Biog by Garry Mulholland (Guardian, Observer, Q, Timeout )
These are weird and wonderful pop times. Guitar bands really have sold their guitars and bought synthesizers. Every other American college band is hung-up on ancient English folk-rock. Rappers make rave, metal, northern soul, baroque soft-rock… everything, it seems, except hip hop. And you’re absolutely no-one, darling, unless there’s an African hi-life element to your indie-pop. Globally informed eclecticism is quickly becoming the new Dadrock, so predictable is Everyband’s painfully studied unpredictability.

How can anything real stand out, in this deluge of dilettantism? Well, actually… it’s not that tough. You just have to be your own art statement, rather than merely contrive one. Take something from your childhood – something that you’re steeped in, culturally speaking – and immerse yourself in it, and then utterly subvert it. So, if you’re a north London Jewish kid, maybe the ebullient klezmer and the mournful synagogue music that soundtracked your coming-of-age, mixed with the Brechtian musicals and Hot Club jazz that your parents loved. Add the expressionist noises that back-dropped the pratfalls of your favourite silent comics. Season with the wise-ass post-punk pop of Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow and The Waitresses. And then wonder how you might adapt all that to the satire and technical virtuosity of… 10cc. Grow Claws may or may not be in love. But, whichever way, it’s not just a silly phase they’re going through.

The kid in question is Jez Berns, erstwhile sculptor and Brighton art gallery curator, and current multi-instrumentalist – though he largely sticks to bass and lead vocals as leader of Grow Claws. Fellow Claws Esther Springett (keyboards, woodwind), Chris Griffin (guitars, keyboards), Alex Painter (woodwind, guitars) and Rob Ling (drums) all sing and all went to art school, albeit different art schools at different times. But there, the similarity ends. As Jez explains: ‘We’re five individuals who don’t always see eye-to-eye or have the same musical tastes or aesthetic. Sometimes there are clashes of opinion – which really seems to work for us in most situations.’

It really, really does. Claws music is like a constant jump-cut between conflict and resolution; bickering and agreement; nervous tension and ecstatic release. And when many see the five Claws together they often remark that they don’t look like a band; all with an entirely stylish but entirely different look. Then the quintet start to play and, once jaws are picked back up from floors, its apparent that Grow Claws are just about the bandiest band its possible to be, without being surgically welded to each other. The music laughs, like kids at a circus. But the people who play it are deadly serious – a study in casual intensity.

It’s taken Grow Claws a while to get here. But timing is everything, and the Fab Five have reached their creative high point just as the world is ready for Buster Keaton-influenced jerk-pop genius. That’s because these are weird and wonderful pop times. But not as weird nor wonderful as Grow Claws.
February 2010