At nearly 80 years old, Yoko Ono continues to be inspiringly lively. There could hardly be a starker way of flaunting that vibrancy than through OnoMix, her pulsing, club-ready remix album. Yoko spent her pre-teenage post-war life begging street-side at a Japanese mountain holiday resort, whilst her father found himself locked in a Vietnamese prison camp. When Yoko was a young adult, her family moved to New York, the city she still calls home.

Those tough times helped forge her, channelled into a bohemian lifestyle her family despised. Yoko evolved into an iconic feminist, an avant-garde artist, a committed political activist and an imaginative musician. She met John Lennon, the love of her life, through art, yet there’s no doubt the Beatle also saw huge power in her quirky take on music. He once joked “she forced me to become avant-garde and take my clothes off, when all I wanted was to become Tom Jones”.

Given the gritty nature of parts of her upbringing, perhaps Yoko’s peace-loving approach and work protecting the underdog aren’t all that surprising. Continuing to use music as a tool to spread those messages also seems a logical progression. Nevertheless, for an 80 year old, the launch of something as current and cutting as OnoMix is no less than remarkable.

It’s typical of Yoko that in choosing to write a form of retrospective, she does so in a less than conventional way. OnoMix is a 30-track, beat-heavy remix album featuring the likes of Basement Jaxx, Danny Tenaglia and Bimbo Jones. They work with Yoko on recreating some of her finest output, including ‘Give Peace A Chance’, ‘Walking On Thin Ice’ and ‘Talking To The Universe’. Yoko’s been working on the dance remix series since 2001, and sees it as a reinvention of her previous art-rock-leaning style.

What’s highlighted is the adaptability of her writing. “It’s nice to know that the artistic sensibility of the song is quite resilient”, Yoko says of the album. “It’s like the song is made of rubber, and it could stretch in many ways and still create excitement.” Some of the older tracks, highs like ‘Give Peace A Chance’, date back to the late ’60s anti-war movement and the very first days of the Plastic Ono Band, yet Yoko has found the process of returning to them more exhilarating than anything. The technical side was particularly pressing: “I had no knowledge of what you do for dance mix in the dance chart. It’s very different from what we used to do in rock to make a dance track.”

“With the dance music, I learned things I didn’t know”, Yoko continues. “At 80 years old? That’s great! I didn’t think that I would learn a whole new form of music. It is as exciting as the time I listened to music concrete or twelve-tone music. High art was always born that way…not being elitist, and not thinking about it except loving it.”

The intensely poignant backdrop of this album’s throwback nature gives it a particular flavour. ‘Walking On Thin Ice’ – the Ono-penned track that John Lennon was clutching when he was infamously murdered outside their Dakota Building apartment – also features. This is adapted into two different styles. The first is a thumping, lightly-sampling Danny Tenaglia remix that stretches to the best part of eight minutes; the second an enchantingly slow-building Eric Kupper and Francois Kevorkian dub remix. Challenge wise, “I think the obvious one is ‘Walking On Thin Ice’”, Ono confirmed. “In many ways, it was difficult, emotionally and technically”.

‘I’m Moving On’, meanwhile, was originally intended as a therapeutic way of dealing with the falseness that Yoko often felt surrounded her. The Ralphi Rosario radio remix twists the star’s vocals into a track fit for the Chicago house scene he helped create. “Sadly, the feeling of falseness is still there”, Yoko argues, “but we’ve learnt to survive through it all. That’s the difference.”

The beat-driven style Yoko’s dived into might be some distance from her more typical approach to music, but it doesn’t daunt her. Asked about whether she’s a fan of dance in general, she exclaims “Yes, Yes, Yes! For a songwriter, it is totally challenging and exciting. Dance music is now a new musical form, like opera, musical, pop and rock.”

Typically of Yoko, OnoMix comes with a political angle. The album is available as a download only, an idea born of a green philosophy. As Yoko sees it, “Being green is being human. It’s there naturally. We will become more real, and greener as we step into the future.” The concept extends generally, too. “This is an early day of the century of activism. Yoko argues “These days, it’s hard to find musicians and singer-songwriters who are not activists.”

As for her own ever-changing musical directions, Yoko tends to ignore her fame and simply get on with things. “I like to give something new to the world of creativity, hoping that it will give new excitement to people,” she explains. She’s certainly got form. Yoko’s previous work includes the experimental film ‘No. 4’, which features little but the naked buttocks of people using treadmills. Then there’s a number of dream-catching ‘wish trees’ planted globally, and the thought-provoking instructional quotes of her book ‘Grapefruit’. One part of the latter reads: “Give death announcements each time you move instead of giving announcements of the change of address. Send the same when you die.” There’s plenty of that diverse creativity here.

The album has been preceded by a huge array of singles, and the full project has topped a decade in the making. The criteria are simple: Yoko chose the artists she likes as songwriters. As for the unlikely change of direction, it comes down to nothing more than the same things that have always driven Yoko: “I just do what I am inspired to do at the time. Listen and you’ll hear the heartbeat of New York.”

As published on State.ie, December 2012

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh… oppan Gangnam style”… Just the lyrics probably have you picturing that hilariously moronic horse dance, or covering your ears in anticipation. If you haven’t seen the video for Korean pop-rapper Psy’s infectious parody on Seoul’s southern business district yet, you can’t be the web-loving type. In it, Psy discos up some stables, graces the faux VIP areas of locations such as playgrounds and Han River boat rides, and generally tries to convince the local ladies that he has the necessary street cred to be worth a second look.

Eyeing the video, you could be forgiven for thinking Gangnam is the heart of everything in Seoul. In some senses, you’d be right. As home to a huge number of the city’s major businesses, Gangnam is a district of skyscrapers, exceptionally high property prices and one of the few Seoul neighbourhoods where a typical Dublin visitor’s travel budget could be utterly obliterated by stepping into the wrong restaurant. On a week night, businessmen view ‘entertaining’ customers as a part of their job. As a result, the nightlife is heavily occupied by suited men, yet tends to be wild and alcohol fueled. The ‘kimchi flower’, an unfortunate product of vomit-inducing levels of soju and the Korean love of the spicy, red fermented cabbage ‘kimchi’, is a common sight on the area’s otherwise pristine sidewalks. Generally Gangnam glimmers with designer chic and clean-cut business facades, but there is a seedier side. That lies in the much discussed but possibly mythical brothel bars, and in the aptly named DVD bangs (bang translates as room), private cinemas that have more to do with sex than watching your choice of movie.

