Style and Influences
BBC Radio 1's Steve Lamacq has described Fight Like Apes as a "great Misfit band" inhabiting "a lonely place out on the periphery of the indie rock world". At one show in June 2008, he witnessed them "thrash about on their guitars and keyboards and wotnot like it's some kind of pop exorcism" and saw them "rolling around the empty dancefloor playflighting ". Today FM presenter Alison Curtis has described them as "really talented... kind of rocky and metallic and their front girl is extremely watchable, almost going into Debbie Harry territory".
The band's influences include B movies, computer games, kung-fu and wrestling. "Do You Karate?", "a thumping bass driven flourish of a song", displays the band's "trademark twin-synth attack" and the Pixies-style "Canhead" has been described as "a concise ode to fish and chips". Musically they are fond of My Bloody Valentine, Mclusky and Tom Waits, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Adebisi Shank, Jape and Giveamanakick. They dislike guitars and have been known to perform with kitchen implements such as pots and pans when on stage; MayKay and Pockets even play keyboards with their heads. They purposefully construct lengthy record titles to "piss off" journalists and radio presenters and their self-defined "karate rock" genre was directed at the NME after the British magazine tried to place them in the same category as two other female-fronted bands.
Vocalist MayKay has been described as one of Ireland's "most mesmerising front women" in recent history, with her long black hair and banshee wail provoking male fans to confess simultaneous feelings of terror and attraction online. She is known to vociferate lyrics such as "you're like Kentucky Fried Chicken but without the taste" and "you're a fucking disappointment to the human race", taken from the song "Jake Summers", a song inspired by former teen idol of California Dreams fame. Pockets writes most of the band's songs, plays the keyboard and provides vocals for some of the band's songs. Adrian and Tom tend to remain in the background, choosing not to be photographed. The band have never written anything fictional and their lyrics have been described by Nadine O'Regan in The Sunday Business Post as "occasionally literally gynaecological in their detail and regularly relatively shocking in their honesty". MayKay and Pockets claim that most of their lyrics are shaped by one person who has broken each of their hearts. All of the band apart from the drummer are known for their consumption of alcohol, with MayKay even drinking wine during interviews and Pockets drinking Buckfast prior to performances.
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