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.

“My influences come from all over the place these days”, Roddy tells us. “I listen to a lot of jazz and blues and music from the 60s and 70s, as well as a lot of contemporary music. Obviously living in the Inner Hebrides is going to give you a very different perspective to say living in New York. I go through phases with different writers, and that has an effect, too. I read a lot, and of course that seeps into my music. I don’t want to write protest anthems about pollution, or get involved in direct action or anything like that, but the sound really reflects where I live. The thought process behind my songs is like watching gulls swooping around in the sky.”

“The album was slowly constructed over the space of half a year”, Roddy explains, “it has a solid foundation of the same people, but then we got contributions from a handful of musicians who passed through. There are instruments that none of us can play, like saxophone. I always wanted to put saxophone on Idlewild records, but the rest of the guys didn’t go for it. It was creative in a way I’ve never tried before. Generally speaking I’ve always been in a band. Going solo is the chance to be very expressive. I’m a totally different person now. When we were young we were influenced by Black Flag, Nirvana and Fugazi, but my taste has evolved naturally, like many music fans’ tastes do. Folk records have definitely become important to me”.

Roddy’s always had multiple outputs. Even at the height of Idlewild’s fame, he produced a column on hill walking for a national paper in Scotland, a gig that only stopped when the media started laying off freelancers. His journalistic dabblings have never been on musical topics, but he sees the creative difference: while both are “about writing stories, it’s very different to music; it’s just something interesting to do. Lyrics are often compared to poetry, and I think that’s wrong. Poetry is a lot more considered, and has to have a rhythm. Music doesn’t have to be narrative or tell a story, the music adds meaning. It can be abstract or simple, but the most important thing for me is that the tune’s good. If the tune’s good, you can hang things around it. I don’t worry about it making complete sense. There are very few lyricists you can read as poetry. Maybe Dylan, Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits. The greats, but not too many other people. But that’s okay.”

“I write songs that I hope people will remember. It’s a really abstract kind of profession, and there’s really a limitless amount of songs and chord progressions you can come up with. It’s a permanent question mark, and that’s what [latest album] ‘The Impossible Songs & Other Songs’ is getting at.”

Despite Roddy’s well-established solo efforts, the Idlewild ‘hiatus’ situation continues to be one of interest to many rock fans. Roddy looks back with little regret on the situation, suggesting that it just wasn’t meant to be: “you can put out the best record of all time, and if your timing’s wrong, no one will hear it. I’m not saying we did put out the best record of all time, but we were a good rock band, we were just always a bit out of step. In our favor, there wasn’t much other stuff like us, so maybe we got more attention. But everyone moved on from guitars. We created our own little world by being a bit out of sync. We have a very dedicated fanbase. Music fans, as you know, are kind of tribal, they’re very loyal, and a lot of bands don’t get that. We had that for fifteen years, and that’s cool. In terms of mainstream, popular success, we never really made it. We weren’t prepared for it when the spotlight shone on us. We basically weren’t good enough, as we were too young. I’m not bitter about it at all, that was just the reality of the situation. We’d love to have been able to push on, like Coldplay did, and taken the bull by the horns. We wouldn’t want to be like them musically, but we never did push on like they did.”

All indications suggest that Idlewild might be a thing of the past. There’s no doubt that Roddy’s new “cottage industry” style of music suits him well. A newfound preference for low-key, seated gigs and a set spattered with only the thinnest selections of Idlewild tracks makes Roddy’s folk leanings the focus, whilst members of his former band are off touring with various musicians, taking up a college music residency or becoming a soundman. “I’ve done a lot of solo recording now, as I was doing the solo thing in tandem with Idlewild five years ago. I do almost have a different fan base for that, especially in England and Scotland. A lot of people in the crowd are more familiar with my solo stuff, which is much better than a lot of people wanting to hear American English. But we play a few re-worked tracks, ones that are suited to being folk songs. I’m definitely going to do another solo record, as I’ve got a great set up here now. After that I might just get a job. It has become a lot harder for musicians to make a living full time. Everyone’s competing for the same things, and it feels like it shouldn’t be a competition.”