The women of Gangnam, though, are Psy’s concern. Generally speaking, Korea has an exceptionally image conscious society, particularly among the better off. There’s a fascination with looks that goes far beyond what’s common in Europe, so much so that plastic surgery is commonly advertised and bordering on expected of the rich. One of Gangnam’s most notable stereotypes is the Dweonjang lady, a woman on an average salary who’s willing to survive on cheap dweonjang noodles and commute huge distances in order to save for a Louis Vuitton hang bag or a Prada coat. The brands form a rare exception to the general Korean belief that ‘Korean is better’ (Samsung barely has to concern itself with Apple in its own country), and they’re so common in the Gangnam district that if you didn’t know better, you’d think they were a standard, affordable brand.

Whether Psy even wants these women is not as simple as it seems. They are infamously high maintenance, and his entire video is based on mocking their lifestyle. He might offer “oppan Gangnam Style” with a nudge and a wink in the middle of his chorus, but there’s a dual meaning on offer. Oppa (the ‘n’ is possessive) is a respectful way of addressing an older male stranger or superior, that translates literally as ‘big brother’, though it implies no blood relationship. It’s the way that a respectful youngster might address an older man, and has an element of inbuilt sleaze in this context. On the surface, Psy seems to be offering the most direct of come ons, but throw in a video that features ‘glamour’ in the most distinctively un-Gangnam of locations – not least a riverside yoga meet and a kid’s playground – and the entire idea is subverted.

Gangnam's Skyline

There are plenty of sub-culture angles for Psy to take aim at. Gangnam woman are arguably at the heart of Korea’s big-business sexism, a part of a society that seems to sincerely believe that even senior-level company women should get the coffee during a major business meeting, and where the fairer sex is often hired based at least partly on looks. By taking a swipe at the aesthetic-based side of the culture, Psy’s points are actually more adept and serious than most westerners might realise.

Aside from being slim (a near universal attribute of Korean citizens), the standards of beauty in Seoul can be quite different to ours. Korean men often find particular attraction in women with a ‘small face’, for example, and the local culture heavily pressurizes women to marry by the age of 30. By 28, Korean women might have to field daily questions on their marital status from friends and relatives, and largely place an extremely heavy focus on settling down even early in relationships. That particular cultural angle goes a long way to explaining why Psy addresses himself as ‘big brother’ in the song: at 34, he’s clearly going to be an elder to many of the women he’s somewhat sarcastically trying to relate to.

A touch ironically, there’s no doubt that the song would go down a storm in Gangnam. Away from the main subway station crossroad and its four mammoth highways, the back streets are a glorious sprawl of restaurants with tanks of live seafood out front, neon signs, snack carts and convenience stores. During my time in Seoul, the K-Pop sensation was a girl group called Wondergirls, whose slightly painful song ‘Tell Me’ was pumped from every storefront on what seemed like an incessant loop. They’ve since gone on to work with Akon and tour internationally. By all accounts, Gangnam Style is receiving an equally – if not more – obsessive reception.

Wondergirls, like most K-Pop, peddle throwaway stuff. I have to stifle a chuckle when trendy reviewers on the likes of Pitchfork cite K-Pop influences in modern indie bands. Korea has a burgeoning and impressive rock scene, and often plays host to major name western bands, but K-Pop is largely as mind-numbingly saccharine as music comes, reminiscent of the kind of hit produced in association with a kids TV show, except with more glitter, more synth and a weird kind of sexuality. Wondergirls, for example, were largely underage when ‘Tell Me’ came out, but still seemed to have grown men fawning over their weak-vocaled, synth-driven Spice Girls impressions. Hailing K-Pop’s influence in modern-day alt. indie is no different to extolling the impact of the Sponge Bob theme tune on Radiohead’s latest, though in acts like the entertainingly quirky Seo Tae Gi, there are occasional exceptions. Wondergirls, incidentally, also came with their own dance, and almost every lunch time I’d buy myself some sushi or a bowl of ramen whilst younger locals pulled the moves in the Gangnam shop queues. Like large parts of Seoul’s culture, K-Pop is almost universally extremely immediate (meals, for example, typically arrive no more than five minutes after you order them). Psy, I suspect, knows this, and made the immediacy of his satire a target.

Gangnam, though, is not Korea’s creative hub; it’s more of an easy target. The north Seoul university district of Hongdae, a place as wild as any corner of the more party-focused South East Asia and home of the all night party, is the gritty place to be. Gangnam is about the rich and the famous, a corner of the city leaning on designer lifestyles, as relevant to Korea’s musical knife edge as Ballsbridge is to Dublin’s. The district’s about pricey puffer fish dinners, bars where you dip your feet in a spa while you drink, and private, high-end ‘DVD room’ hook ups. Hongdae, being late night, edgy and sweatbox, is Berlin to Gangnam’s Monte Carlo. For Koreans, the delicate satirical swipe is what makes Gangnam Style such a work of genius. For the rest of us, uncovering the layers of sarcasm make for an intriguing unravel.

As published on Goldenplec.com, October 2012.

Verona seems besotted by the ancient local fable immortalized in Shakespeare’s classic. The city also hosts Giulietta’s tomb (empty), her clothing (generic outfits of the period), Romeo’s house and the popular ‘Club di Giulietta’, whose activities include ‘delivering’ letters to the mythical teenager. There’s a daft element to it, but the lovelorn indulgence rubs off. In the central Piazza delle Erbe endless streams of couples drift hand in hand below towering statues and ivy-draped balconies. The cafes spill out across squares, their espresso and cherry-tinged Valpolicella – wine grown and blended in vineyards surrounding the city – adding to the wafts of bakeries, parmesan and chocolate that flavour the streets.

It’s not Verona’s sights that charm the most, but its atmosphere. Having visited the moderately impressive Roman Arena, explored the fading frescos of the dozens of Romansque churches and climbed the 368 steps to listen to the bells clang and examine fragile rooftops from Lamberti Tower, a pianist stops us in our tracks. He takes his place in a quiet corner, surrounds himself with cushioned hearts and closes his eyes, playing Beethoven from memory while an enraptured crowd gathers around him. A touching moment, in a city seemingly built for lovers it’s not a once-off.

Later, we duck into the tiny alleyways and fairy tale courtyards. These reclusive areas offer quiet contemplation next to the sensual buzz of a city that, in parts, seems to decay elegantly around us. On buildings that cling to their glory regardless, the flaking and fading are hard to miss, but match the unchanged aesthetic of a city that stubbornly refuses to blight its image with mismatched modernity. Around an unpromising corner, we stumble upon Ristorante Greppia, where we turn down the fried calf’s brain in favour of delicately flavoured pastas then horse meat, air-dried and served in tiny strands specked with parmesan.

