to the interview and watch the video for the single In This City at thisisnottingham.co.uk/entertainment