There will be at least one last chance to see the Roddy of old, though. Idlewild reform for a one off show at Northern Lights Festival in Aberdeen, in July. “We got offered the gig and we’re all around. It’s a one off gig, and we have no plans to record anything else.” Roddy’s more notorious musical output might well be a thing of the past, then, but there’s no doubting that an end to such an intense nomadic touring lifestyle and settling into a musical genre that’s more representative of what he is today is the way forward for him. While Idlewild fans – us included – might mourn the passing of a true group of cult heroes, a new, organic, personal style of writing is the best way for Roddy’s music to come out these days. Before long, perhaps he’ll forge his own legacy.

As published on State.ie, May 2011.

Sponsorship. Route planning. Team bonding and fundraising events; van-cramming and graffiti-acquiring. Even the work that goes into preparing for Mongol Rally – a death-defying charity odyssey from the UK to Mongolia – is a mammoth undertaking. Buying up a scrap-heap-ready Citroen Berlingo, which the spirit of the rally dictates should be scrawled all over (read: covered in sticky-taped Tayto packets and welded shopping trolleys) was the first part. Next, Dirty Sanchez star Mike Locke (aka Pancho) was persuaded to aid in the fundraising and promotional efforts by allowing donors to staple notes directly his equally scrap-heap-ready body. This, though, was only the start of a journey that was to take to Belfast lads around almost half the globe.

The aim of the Mongol Rally, ostensibly, is to deliver used cars for auction in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and raise a lot of cash for charity along the way. However, Norn Iron duo Steve Neill and Barry Keenan (and, for a large portion of the journey, Steve’s wife Sarah), tagged on a few of their own personal aims. They live by the motto “For lust of knowing what should not be known”, a quote, appropriately, from early 20th century poet James Elroy Flecker’s ‘The Golden Journey To Samarkand’, and was determined to unveil a ludicrous number of oddities along the way. Aside from seeing far-flung corners of the globe, the team that would be come known as Team Charolastra (space cowboy in Spanish) also intended to cram their sizable van with helpful charitable donations, ingratiate themselves with the local police by handing out gifts of t-shirts from one of their main sponsors Tayto and generally get by on a wing and a prayer.

The van itself was an exception to the rally’s generally accepted rules – a more practical vehicle than most pushed past the left-field organising committee and into the contest as Barry and Steve believed it would prove to be more useful at the far end. Despite the restrictions presented by piloting a shoddy 1.8 litre shed, the space cowboys chose one of the rally’s more challenging routes, a pathway incorporating the historic Pamir Highway through Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and a jaunt through Iran commonly rejected as too difficult. In short, things were set to be just a touch intense.

The real fun started in Eastern Europe. Cruising down Transfăgărăşan – the Romanian military highway Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson named as ‘the best road in the world’ after tackling it in a supercar – Team Charolastra paused to photograph the view, together with a few ‘on location’ shots of their beleaguered Berlingo. When a colourful frog entered their eye line, Steve decided to photograph it on the Berlingo’s bonnet. However, Steve soon found himself winding down a cliff-side road with lights and colours swirling before his eyes. “I hadn’t realised that the frog had deposited some poison on the body of the camera,” Steve explains, “so proceeded to spend the next half hour using the camera and got the frog poison in my mouth.

“Twenty minutes later we were driving past Dracula’s ‘homeland’ and I started to feel the effects of what can only be described as a hallucinogen.” A 100-mile race down the mountain – aided by their GPS, which fortunately still worked in Europe – the picture of the frog and some comedy body language explained the situation to the staff of the local hospital. Following a short period of blindness and a hasty buttock injection from a syringe containing something unidentifiable, the shabby Citroen was back on the road.

In hindsight, however, Steve remembers Europe as being “very normal”. Heading east, the most abrupt change takes place in Istanbul, where you’re welcomed to Asia, and western Christian-based society is quickly replaced by predominantly Islamic surroundings. “If you listened to the mainstream media you’d believe that places like Central Asia and the Middle East are just crazy,” Steve explains, “but some of the hospitality is unlike anything else we’ve ever experienced. Something like this does so much to reaffirm that we’re all just the same underneath. People just want to be healthy and safe, have a roof over their heads and not be hungry. The trip blew apart for us the tabloid myth of certain places being aggressive or dangerous.” The bottom line in Asia, however, is still somewhat more nerve-wracking: “You have to accept that, essentially, you’re on your own. There’s no back-up.”