Verona’s a small city, and with most of its Roman-influenced charm condensed around the ancient natural protection of a single loop of the Adige River, it takes only a couple of days to see – and indulge – fairly thoroughly. Just fifteen minutes away by train, the idyllic town of Peschiera Del Garda is shielded by towering walls dropping into countless Lake Garda inlets. Bridges across patches of translucent green water lead to lake-front coffee shops and pizzerias serving calzone (folded pizza) re-shaped as a crab or squid. A little further afield, Maranello’s Museo De Ferrari – around two hours by train and bus – is a shiny ode to Formula 1 glories and slick, noisy roadsters, topped off gloriously with fifteen minutes behind the wheel of an F40 from an enterprising local hire centre, worth even a pricey fifty euro.

Back in the city, a lucky few sleep in Giulietta’s house, while others scrawl their names on padlocks and ‘lock up their love’, symbolically launching the keys from the city’s old drawbridge as they depart. Legend brought them here, but it’s the ivy clinging up the aging, decorative facades of Verona’s balconies; the moonlight glancing off the occupants wine glasses; the Lotharios strumming quiet refrains; the flower-strewn courtyards hiding amongst the marble… Verona itself that the fantasy and reality into one.

TRAVEL Ryanair recently opened Dublin’s first year-round direct service to Verona, departing three times per week, starting at 19.99 one way, tax inclusive. www.ryanair.com. Topflight.ie is Ireland’s leading tour operator to the Verona and Lake Garda area, and can tweak romantic, summery itineraries to suit.

STAY The Accademia Hotel will keep the romance flowing, with classic décor and plenty of in-house luxury. Ad Centrum B&B, conveniently positioned just across the river from Verona’s core, offers a more affordable yet amiable alternative.

INDULGE In an out-of-place but unforgettable Segway tour around the city’s heart, or by taking a herbal bath and jacuzzi at the San Marco Hotel on Via Longhena.

As published in the Sunday Business Post ‘Travel’ supplement, May 2012.

From sea salt ice cream to lock-ins with world class musicians, there’s far more to Dingle’s Other Voices than even RTE’s well-trained cameras can capture…

In ten years of eclectic music that’s been touching and intense, refined and genre-spanning, Dingle music festival and RTE series Other Voices has offered up a succession of sublime church recordings from world class musicians, all against a fairy-tale backdrop. The format is beguiling: superstars strumming guitars in harbour view houses; a tiny church audience rising as one from their pews to acclaim another spellbinding session; chats with inspired, thoughtful heroes introduced by kids from the comfort of their kitchen.

Since series one, recorded in 2002, Other Voices has fostered a near-faultless reputation for punching well above its weight. On-screen stars have included a problem-free Amy Winehouse, Elbow just months before they rocketed to stardom, Florence Welch unveiling the power of that voice in a confined country corner and Snow Patrol mellowing to a touching musical slumber. The local musical elements are all in place, too, in the single-track televised snippets of artists like Kerry natives Toy Soldier and Cork’s Fred playing the petite IMRO Other Room, or young Dubs Little Green Cars, who hit this year’s jackpot as the least-established Irish act to be welcomed into the privileged bosom of St James’ Church itself.

Away from the coloured hearts and rapturous reception depicted so stunningly on our TV screens, though, this most-significant of micro-festivals has become so much more. Beyond the grateful few – just over 300 over the course of four days – who actually make it to the main event, Dingle’s annual highlight has a hardcore, non-ticketed following that attends in part in the hope of grabbing a last-minute pass, but also, more than that, for just a taste of a truly reverential atmosphere.

During Other Voices, Dingle is positively otherworldly. With the main event occupying no more than the late evening of any given day, the pubs become star-hunting havens and social equalisers. This year’s festival newcomer, the ‘Music Trail’ sees many of those smaller acts (and a few of the bigger ones – not least The Frames and Mick Flannery) entertain with free gigs in cramped corners. The result is a form of a pub crawl, one with acclaimed musicians making up the numbers. There’s a point of the weekend when we find ourselves tucking into the Guinness while member of Meath band Ham Sandwich and Dubliners We Cut Corners swap Buckfast consumption stories. Later the same evening, Wild Beasts – a band that are fast reaching levels of indie-acclaim that border on adoration – can be found happily propping up the Benner’s Hotel bar chattering away about buffet breakfasts. Not content with mesmerizing the church. Lisa Hannigan and Mick Flannery take on the Benner’s back-bar piano and wow the late-night revellers in a spontaneous 2am collaboration. At the other extreme, acoustic soloists (at least for Other Voices) Ben Howard and Frank Turner are barely in Dingle for long enough to record, having dropped in during brief, hectic mid-tour breaks, but both take time out of their set to rave incessantly about their brief insight into the town’s charms. Visiting reviewer Elaine Buckey sums up nicely: “World-class musicians mingle with locals and tourists – there’s little room for airs and graces in Dingle over Other Voices weekend.”

While Other Voices propels Dingle’s charm levels into the stratosphere, there’s plenty of other allure, too. Other Voices coincides with another Dingle festival, the Festival Of Light, which sees a parade of local children march around town clutching sculpted lanterns and led by the Dingle Fife And Drum. The mornings are more about a late Full Irish, a little light star-spotting or an intoxicating spell soaking up the sublime stench of the local cheese shop. The clearing of the morning’s hefty fog reveals a town seemingly, somehow, altered less by the passage of time; steeped in the same history as its moist, mossy landscape, and for those without transport, tracking down a ride round the peninsula ring road to eye the rain-lashed outer islands becomes high priority.

A circular stroll through the city centre takes you through pubs strewn with local paraphernalia, from GAA triumphs to assorted rustic instrumentation, many doubling up with second businesses in that endearing rural-Irish quirk that visiting bands so love. Dingle’s include a hardware shop, a clothes store straight from the 80s and a bike hire place; each home just once a year to assorted, Guinness-supping artists of serious repute. When the breeze breaks, Murphy’s Ice Cream smashes the mould with brown bread and sea salt flavours alongside the strawberry and vanilla (both are far better than they sound). They make the perfect accompaniment to the must-do pilgrimage out into the harbour to catch a cobweb-shaking breeze and float alongside lazy resident dolphin Funghi. Owner of growing Dublin record label Delphi, Alexis Vokos, seems almost in awe: “It’s a fairytale world of warm pubs, familiar faces and amazing artists who have all, seemingly by magic, arrived in this picture-perfect corner of Ireland and happily surrendered to its warm embrace. Part of the pleasure is just how informal it has remained.”

