Belfast's Two Door Cinema Club have stealthily gone about becoming one of Britain's biggest, and best-loved bands. Their debut album Tourist History gained a legion of fans, and that only increased with the release of last year's follow-up Beacon. They played their biggest-ever show only last few - selling out London's O2 Arena, so we thought it was high time we had a little chat with them.
We spoke to bassist and singer Kevin Baird to discover his guilty pleasures in life: his musical choices, in particular, are quite spectacular.
Movie
"I do quite like that film He’s Just Not That Into You. There’s something about it. One of the guys on tour is very into romcoms and I think it was one of those moments when we’d been on the road too long and you need some sort of heart-warming thing. I kind of enjoyed that, but I gave Confessions Of A Shopaholic a try and just turned it off, it was dreadful. That [He's Just Not That Into You] is about as far as I get into to the romcom thing."
TV show
"Me and Sam always watch True Blood. It’s all about vampires and sex basically. There’s lots of nudity and vampires. It’s a bit lame, it’s not that cool, but it’s kind of funny. Where do I stand on Twilight? I’ve never seen the movie and I’ve never read the books, though the films usually have quite an impressive soundtrack."
Music
"The first single is bought was My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion. It’s a great song. I think Titanic must have blown my mind or something. She’s got a great voice and she really spoke to me. I wouldn’t say that I delved very deep in Celine’s back catalogue; I was a bit of a fickle Celine Dion fan. I was mainly into her hits. Around the same time bracket, I also had Ricky Martin Livin’ La Vida Loca. You can’t really complain about that because he had some pipes eh?"
Food
"I have a really strange pallet I think. I would be happy just to snack on Jacob’s Cream Crackers and I frequently just do, with nothing on them, just dry. Sometimes I eat a whole packet. Did I ever take part in the kids' games where you have to eat as many crackers as you can without drinking water? Yes - in my mind, the reason why I wasn’t invited to those young kids' parties when I was a kid is because everyone else knew I’d probably win and really enjoy it."
Magazine
"I never buy them, but I like reading the headline from the front page of magazines like Cosmopolitan. They often are saying “this person has done this thing”; the actual story plays it down and gives you the real truth. The headline suckers you in. I’m not sure whether it’s better that people think I’m just looking at the front covers of, say, Nuts or Zoo or the porn mags, but I’m not, I’m just looking at the Cosmo headlines. I’m OK with people thinking I'm a bit more of lad than I really am."
Book
"I’m a bit of a loser, I don’t really read cool books anyway - I only really read history books. My favourite book is a book about Napoleon invading Russia. I can’t remember the name of the book and I lent it to my dad, who never gave it back, the bastard! Am I like Mark from Peep Show? This is why I really like Peep Show, because I find it really geeky. I wonder if people get all the historical references he puts in. When I watch it with people, I pretend to look confused, but actually I know what all the references are about.
"I’m into all areas of history: my area of expertise would be 17th century. I’m reading a book on the conversions of Africa from colonies and imperial states to independent state. It was very highly reviewed by Bob Geldof actually: it's called The State of Africa by Martin Meredith. I’m dipping in between that and the Alex Ferguson autobiography, as I’m also a massive Manchester United fan. But it’s really interesting that you can finally see the dynamic, and that the book talks about things which haven’t really been spoken about, such as that time he kicked the football boot and it hit David Beckham. I’m really excited to get to the bits about Roy Keane and Wayne Rooney, but I haven’t got there yet."
(Images: Rex)