With the route taking on a path not dissimilar to the old Silk Road in reverse, Team Charolastra soon found themselves in Iran. Observing the cultural revolution of the modern world – which essentially flowed east to west – Steve and Barry decided to deliver a bit of western ‘culture’ back to various areas of the east along the way. With Guinness and Jameson presenting an obvious border-crossing problem, they chose to do so in the form of Tayto crisps (“They gave us silk, the basis of medicine and philosophy. We gave them cheese and onion crisps. And that’s it!”). The team were blown away by their cultural encounters: Persepolis in Iran still stands as it did several centuries ago, and in Steve’s well-travelled view, “totally eclipses numerous world heritage sights”. Walking the very same stone paths as Alexander The Great, the pair ate and slept under the exceptional hospitality of the local families, many of whom invited entire villages to greet their western guests.

The hospitality was so charming, in fact, that the team found themselves having to drive 800 miles in a single 24-hour period as they’d simply been slowed down too much by the local welcome. “It’s a crazy juxtaposition.” Steve explains. “It’s almost embarrassing. A conversation turns into lunch, accommodation… if Iranians could get visas to come back to the UK and Ireland, this would never happen. They’d just think we’re assholes. The friendly stranger is almost demanded culturally; the stereotypes couldn’t be more wrong.” In another town, a group of Iranian girls in a car pulled back their veils to show trendy American clothes and invited the boys to party; unsurprisingly the same town was one of the first to kick off when the Iranian revolutionary efforts came about early this year. Last July, the ‘anti-authoritarian’ feeling in this strictly controlled corner of the world was already bubbling heavily under the surface.

It’s difficult to think of the team’s next leg, Central Asia, without a certain ‘roughing it’ image coming to mind.  In the hottest desert in Asia, the Karakum in Turkmenistan, the team joined in a drinking session alongside the relentlessly burning remains of a Soviet attempt at building an oil well – the so-called ‘Gates of Hell’ – a site that years of attempts have failed to extinguish, and failed similar spectacularly with ‘recycled beer’ from the edge. 40-degree heat also forced a few air-conditioned hotel pit stops, while picking up a satellite dish in Turkey – combined with a web address that ends in .tv – didn’t help with border crossings, where several guards convinced themselves that Irish TV companies travel in decrepit Citroens. All this despite the ‘best vehicle’ trophy duct taped to the front of the car in honour of their graffiti-fuelled flamboyance. In places like Turkmenistan, where beer is “regarded as a soft drink” the trip took a distinct turn towards the drunkenly shambolic.

Bribery became a part of everyday life. Outside Europe, says Steve, “Nothing has a fixed price, and you can forget the idea of authority figures being in any way trustworthy. Romania, though, probably remains the worst.” Turkmenistan administered a $100 fine for ‘a dirty vehicle’; Takijistan’s border guards accepted a Tayto t-shirt in lieu of a $30 border bribe, while the team took to “talking shit” to avoid paying. The Belfast accent combined with random gifts proved an ideal mix of ‘philanthropy’ and frustration, and almost every attempt to extract money was eventually evaded.

By the time the team reached the notorious Pamir Highway, the car was almost literally held together with duct tape. Travelling with an Aussie team who snapped their suspension on a large rock (and had it patched up with odds and ends in exchange for beer) led to an unwanted trip to Jalalabat, Kyrgyzstan, at the time in the middle of some serious ethnic cleansing issues. The tattered cars drew into the city as the curfew came down, and the teams headed out on the lash surrounded by Kalashnikov-wielding locals and watching the smoke rise from a city crumbling around them. Extremely potent fermented horse milk and some ‘friendly’ Tajik drinking partners led to stolen phones and empty wallets. Who knows just how many suspicious substances were imbibed by mistake, but it sat well with the overall intoxicated feel of Central Asian travel.