What does make the TV screens, then, is the essence of Other Voices. The Frames regular return is just another example of Glen Hansard – an Other Voices co-founder – playing his role as an exceptional ambassador for Irish music. His footsteps must already be marked by some of the intense talent getting by far its most significant TV airing to date – the likes of We Cut Corners and Little Green Cars can be expected to play a prominent role in the continuation of Irish music’s enviable legend. It’s arguably the festival’s imported acts, though, that give it such sustained credibility.

The range of performers unveiled annually is key: seeing exceptional recovered stroke victim Edwyn Collins lined up alongside psychedelic legends Spiritualized and hyped dubstep newcomer SBTRKT puts every act on an equal, enticing footing. The set-up is simplicity itself, but also brings out sparks of creative brilliance, and seems to encourage musical discourse that comes out in the festivals annual array of one-off collaborations. The bigger stories remain in the likes of The National, Winehouse, Snow Patrol and Ray Davies playing some of the most intimate shows since they rose to fame. For those who head out west, though, it’s their own personal, unique little slice of the legend that makes Other Voices quite so magical.

As published in the Something For The Weekend Supplement of the Irish Sun, February 27th 2012. Photos by James Goulden.

(click to view full screen)

The Jezabels are fiercely independent, and proud. When we open our interview with pianist Heather Shannon with a question on their cleverly integrated trio of early EPs, in fact, Heather’s very first sentence is “well, we’re an independent band”. It’s understandable: while plenty of bands have gone autonomous later in their careers, few have gathered such a thundering snowball of global hype whilst clinging so firmly to a level of control that reduces the labels they have signed to – separate small-time labels in different parts of Europe and America (PIAS in Ireland’s case) – to the role of distributors and regional promoters. Some particularly enthusiastic observers might even point to The Jezabels format as a new model; a way in which future generations of musicians might take firm control of their art, and reduce record labels to merely practical, commission based roles. It turns out, though, that things weren’t entirely planned this way.

Australian label interest, for example, came “in between releasing the second EP and into the third, when we went from no interest to heaps.” By then, The Jezabels collectively felt “like they couldn’t offer us much more than what we’d already built ourselves, fan base wise. I guess it was a timing thing. We might have signed with someone if it had come earlier”, but also looked to their influential manager Dave Batty, who’s “very strong-minded, he’s one of the reasons we were able to stay independent. It can be harder, but we’re pretty hands on people, and we don’t want a lot of decisions made on our behalf.”

The road might have been unusual, but the result already seems a certainty. With debut full-length Prisoner just released (a definite early contender for album of the year), The Jezabels peaked at number two in their native Australia, and despite the relative lack of financial backing, have already temporarily relocated to London and booked themselves full-length tours through Europe and the US. To Heather, London is a “loose base, somewhere to practice between month long tours. We’re starting to get used to the touring. I used to be anxious about it, but once you accept that you’re going to be tired all the time you get used to it. Jet lag’s a problem, but your body just starts to accept when you’re awake. It takes a while.”

So what caused all this fuss? The three EPs – the last of which appeared on the Aussie scene towards the end of 2010, each ruminates on “heavy romantic themes”, and form the building blocks through which the band’s genre disparities were merged into something unique. “I come from a classical background”, Heather explains, “I was classically trained and I’ve been playing piano my whole life. Nick was in a metal band. I think we just came back to rehearsal because we were four people who were really into music and we challenged each other. We had lots of bands to show each other. It’s been a battle sometimes with stylistic choices and song writing. Hayley really likes light-hearted pop, like Abba, but maybe with a darker side to it. Nick’s on the other extreme of the spectrum. I think Sam and I kind of sit in the middle and marry the arrangements together. We get there somehow.”

The EP series has allowed the four-piece to keep their un-backed finances in check, too: “when we finished the first EP, we didn’t feel ready to do an album; we thought why not do three EPs and group them together. Financially it was really good for us, and it meant we could get material out quicker and build things up slowly. We didn’t want to spend a lot of time and money on an album that might not be important.”

When it came to producing the album, those disparate influences were emphasized still further, with Lachlan Mitchell – a death metal performer – hired to produce. “All we did for four months was work on the album”, Heather tells us. “It was all written together so we think that gives it a natural feel. Our producer’s in a black metal band that dresses up in heavy chains and stuff like that. I think part of that definitely come out in our song writing and in the production. We’ve got these tribute pop-songs, and then tracks like ‘Nobody Nowhere’, which is kind of the other extreme. It was good to have a full length album to explore those things, as on the EPs, things wouldn’t have held together with such extremes over short periods of time.”

The entire process hasn’t been without frustrations. Heather admits that the random nature of the group’s musical backgrounds “could have gone either way at times”, for example. The staggered release dates (the album’s been out for nearly six months in Australia) have been odd, too: “we wanted to release it earlier outside Australia, but it turned out to be easier to marry the whole thing up in March. Being signed with a whole load of different labels around the world eventually meant a little compromising.”

Still, to have such global exposure off your own back pre-album is astounding. Heather gives huge career credit to their growing Internet fan base: “You might find that you have a lot of fans somewhere because of Facebook or something, and go over there and sell out a show, somewhere you’ve never been before. That’s incredible. There are bands in Australia that have huge careers there and they’ve survived, but with the internet now, if you can take things elsewhere you have a far better chance. Why not?”

For a band that technically only have an Australian album release for another week yet, the greatest highs seem to be yet to come: “We were really excited to get four stars in the American Rolling Stone, which felt like a really big deal to us. We did a tour in Australia last October and sold about 5000 tickets in each major city. That felt like a turning point, too. That was amazing.” The immediate aims following the album release are extremely simple, though. For band whose life is one constant battle against jet lag and tour fatigue due to flight to Australia and back, once the London rehearsals are over, immediate aims are merely “to get through these tours and then play a few festivals.” We can’t help feeling The Jezabels might achieve a whole lot more than that.

As published on State.ie, February 2012.

The Belfast roller derby league formed 18 months ago, after the skater calling herself Hannahbolic Steroids took the advice of friends in Birmingham, and took on the burden of formation herself. A quick mail to a few friends had a first practice session in place, and training, featuring regular ‘fresh meat’, has been growing ever since. Tonight, there are 28 skaters who’ve reached a level necessary to compete publically. Like many more recent teams, the Belfast girls grew in numbers as Barrymore’s film ‘Whip It’ gained popularity. The film sees the actress playing an indie-alternative small-town Texan girl escaping the world of pageants to find her own identity in an extremely (and unrealistically) aggressive form of rollerderby carnage. ‘Sigourney Cleaver’ – whose off track costume includes a large (fake) blooded knife – is one Barrymore-inspired recruit, joining “only a couple of days” after seeing the movie. Others, like J-Mag were recruited through an undercurrent of word of mouth and the flyering of Belfast’s more alternative corners.

