SAVAGES’ guitarist Gemma Thompson interviewed Wire’s Colin Newman as part of NME’s Heroes edition.

The two might share an uncompromis- ing approach to music, but she reveals the real reason Newman turned up to the event was to ask her band to play Drill Festival in Brighton.

“We had a coffee afterwards and he said, ‘the reason I did this thing was so I could ask you if you wanted to play the festival’. He could have just emailed me.”

The relationship has blossomed. Wire took the stage at Le Guess Who? festival two weeks back immediately after Savages had performed its Words To The Blind double-header with Japanese psych-noise band Bo Ningen.

“We were talking for ages. We talked about The Pink Flag Orchestra event at Drill on Thursday night and I’m planning to come to Brighton early to do it.”

She’ll join guitarists from bands on the Drill Festival bill will join Wire to blast through an epic ensemble version of Wire’s two-chord 1977 blitz Pink Flag.

Thompson loves Drill’s “open vibe” and points to Friday’s Krautrock Karaoke (Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar, 1am) as a good example of how the festival is embracing all tastes.

“The guy behind it, Kenichi Iwasa, gets people to vote which Krautrock experi- mental songs they would like to hear – these are not songs that were meant to be played, they are improvised things – and he gets well-known musicians to try to play them.”

There’s less chance you’ll see Thompson on stage for that art-house knees up. But she says experimentation and collaboration is in the water.

“Krautrock Karaoke is bringing musicians from all sorts of genres to participate with their own style. It brings people to work together and learn from each other.

“The Pink Flag Orchestra does that too. Colin said even if you are a non musician we will give you a guitar so you can take part. It’s a really interesting thing to do.”

Newman says Drill Festival is about making connections rather than making a scene. And Savages’ recent collaboration with Bo Ningen fits directly in the mould.

Words To The Blind is a “simultaneous sonic poem” in which the two bands perform an extract from the Thomas Bernhard play, Au But, head to head.

The approach is inspired by Dada artists who used to recite poems in different lan- guages at the same time.

The extract reflects how “young people need to bring history forward and make it their own”.

Part of the reason the two came together was in response to fact “there seemed be a competing thing with bands and it does not need to be like that. Musicians should be working together and supporting each other.”

One challenge was to make music with space for two drummers, three guitarists, two bass players and two singers.

“We had to think how they could work together. It was about the voice being heard amid all the noise.”

Savages’ jagged, angular sound, made by four self-taught musicians whose sound devel- oped through necessity rather than technicali- ty, could be from the Wire post-punk era. And much of Thompson’s approach reminds of Newman’s.

She studied art and has a minimal approach to guitar playing. She taught herself to play the six-string when she decided to compose a soundtrack for a 16mm film performance piece during a stint as a photographer.

The art school heritage continues to inspire her work in Savages. A manifesto is printed on the cover of Silence Yourself, the band’s Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut, and the CD has a message, Don’t Let The F****rs Get You Down, wrapped around the disc.

“I guess it is aimed at everyone who tries to convince you to do something in their own way and tries to distract you for their own means.

“It comes from experience. We were told we should work in a certain way, that we would fail if we do it in this way or that way. That is why you have to take old ideas and make them your own.”

Concorde 2, Madeira Drive, Brighton, Friday, November 28, 9pm.