The Pamir Highway, incidentally, rises to 4,500 metres, making it the second highest road in the world. It rarely allows the vehicles out of first gear, and fills the car with a swirling, relentless stream of dust. In its heart, staring into the birthplace of Buddhism and worrying about their limited food supplies is an experience that Steve describes as “sublime in the truest sense”. Later, driving along the highway’s single lane, cliff-side border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the team heard the thud of military hardware across the mountains, while the locals simply smiled and waved (“If you believed the Daily Mail, they’d be shooting at you”) from the wrong side of a river dividing a country at war and a country at peace. Then came a jaunt through Kazakhstan before, finally, the teams emerged into Russia, where a border party in no-man’s-land deteriorated into skidding donuts and camera confiscations.

Sadly, not everything finished quite the way the team might have liked. Already inside Mongolia, their van veered from the road and barrel rolled in an almost cartoon fashion, an event that Steve is still unable to recall. It left him with several broken ribs, and prevented the beleaguered Berlingo from ever reaching Ulaanbaatar or fulfilling its intended role. Another team – who in a bizarrely suitable twist were driving an ambulance – delivered the team’s equipment to the finishing line, while Steve and Barry trailed behind in a 72-hour 4×4 ride, completing a mad dash on appalling roads. Come the end, Steve – in true Mongol Rally spirits – chose to forgo the local hospital in favour of the finishers’ party. The crash, though, had done nothing to spoil the memories. “When we look at the roads we’ve driven, the mountains and deserts we’ve passed through, the war zones we’ve stopped in… I hesitate to say it because there’s nothing worse when you’re travelling than meeting someone who loves to talk up their own experiences, but it really, really was pretty fucking hardcore.”

Heady, frantic and incident filled, we still need barely dig below the surface to learn why such trips shouldn’t be taken as lightly the team’s giddy experience suggests. The 2010 Mongol rally was the first to suffer fatalities; Team Charolastra delivered all their valuable charitable equipment to its destination – minus its battered vehicular container – and Steve and Barry returned home well enough to treasure every frenetic memory. The team had made it all but 1,000 kilometres, and dragged the important parts of their ramshackle arrangement over the line with the aid of a sleep-deprived Kazakh 4×4 driver. The former contents of their forlorn van now fills a Mongol Ger tent, where it is used to assist in the upbringing and education of deprived local children under the care of a ‘Ger mother’. Proof, if it were needed, that a corporate sponsored, alcohol-fuelled, multi-continental rollercoaster in a junkyard Citroen van – taking in amphibian hallucinogens, cartoon crashes and cultural awakening – really can be far more than just a euphoric journey of self discovery. Just ask the tiny population of Mongolia with an electrical generator and an essential selection of extra toothpaste, condoms, bandages and vital charitable cash tucked into their back pockets. Or, perhaps, the owners of a Ger tent somewhere in rural Inner Mongolia that is now home to a widescreen TV, sound system, mini fridge and sizable electric generator. After all, they do say it’s the little things…

Barry and Steve were raising money for the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation, which helps vulnerable kids in Vietnam and Mongolia. Visit www.cncf.org to find out more.

For more Wacky Racer style stories, or to donate to Steve and Barry’s charitable efforts, visit www.charolastra.tv

As published in AU Magazine Issue 72, April 2011.

Frank Warren is an artist, yet he doesn’t produce any art. He’s a popular public speaker, yet most of the stories he presents are not his own. He’s also something of a guru: a man who listens to others’ problems on a daily basis, and does so without judgment. Every week, he’s contacted by the abused and their abusers; the suicidal and the murderous. Over the last few years, he’s heard from thousands of cheating spouses, hundreds of sexual deviants, priests who don’t believe in God and someone who fed a container of bleach to their cat. Despite all of the above contacting Frank personally and specifically, he has absolutely no idea who any of these people are.

The early moves towards what would become ‘Post Secret’ could almost be classified as spam. A selection of self-addressed postcards asking strangers to submit anonymous secrets started out as a one-off art project, and drew a response of around 3%. That was more than enough for an art exhibit, which was eventually transferred to Frank’s website, PostSecret.com. Between that inauspicious start in 2005 and the present day, Frank’s been handing out his home address online, and has received more than a million postcards, every one of which he reads and keeps. He sees his hobby as a valuable insight into the human psyche. In a sense, he’s like a modern day agony uncle, except without any hint of judgment along the way. The sole purpose is to get the ideas off your chest, anonymously, yet also in a way that exposes your thoughts and actions to the general public.