The basic principles of Roller derby are fairly simple, though the heavier technicalities extend to a half-inch-thick rule book. Each team fields five players, eight of whom (four from each team) circle the track as ‘blockers’, led by the strategy-calling pivot. Behind them, and starting just a touch later, the speedy ‘jammers’ – one from each team – power towards the pack, and attempt to skip, twist and bash their way through to the front. The blockers job is a dual one: they’re responsible for both blocking the opposition jammer, and helping their own to pass through the rolling bodies unscathed. For each opposition blocker that the jammer passes after their first run through, or for lapping the opposition jammer, they pick up a point. Each ‘jam’ lasts two minutes (though it can be ended early by the lead jammer), while a ‘bout’ – or contest – has a one hour limit, but crams in as many jams as possible. In practice, the jammers are slightly more important than the blockers (both of whom rotate from a 14-girl team), though a good blocker can prevent a jammer from cashing in at all, and so also be worth a whole lot of points. Explaining the blocker’s strategy, J-Mag argues “the concentration is mainly on the other team’s jammer. Helping your own jammer is secondary.”

It might sound complex, but Hannahbolic enthusiastically touts the skill requirement as “none” – none of the girls come from skating backgrounds – yet the training can be intense. Cleaver explains: “everyone comes at it from different levels. You’ll have some people who are really quite athletic when they join, but there are people who’ve never done a team sports in their lives. We’ll teach people everything they need to know”. On the other hand, the physical demands are not to be sniffed at, with training becoming increasingly intensive: “It’s very physical”, Hannah explains, “We train three times a week, and it was four times over the summer. You need to be working out on the days you’re not skating, too, so that training sessions are just for the skill element. It’s a struggle, and we wouldn’t make anyone do more than they’re comfortable with, but we’re a competitive league, so if people want to get first picks they need to put in the work.” As for the physical side of the bouts themselves, Hannahbolic explains “There are several members of our team, and other teams as well, that could put you on the floor pretty easily, but Roller Derby’s moved on from that. It’s more beneficial to get in someone’s lap and feel where they’re going to go, and block them. There are big hits, but it’s more tactical than just slamming people”. Physical, yes, but roller derby’s also accessible for newcomers, particularly now. The sport’s so new to Northern Ireland that none of the girls have more than 18 months experience, yet an All-Ireland team recently went out to represent the country in ‘Blood and Thunder’, the American-based Roller Derby World Cup, and things are a little further on in Dublin and Cork. The members of the Belfast team are either ineligible or not quite experienced enough to make the side this time around.

As an amateur sport with a DIY ethos – “There’s a real community spirit, we’ve been places and stayed with other teams, and we’ll offer the same if they come here.” – derby has a fierce identity, not least in its dress code. “The make-up and costumes help me compartmentalise the nerves”, Hannah argues, while Cleaver sees it as “a bit like playing superheroes. That’s why you see all the pants on the outside.”

It all looks great on track. Tonight’s bout is an ‘intra-league’ contest, consisting entirely of members of Belfast’s own team, but no less intense for it. A crowd of around 250 watch the girls shoulder-charge, skip around each other and fly past in a blur of intimidating make-up over the course of two halves, a punk, rock and metal soundtrack offering appropriate backing music. The most striking thing is perhaps the speed of the jammers, who, once they escape the bustling pack, invariably fly around the circuit in seconds to line up another run through. As Belfast Roller derby play ‘flat track’ (i.e. not banked) roller derby, the trips and falls tend to end in slides out towards the crowd, while points scoring varies wildly between bouts, with particularly speedy skaters like ‘Puscifer’ racking up the scores lap after lap, while intelligent blocking leaves others stranded in dense packs.

While the opening jams feel a little like the girls testing the water, the full tactical range of the game really starts to come out towards the end of the opening half. With the league, divided into black and white team colours for tonight, they demonstrate the full physical and tactical intensity of the sport in a night that offers a triumphant example of a concept that’s new to almost all of us. Just the level of sin bins, and the new tactical options that are opened up by the intelligent “no harm, no foul” refereeing is a must-see, offering extreme ‘power jam’ options.

The long-term aim, as Cleaver tells it, is “basically to grow. It would be great to get an all-Ireland tournament. In the short term, we just want to get to the point where we can play a lot of other teams.” There are a growing number of options, with the sport quickly taking off across numerous continents. The London RollerGirls for example, has already reached a level that allows them to compete in the American championship. With a number of breathtakingly fast jammers and physical, swift blockers, Belfast’s first public outing looks very much like a first step onto a global scene.

www.belfastrollerderby.net

As published in AU Magazine Issue 79, pp 8-9.

With debut album Serious About Men just around the corner, The Rubberbandits have plenty on their mind, not least the many different uses for plastic bags. Before our interview at Reading Festival, the Limerick duo teach a tent full of English kids about the IRA. During their set, they ramble incoherently about ‘yokes’ (i.e. pills) and claim to be a gilled human-fish hybrid. After the ‘Horse Outside’ furore, the conservative corners of Ireland are not going to like this…

The Rubberbandits have a reputation for being somewhat difficult in interviews. In fact, AU is grateful to have the chance to speak to the duo backstage at August’s Reading Festival, a location where they are virtual unknowns. At least it makes it a little more difficult for the pair to force us against a wall, or to throw us into a blacked-out jeep for an uncomfortable ‘tour’, as they have done to previous interviewers. Instead, Mr Chrome – the lanky half of the duo who performs topless and can’t resist a cock-swinging, on-stage rave – tries to smuggle large quantities of beer from the backstage cooler, while the marginally more refined and emotionally volatile Blindboy Boatclub seems to be having a temporary love-in with the English, and the ‘banter’ surrounding their show. References to the IRA feature significantly more than normal, and we can’t help noticing that the comedy tent has roped in a couple of extra security men just before kick-off. For The Rubberbandits, things really have moved on.

If you’d stumbled across The Rubberbandits seven or eight years ago, you’d have found a pair of internet heroes indulging in a few highly entertaining prank phone calls, not least one demanding that a bank pay compensation for a melted chocolate bar destroying their pants, or a long conversation with a shop clerk over the in-store disappearance of their rare imported bee. The comedy aspect might be as well-established as ever, but things are solely music now. Blindboy explains: “We’re too famous now. We wanted to be anonymous, but if we try and prank today someone will go ‘is that Blindboy’? And I’m like, ‘Yeah’, and then we’re there talking about how my mum’s doing.”

Instead, The Rubberbandits have fostered their sex-crazed, drug-addled bag-covered rap personas. The accents and obsession with party drugs are all part of the working class Limerick satire, but the plastic bags have a more practical purpose: “What do women love?” asks Mr. Chrome. “Shopping. What do we look like? Shopping. They love it. You should try it. You can’t go mixing your bags, mind. You need your mask bag, your pill bag, your glue bag and for your ladies your handbag, you know what I mean? They are 22 cents a time so we knit them out of nylon. We do want to wear them, for the ladies, but we actually have to. What people don’t realise, right, is that we’re really fish. There’s a layer of water on the inside of the bags that we need to breathe through our gills. The ladies love a bit of fish.”

The move to Dublin – their success largely due to a slot on RTE’s Republic Of Telly – proved a ‘Bandits turning point. As Blindboy tells it, “We love Limerick, but needed a bit of a holiday, so we got an eight-man tent on the roof of RTE. There were all these lads on the roof of RTE, so they just put us on TV for the laugh. We were living off pigeons, and they gave us canteen vouchers.” Next thing they knew, the ‘Bandits were producing guides to cities, and singing about (their version of) the Limerick lifestyle to the masses.

Around the time their breakthrough single ‘Horse Outside’ came out, The Rubberbandits were ‘unmasked’ by a photographer from The Irish Sun, who followed them back to their hotel after an early show. The ‘Bandits clearly dislike the man, but Mr Chrome claims innocence. “What did he want to go and do that for? He got it wrong, though. He said he did it by checking our shoes. Does he think we’re dumb, like? We gave our shoes to a couple of Russians. We already told you, we’re fish. We can’t live without our Raps bags [they’re not Spar bags, they’re just on backwards], so it can’t be us.”

A few of the tracks that will appear on Serious About Men have been doing the rounds for a year or more as part of the live set. Blindboy Boatclub sums up the prevailing themes as “friendship, hawks and friendship with hawks. Friendship with everyone really. Even the English. But not Danny Dyer. We hate Danny Dyer. He’s a knob. Tell him if you see him that we’re gonna wound him.” The wounding will involve a headlock and a bout of mocking his masculinity, if the latest round of lyrics are anything to go by. Rap comedy doesn’t require a lot of musical comparison, but The Rubberbandits’ descriptions are predictably silly. “If you’re going to compare it to something, compare it to your grandma’s shopping.” That doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on, but there are always hints. Our interview came before recent single ‘Spastic Hawk’ had emerged outside of The Rubberbandits’ studio, but the newfound emotional edge is still implied. The words “We’ve got a hawkery” even make an oblique appearance in our chat.

There is a philosophy, though. ‘Horse Outside’ might feature on the album, but the change of direction represented by the mellower, satirical-melancholy comedy of ‘Spastic Hawk’ isn’t entirely coincidental. “We might have invented rap,” Mr Chrome argues, preposterously, “but we need to keep making things fresh, things that we like, you know what I mean? The album’s not going to have anything about cows outside, or goats outside, or hawks outside. We don’t really care if people like it, as long as Danny Dyer hears it. You know what I mean?”

And international appeal? “People already love us in England. We’re all about peace, you know? What’s not to love about songs about the ‘RA? We just have to make sure when we make it back to LA, Ice Cube’s fecked off on tour somewhere. He’s in the ‘RA too. But he’s too affectionate. I love him, but the man’s just too much with all his come-ons. I hope people give us lots of money. Money’s the most important part.”

Getting a sensible word out of the Rubberbandits is an act that only Joe Duffy – who hosted a very eloquent defence of ‘Horse Outside’ from Blindboy Boatclub on his RTE Liveline show – seems capable of. Novelty act or not, there’s little doubt that the duo represent the best vaguely rap-themed act ever to come out of the island of Ireland. They’re also so quick-witted that an interview is a constant battle not to lose the plot and giggle manically while they assault you with comments about what lives in the Liffey. Does the album represent the ‘threat to society’ that a few humourless souls have warned of? Of course not, but these subversive jokers should not be underestimated.

Serious About Men is out on November 26.

www.therubberbandits.com

‘Ha Ha Hits’: The great musical comedy acts

The Vandals – They might argue in a reasonably straight-faced manner that they’re a punk band – and they are, stylistically, at least – but The Vandals have 30 years’ worth of music behind them that suggests comedy is their centrepiece. See ‘14’, a disturbing anthem on counting down until an underage teenager’s sixteen birthday, and ‘Anarchy Burger’, a track that sarcastically aligns buying a burger with political outrage. At least we hope they’re joking…

Monty Python – The likes of ‘Every Sperm Is Sacred’ and ‘Eric the Half a Bee’ must have featured in more 3am sing-alongs than ironic renditions of Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’. The TV show spawned more than a dozen spin-off albums, and introduced a trend for insane surrealism best summed up in that rendition of ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’ performed whilst nailed to a cross in ‘The Life Of Brian’.

The Lonely Island – Saturday Night Live stars with a phallic obsession, The Lonely Island are beloved across the pond for getting Justin Timberlake to sing about a ‘Dick In A Box’. They went on to rope in Lady Gaga, Michael Bolton, Nicki Minaj and a whole load more contemporary artists with the promise of lyrics like ‘Watch it girl, cos I ain’t your ‘Mr Nice Guy’, more like the meet you, take you home and fuck you twice guy’.

Bloodhound Gang – Having started out as a rap group not dis-similar to The Rubberbandits, Bloodhound Gang morphed into a nu-rock act singing on themes like animal and animal-style sex, drug trafficking and abuse, and the female anatomy. That’s before we even get started on their on-stage antics, which include a fixation with golden showers and plenty of perverted thoughts on Asian women. Just don’t stand in the front row…

Weird Al Yankovic – Al had us won over before he finished parodying the Backstreet Boys whilst rambling about what he’s bought on Ebay. Factor in ‘Don’t Download This Song’, a brilliant parody of Nirvana’s biggest smash’s indecipherable lyrics in ‘Smells Like Nirvana’, and Al’s habit of saying he’ll leave the serious stuff to the likes of Paris Hilton and you have a man as witty as he is funny looking, and anyone you’ve ever heard of is a prime target.

As published in AU Magazine Issue 78 – November/ December 2011.