Five years after its start, PostSecret has now produced seven books (including books on love, confession, death and God), achieved a staggering total of approaching half a billion web hits, and become Frank’s full time job. He also hosts associated events, which usually take place in university amphitheatres, where Frank explains the philosophy of his artistic endeavors and then hears a selection of secrets from members of the audience. It’s all a far cry from his old day job, running a small systems information business.

The heart of the product, though, lies in the Sunday-updates of one of the world’s most popular private blogs. Frank creates the stories from his weekly mail, weaving together a dozen to two dozen postcards that speak to each other: “They’re funny, sexual, tragic, hopeful, philosophical and spiritual, and I try to arrange them in a way that connects them, almost like a conversation is happening between these anonymous secrets”, he tells us. That’s where the artistic side comes in. While some postcards go straight on the site, others are saved for weeks in order to create a flowing tale; a collection of symbolic and anonymous story-art that weaves a floating picture around itself. Frank explains: “I spend hours selecting the postcards. I think of myself a little like a film editor, taking these scenes from people’s lives and knitting them together to tell a coherent stories we can all relate to”. Some of the ‘tales’ lead viewers to highly contemplative Sundays.

Of course, such a project’s not going to pass without controversy. Frank tells us “many secrets are secret for a reason. They can be offensive, politically incorrect, involve nudity… sometimes the best secrets can make us very uncomfortable. The FBI has contacted me on several occasions”. At the time of writing, Frank was embroiled in a censorship battle, trying to follow his heart in deciding whether or not to display a postcard that featured the sacred underwear of Mormons. Such a dilemma is not an atypical result of a week’s offerings.

On the more light-hearted end of the spectrum, another sender confesses to not wanting children in order to avoid more visits from the in-laws. A third postcard reads “my husbands thinks I’m a drunk after binging on wine. Actually, I binge on wine to make my bulimia easier to bear. I don’t know which is worse”. At a recent PostSecret event, a female audience member offered up this gem: “When I was visiting my grandmother recently, I went through her draws when she was out. I found an antique vibrator. Yes, I used it”. These might all seem unusual confessions, but Frank’s heard dozens that are similar.

One of the most striking aspects of the postcard collection is the level of artistic talent. Very few of the submissions fail to reach at least a modicum of an impressive aesthetic, a result Frank put down to this: “So many of us are artistically talented, but it might only come out when we reveals vulnerable parts of ourselves that allow it to do so”. It’s something Frank can relate to: “This project found me. I’m an accidental artist, in that I don’t have any artistic training. I’ve had to adapt, become the kind of person who can read these secrets daily, year after year after year.”

The project, unsurprisingly, has changed Frank for good, though he argues that the postcards are so important that he doesn’t mind the knock on effect. He does his best to channel the project output, focusing on gaining the trust of viewers and those who submit. Despite huge numbers of hits, the only link to appear on a website to date is promoting a suicide prevention charity. “It’s important to me that I’ve never taken a dollar for paid advertizing. I feel very fortunate that strangers trust me with their secrets. I don’t want to do anything to mess that up, and advertizing might feel like exploitation. I try to be very personal. For the same reason I use my home address, not a PO Box, and I don’t offer any comment on the secrets I post. I need to protect what’s special about it. If I can do that, things can keep going indefinitely. It’s not always easy. I’m a little like eternal stranger on a train, and people feel they can pass things on to me that they might not tell someone they’re closer to”. While there are many ways of appearing anonymous online, few are so thought provoking, or inspire such a sense of community.

If you’re in need of a stranger on a train, or just want to get something off your chest that’s not made for the ears of even those you don’t know, Frank might just be your man. If not, he’ll certainly offer you a glance into the depth of the human psyche that’s profound, heart wrenching, entertaining and at times palpably disturbing, in simple postcard form, one week at a time. How many will you relate to?

www.postsecret.com

As published in AU Magazine, Issue 71 (March 2011).