It all started when prolific singer-songwriter Christian Zucconi and abstract painter Hannah Hooper met after a performance from Christian’s former band ‘Pagoda’ in New York. Hannah tells us “We pretty much fell in love at first sight. On the very next day after we met, I was invited to go to Greece for a painting residency, and I just thought, this guy Christian is too special, I’m going to ask if he can come with me. Luckily he agreed.”  The residency turned out to be a total shambles (“they told us to squat in a corner, there was one cold water shower and Sean had to sleep next to a dead cat” – Christian), but they befriended Ryan, (the son of Yes guitarist Trevor Rabin) who stumbled in from an exchange program in Prague to meet his best friend Andrew, and Sean, another musical minded resident. Christian and Hannah’s impulsive love story led to a happy summer with their new friends “We were spending hours riding around on scooters”, Hannah explains, “sitting on our own secret ivy-covered beach and writing music. It was very much a friendship thing, I started off drawing everyone and we slowly started humming and finally singing together. It was a very special experience.”

Ryan describes takes up the story: “It was a lot like a summer camp, basically, but with no running water, and a lot more rustic. We performed at the camp’s music festival before we left, but more as a group of friends than a band. It felt like Hannah arrived as an artist. She’s still an artist, but she also left as a musician.” Things had clearly clicked, but nevertheless, what would become GROUPLOVE headed their separate ways. That looked very much like the end, until a year later an LA reunion eventually led to a successful debut EP. “We wrote the EP on a reunion visit to Ryan’s in LA”, Christian explains. “Soon afterwards, Hannah and I sold everything we owned and moved out from New York.” The rest, as they say, is history. The way things have been going on the European festival circuit this summer, it’s threatening to be music history of quite some note.

Since the EP, GROUPLOVE’s growth hasn’t been difficult to follow. ‘Colours’ – already years old before it saw any significant publicity at all – took the blogosphere by storm. When GROUPLOVE first set foot on Irish soil for Oxegen early in the summer, they opened their set to perhaps ten people and watched the tent slowly fill as word spread. Come Electric Picnic in September, an early afternoon slot induced a euphoric reception and saw the colourful five-piece installed as one of the talking points of the weekend. The turning point was probably their early US Florence & the Machine support slot. “Having only been a band for half a year it was really humbling to get to that point”, Ryan tells us. “Still, once the show was over, the question was ‘How do we do that better in the future’.” the clichéd, rise to fame nature of the band’s success has surely contributed to the GROUPLOVE ethos – “not so much a hippie reference, but an expression of our love for each other” – which is clear to see in shows that bubble over with smiling energy.

The band’s effervescent interviews are no different. Primary singers Christian and Hannah steal secret, beaming glances at each other between sentences. Bassist Sean – the only non-American member – plays the role of spokesmen; a jovial and cuttingly humorous character who’s earthy Brit-wit encapsulates the band’s mutual adoration. Given the breath-taking fortuitousness of it all and the infectiously happy-go-lucky vibe that GROUPLOVE purvey, debut album title ‘Never Trust a Happy Song’ must be tinged with a hint of irony? “Yes, it’s incredibly upbeat, but it also has a bit of a twisted underbelly. It’s difficult to be happy about everything, and we like our songs to have a bit of critical realism”, Andrew explains. “The cover’s Hannah’s art work. Every member has a writing credit yet every song has our collective conscious running through it. It’s a great representation of who we are. We just hope people like it”.

The band’s five-songwriter set up is jointly influenced by their shared history and a collection of musicians that Hannah explains “we can’t even begin to summarize – every member of the group comes from a different angle. The important thing is that we all appreciate each other”. Breakthrough effort ‘Colours’ is very much Christian’s baby, for example, while ‘Itchin’ On a Photograph sees Andrew’s sentimental side come to the fore. There’s no sense of friction or ownership surrounding the songs, though, everyone’s “just too into the love we have for each other”.

Of course, that applies more than anything to Christian and Hannah, who seemed entirely besotted with each other. The rest of the band argues “We’re used to it. As long as they don’t start getting it on in the dressing room it’s all good. We’ve only ever known them as a couple, so it doesn’t change the group dynamic”. Experience tells us that friendships developed on the road often fall apart when subjected to the real world, but having lived the best part of a year in a tour van, perhaps GROUPLOVE’s travel clique has only really removed its pink-tinged sunglasses to spend time in the studio. Sean even argues that the lack of a shared history beyond the artist’s commune informs the band’s music: “It’s fresh because we didn’t know each other’s pasts. All we knew is that we were all on a beach wearing shorts and playing guitars. This band listens to each other, everyone has a huge input and it’s also very individual and non-judgemental. It works really well creatively. It’s fun, and exciting. Being part of the band is just the easiest thing in the world. It really takes the pressure off having everyone contribute. Someone comes up with a song and we all work on it together.”

“There’s no formula, and I hope there never will be, the only thing we tried to stick to when making the album was to keep every song different’”, Sean tells us, “we just put everything into what we do together. Of course, the real measure will be if we’re still remembered in the future. For now, we’re just so happy to have this opportunity. How well we’ve done is really quite overwhelming.”

As published in AU Magazine Issue 77 (October 2011), page 35.

About 45 minutes pass, and I turn on the light switch. I’m floating in a salty bath in the blindingly dark confines of what’s essentially a blacked out, nicely heated paddling pool. It’s intimidating at first, yet the kind of blackness that descends when the lights flicker out – fused with the deathly silence aided by ear plugs and the gentle two-tone beat of the heart – quickly evaporates any concept of time. Soon afterwards, the head begins to swirl with entirely un-stimulated randomness, spinning between complete consciousness and a day-dream state. After five minutes, virtual to-do lists and ‘thinking time’ are exhausted and overwhelmed. Sheer serenity, empty space and stress relief kick in: I’m floating in a carbon fibre tub in a central Dublin basement, but I could be anywhere, or equally, nowhere.

Flick the light switch over your left shoulder, and the flotation tank is a large coffin of stringy fibres, well-concealed filters and heating devices. Switch things back off, though, and its 24 square feet of nothingness, and lying back and letting yourself go feels strangely primal. The warmth of the lapping water and the throb of your own heart beat feel pure and embryonic, and if you can avoid checking your eyes still open and close normally – which doses them in salt water so oily and thick it’ll make swimming in the Atlantic seem like a fresh bath tub – it’s an hour of pure relaxation that feels like a good deal longer. With the facilities to wash off the rainbow layers of salt from the folds of the outer ear (and the rest of your now almost sedentary limbs) all laid out amongst a stunning hippie backdrop, the lightest knock on the flotation room door might sound like a hammer blow, but it won’t lift you from your dreamy state. Float on!

You can hear the faintest murmurs of your heart and slosh away the stress at the Harvest Moon holistic stress management centre, located at 24 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2. www.harvestmoon.ie

As published in The Social August issue, 2011 (click to page three).

Cruising the backstreets in my friend’s ancient, lowered, alloy-wheeled Fiat Uno when we should have been in Chemistry class was about the height of things. Our livelier evenings were made up of underage drinking in the cemetery outside the local arts centre, if we could obtain the alcohol. Local musicians of limited talent combined the trumpets they played in the school band with a few chords on guitar, and quick as a flash, an entire generation of rural gig-goers became huge ska punk fans. In that shiny-rimmed, decrepit old Fiat we listened to only three bands. Rancid were the angry, political, edgy punk monsters who we dreamed of seeing smash their guitars across the art centre’s stony floor. An obscure American ska band called The Gadjits fell at the other extreme, fixated with nothing more than bouncing like idiots, singing about juvenile delinquency and bouncing like idiots some more, only whilst on top of various different women. Less Than Jake – a sizable group of Florida based musical miscreants – fell nicely in the middle. They summed up the feeling that there should somehow be more to life than middle class rural boredom with tracks like ‘Is This Thing On?’, and caught onto the teenage tendency towards misbehavior in tracks like ‘Sugar In Your Gas Tank’. They were, in short, our idols.

Since then, Less Than Jake have always run through my life. I once saw them play five dates on a single UK tour, culminating in a sweaty London basement, where my friends and I clung to a huge banner that read ‘I Stalk Less Than Jake’. At that final show, guitarist Roger came out and presented me with a plec that’s still sat in a cupboard back at my parents house long after most of my other teenage tat has been thrown away. Earlier that year I drove my parents classic Morris Minor into the back of a Transit Van on the way back from another Less Than Jake show, and spent an entire miserable summer paying the damages. Then, on my very first day of university, a guy walked into my room because I was blasting ‘Faction’. He’s still one of my best friends, and the song’s already been requested as a teenage throwback from the DJ who’s playing my up and coming wedding.

To say I’m ‘all grown up’ now is probably a fallacy, though I no longer drink in graveyards or risk my life in appallingly driven Fiats. These days, ska punk rarely finds its way onto my stereo, and even the Less Than Jake album I consider to be their seminal effort, the critically unheralded Borders And Boundaries – an album I’m on my second copy of because the first became so scratched from overplaying – hasn’t graced my stereo for perhaps six months. Having said that, their music will always be part of me, and the opportunity to interview long-time saxophone player Peter ‘JR’ Wasilewski was one of those pipe dreams that got me into music journalism in the first place. For the band’s up and coming Dublin show, I’ll be on my honeymoon. By my reckoning, it will be the first Less Than Jake show taking place in my town that I’ve failed to attend in well over a decade. They say life moves on; and I’m delighted with the way mine is about to. When it all meant so much to me, though, finding out what it meant to the band was a unique opportunity. Here’s JR’s take on the ten key points that – for me at least – make Less Than Jake that little bit special. They’re the same concepts that the band represented all those years ago:

1. Thou shalt not take yourself seriously… “The new release, TV/EP, is not really a release. I mean it’s being promoted as a release, but we just did it for fun. If people don’t like it, so be it. We had ten months off touring, and we’d been talking about doing it, so it was just a way to make use of some ideas, get back into things and have some fun. It’ll get a critical panning, people are too ‘cool’ to like it. It’s just something to listen to, a different kind of covers record, just TV theme songs.”

2. Thou shalt ignore authority… “You can do a certain amount of things on a normal label, but there comes a point when you get singled out and labeled for them. Having our own label means we just do what we want, no red tape. It’s harder to get media outlets interested in your band, competing against multi-million dollar companies. We don’t want people signing cheques for us, we don’t want to throw them under the bus, but there’s no use having someone else controlling your band. We want control. If that’s wrong, it’s wrong.”

3. Thou shalt experiment… “A lot of the things we do are just to see what happens. With the latest release, we know a lot of kids around the world might never have heard of Laverne & Shirley. You have to give the listener more, as you’re competing with ‘free’ these days. I read the other day that Reverb Nation registered its one-millionth band. That’s just shitty. I mean in a way it’s great, but there are a million shitty bands out there, mine included. There needs to be a theme, a well thought out package.”

4. Thou shalt ignore the mainstream… “I listen to the radio occasionally when I’m in my car, but I just don’t care what’s popular. I was stoked with myself the other day when I recognized a Rihanna track”.

5. Thou shalt make yourself collectible… “All these indie bands keep putting out tapes, but it’s pointless. Let’s be honest, who has a Walkman? The hipster, idealistic thought of releasing a record on a cassette just seems like trying to be cool. Unless you’re one of those people who wears glasses that are just frames, you’re not going to have a Walkman. CD collections are getting smaller and smaller. The only thing left is vinyl. It’s artwork; it’s big, and it’s collectible. The nuances are great, it’s a better listening experience. There are always going to be collectors who buy it. There are only three people who own every release our band has put out, that we know of. Two of them are in the band. I know what I don’t have, and it’s a lot.”

6. Thou shalt play live like your life depends on it… “You have to connect with your fans somehow. There are new, younger people at every show, as well as our older fans. There’s always someone seeing us for the first time. Without the fans, we wouldn’t exist. It’s symbiotic, and I like to hang out. Circle pits, the skull man, ‘the wall’… our fans are crazy, and we want to make sure they have a lot of fun”.

7. Thou shalt mix it up… “There’s no point in staying static, and putting on the same show every night. We like to change things up on a day-to-day basis. We have the ‘hits’, the songs we know are popular from each album. It’s tough to pick, though. We have dozens and dozens of songs rehearsed for every tour to choose from. At any one time we could be picking from 60 or 70 tracks we could throw in to the set list.”

8. Thou shalt keep your feet on the ground… “If Less Than Jake could be remembered for one thing, I’d like it to be for not being assholes. Or for being the band that opened the door to a lot of other bands, and taught them how to be a band. We took out a lot of bands that have never been on tour before, and some of them have gone on to be much bigger than us. That kind of stuff means a lot. I wouldn’t say we’re not a successful band, we’re able to continue to be a band, and I’d consider that very successful after 20 years.”

9. Thou shalt make the most of what you have… “We’ll keep going until someone gives up, until someone says I can’t do this anymore, or until people stop coming out to see us play. We’re having a fucking great time. Why would we stop? I don’t know why we’ve lasted so long, honestly. Maybe it’s just the reaction that happens when we’re on stage, it’s real and it’s special. Some bands don’t have the same spark. We’ll play the same way if there are eight people or 80,000. We genuinely have a good time, the shows are the highlight of our day.”

10. Thou shalt appreciate what you have… “We’re so lucky that we can still make a living doing what we love; that so many people still care about what we, as a band, do. Some days I’d rather be doing anything, but being on tour is still who we are. That’s where we thrive. We love performing with each other and we love performing for you fans.”

As published at State Magazine and Goldenplec.com, June 2011.