At the turn of the year these three ‘boy next door’ rockers were labeled as ‘on the brink’; the Northern Irish music industry’s great white hope, endorsed by the BBC, NME and of course, AU. The Bangor lads – mischievously named after Sam’s inability to pronounce the name of their local Tudor Cinema – were yet to even put out an album. Those pre-album-release support tours in early 2010 were the calm before a thunderous storm; come March, debut ‘Tourist History’ was about to put a big, red danceable indie-pop mark on Ireland’s music map. The journey that’s taken Two Door Cinema Club from local heroes to internationally hyped gold-record owners has seen them flog nearly 100,000 albums, appear on numerous TV shows and become the talk of Ireland’s biggest festival. With 240 shows to be squeezed in before the end of this year on four different continents, supporting the Maccabees in Dublin’s 1000 capacity, half-empty Academy just under a year ago must seem a distant memory.

While the group never forget to mention their time at home – performances at Oxegen and Reading are still fondly discussed – their new international experiences inevitably jump to the fore. Kevin explains: “Japan was crazy; really intense. In Korea they stuck us with two-dozen sweaty journalists in a room for half a day, and other than that we only saw the festival site. We don’t even know where it was. Everything takes twice as long as it all has to be translated, but just being there’s unreal.”

Looking to America has always been a major landmark for musicians. Alex prefers to argue “we want to make it everywhere”, though “making it in America would make life a whole lot easier”. Getting their music on TV shows such as Gray’s Anatomy and reaching number one on website Hypem has cracked the door to a substantial market, one that allows them to head off elsewhere and avoid saturating the British and Irish gig-going public. Candid as ever, Kevin reviews their American experience with mixed feelings: “New York and LA were big sell outs, and they were great. Some other places, though, we were playing to almost empty rooms. In Kansas City, for example, we had to wait until an hour before the show to set up because a kid’s birthday party hadn’t finished. We don’t mind, though, you can’t expect to sell out somewhere the first time you play”. The work ethic is relentless: a week after the American tour, three days off are bracketed by an appearance on Joolz Holland and today’s Late Late outing. In two days time, the next tour begins. Problems with jetlag aside, feelings towards the schedule are overwhelmingly positive: being busy means going places.

Today, though, is all about the well-worn promotion trail. Whilst a year ago that might have meant scrabbling around for a little press attention and fielding questions from journalists who have only the vaguest familiarity with their music, these days Two Door are in high demand. Spending a day cruising Dublin’s radio stations before finishing up with an evening performance on an Irish television institution ‘The Late Late Show’ is as much as they can cram in, but it’s not for lack of requests. Being from Northern Ireland and not owning televisions, only tour drummer Ben has ever seen today’s biggy, The Late Late Show; we opt not to tell them the average viewership is around 15% of the Republic’s population: 650,000 potential fans is a whole lot of pressure.

Like most bands, promos are not something Two Door particularly enjoys. Kevin starts the day by telling us “if I make it to the end without getting angry or frustrated it’s been a good promo day”, and jokingly gives out about the “torture” of an atrocious promo session in Japan that came in at an excruciating four days. Despite their apprehension about the media spotlight, the happy demeanor never slips, and the closest we see to an ego is Alex’s continuous but very sarcastic requests to keep his on-loan acoustic guitar.

The acoustic vibe is something Two Door rarely brings out in live shows. Alex is a collector of original Fender Bullets, a make of guitar he became obsessed with after borrowing one from Laurent Mazzalai when on tour with Phoenix earlier this year. Despite the first-edition version being produced for only one year – eight years before his birth – he’s already managed to acquire four, and intends to collect a whole load more (“They’re cheap on ebay as nobody knows what they are, but they sound great”). When it comes to the radio shows, though, the tiny studio spaces mean set ups must be acoustic.

Visiting Phantom FM, Spin and finally RTE’s 2FM, the three-piece disappear into padded boxes and produce stunning rearranged versions of ‘Undercover Martyn’, ‘I Can Talk’, ‘Something Good Can Work’ and ‘Cigarettes In The Theatre’, each minus the electronic trickery. Performances like these toned-down radio shows emphasize the musicianship: these tracks are at least as strong when tweaked and mellowed, emphasized with ‘oohs’ rather than bleeps and strummed subtly. Alex’s voice is given the chance to shine, and it’s utterly outstanding, yet for all the professionalism there’s also a laidback charm: you can still picture the group practicing in their bedrooms trying not to wake their parents.

The Late Late Show is a different story. Two Door has never mimed before, and while Alex will be singing live, both Sam and Kevin express their discomfort at faking the guitar parts. Two Door have always come across as comfortingly genuine, and the option of removing strings from the guitars – or doing something else to make the miming obvious – is briefly thrown around along with banter about Muse’s line up alterations while miming on an Italian show. The scale of the show in the Republic eventually tips the balance. Playing under the studio lights is an experience Sam later describes as “one of the weirdest ‘performances’ ever; we have no idea how it went. How can you even measure that?” Things can’t have been too bad; the Twitosphere explodes, and the walk back to the dressing room includes Dawn French rushing out of a locked door to greet them.

Six to eight months ago something like the Late Late might have been life changing, but shooting through Dublin’s backstreets in Kevin’s people carrier ten minutes later, tonight’s TV appearance barely warrants discussion. It’s this relaxed take on life that often comes to the fore. The walk from the dressing room to the TV studio at RTE sees Kevin coolly strumming a bit of Hendrix before being silenced by the studio runners. Back at the radio stations, the band shows the effect of playing together every day for months on end: nearly every pre-recorded track is reeled out immaculately in the first take. Tuning up, though, involves a tongue-in-cheek rendition of Toto’s Africa (“we’ll bring it out on the next tour”). Even the production of an unrehearsed Christmas song at the last minute is considered, though it’s shot down by a media-savvy band manager after the station suggests Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’, a track which Alex only knows the chorus to.

The nerves that made early live shows a touch uncomfortable have largely faded, but the sense of appreciation surrounding newfound stardom still shines through: ‘It took us a long time to actually think we’d make it,” Alex explains. “Signing the record deal didn’t feel like a turning point. We did it in Kevin’s parent’s kitchen, which shows where we were at that point. Releasing the album – and seeing it do well – was perhaps the biggest moment. But it’s incredible, the landmarks just keep coming. Every one’s worth celebrating. We can’t take it for granted”.

After a year like 2010, you could be forgiven for suggesting that the traditionally difficult second album could be a cloud hanging over the newcomers. Not according to Alex: “the tours are great, but they’re relentless. Our lives are basically on tour or in the studio, and it’s been forever since we were in the studio. People keeping asking us about pressure, but we’re not feeling it that much. We’re just looking forward to it. The new album will be a chance to show how we’ve evolved”. Having just released an enhanced version of ‘Tourist History’, the next step will be to write some songs on tour, but the more substantial moves towards album number two will get under way come April. One track’s already been penned, and will feature in the up and coming shows. It’s an ode to Alex’s experiences in a London backstreet, where a drugged up local with a broken bottle threatened him. It’s yet to be named. The rest of the album is likely to follow a similar lead: while ‘Tourist History’ explored their hometown of Bangor, the follow up will take on a more expansive, global theme that reflects the groups experiences.

As for the long term, Two Door’s upwards trajectory of sell outs shows and international attention shows no sign of abating: even NME treated the band with a certain amount of respect second time round (“First time it was like we had to pass a test. They were quite hostile in their questioning and acted very indifferent. The second time one of the journalists met us, they said ‘I can be nice now, you’ve done your first feature’” – Kevin). It’s a building process, but should Two Door end up in stadiums, they wouldn’t change a lot: “We like to connect with our audience, and keep things simple.” Alex assures. “If we had a U2-esque level of budget, we might add some extra live backing and a few stage props, but we like to keep things clean cut. Our music’s designed for dancing, and you need to connect with the crowd. We want to show them a bit of our personality”. As three lads in their early 20s with an enviable talent and – perhaps even more importantly – love for what they do, the latest focus has been quietly different but markedly defined: longevity. With a legion of new fans behind them, things are a far cry from the slightly shy up and coming act that was Two Door Cinema Club just a year ago. Come December, when they’re presented with their Irish gold record on stage at their Dublin show, the celebrations will include at least one eye on a platinum future.

—–

Highlights of 2010:

Best Show – “There’ve been so many. Playing the second stage at Glastonbury was amazing, it’s great to go back and see how it changes year on year. The main stage at Oxegen, coming out and seeing 40,000 people was special, too. And Reading. Reading was one of the best shows of our lives. The benchmark just keeps getting higher through the year” – Alex

Most Rock And Roll Moment – “We broke into the rooftop pool of a hotel in Melbourne at 3am. That was great. But everything’s so surreal, you’re never really taken aback by anything that happens. It takes going home and telling people about it for someone to stop you and say “your life’s ridiculous” – Sam

Best City – “It’s a really weird answer, but we loved Brighton. You’d expect us to say somewhere really exotic. So many places are really cool. We loved Seattle, too, in part because the first time we were there we hated it. If something bad happens, you automatically associate it with the city. Brighton’s a feel good place. You never really see much in each place, though. It’s just a quick taster.”­ – Alex

Most Interest Celeb – “Prince Charles? The most surreal one was when we met Guy-Ma from daft punk. They came back stage at our show in Paris. Anybody can sing you a Daft Punk song but nobody has any idea who he is to look at. I could only concentrate on how small he was. We haven’t met all that many big celebs. We met Will Farrell, and watched the World Cup Final next to Jay Z.” – Kevin

Key Touring Lessons – “We’ve learnt to speak slower. At first in Japan, and in America, we found that people just didn’t understand us. We’ve also grown in confidence a lot. There’ve been bad shows, but we’ve really gelled as a unit over the year. It’s inevitable when you play so much together.” – Kevin

Cover Story for AU Magazine, December 2010 issue. Photographs by the outstandingly talented Lili Forberg.

A disabled punter recently at Rain, Belfast alleges that a member of the nightclub’s staff refused him access to the club to avoid “carrying a wheelchair up the stairs”. Soon, local newspapers and a Facebook protest group of 12,000 promising legal action rose up in support. Later, the group disappeared. The implication is a nasty one, but the club – bafflingly unwilling to release a public statement – seem to see things differently in private. A member of Rain’s staff anonymously informed us that the event described isn’t logical, as going upstairs wouldn’t be an issue on entry. While this remains an unofficial stance, whispers on the Internet – combined with the deletion of the group – suggest a case of ‘crying wolf’. One commenter even claims to have seen the incident, and that the punter’s friend caused the rejection. It’s impossible for AU to play judge, jury and executioner, but we can’t help wondering if the bad press Rain received as a result might have been a touch unfair.

Events in The P.O.D complex in Dublin have caused similar consternation down south. The group ‘Bands Against Crawdaddy’ formed after violence marred local band Home Star Runner’s final show in September. Numerous punters allege that Crawdaddy’s bouncers punched the girlfriend of a band member, leading to a street fight that amounted to “uniformed thuggery”; one member of Home Star Runner ended up in a cell. Half a dozen YouTube videos are inconclusive when it comes to blame, but certainly show a volatile, violent atmosphere outside the show. As a result, a number of Dublin bands have vowed never to play the venue again.

P.O.D’s response states “we’ve watched the security footage and can categorically confirm that no females were struck or injured, and that security acted in a responsive manner to being physically attacked… to prevent the incident escalating further”. Sure, the punters are likely to have played a role, but it seems unlikely to us that security footage could provide “categorical” proof that an event didn’t take place. ‘Bands Against Crawdaddy’ contest, that The P.O.D’s statement is “a complete pack of lies”. The violence is undeniable, but outside of a court of law it’s difficult to even begin to assign responsibility.

While the punters in Dublin have witness numbers on their side, AU’s also aware that while the gig-goers had probably had a drink or five, the bouncers were sober and – as videos show – provoked by the time events spread outside the venue. The Belfast story is more clearcut: either a case of appalling discrimination or a one man’s bitter quest.

We can’t make snap judgments on these particular cases, but we can offer some advice. Prerequisite licenses tests by the Security Industry Authority (UK) and the Private Security Authority (Ireland) demand training in safety and crowd control, and exclude anyone with serious convictions. If you do encounter problems, a combination of reliable eyewitnesses and the badge ID number displayed should be enough report or take legal action.

It’s in bouncers’ interests to keep things calm: the comeback from any events could have far more serious consequences for them than you. As fallible people working in a highly volatile environment, door staff don’t always get things right, but it pays to remember that one bouncer is not the next. Overall, despite any bad experiences you may have had over the years, the professions probably saved you a lot of aggro.

As published in AU Magazine, December 2010, illustration by Mark Rahill.