Walking into the studio, the first thing I notice is how mismatched the three other people in the studio are. One is around average height with a long fringe, various piercings and dark clothing, including a slipknot hoodie and Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt; the second is short, with a thick black quiff wearing blue jeans and a short-sleeved checked shirt, unbuttoned, on top of a Guns’n’Roses shirt; the third is tall, sporting a Bieber-esque mop, black jeans and a torn t-shirt that’s slightly too small for him, emblazoned with the phrase: “YOU CAN’T ARREST ME, I’M A ROCKSTAR” across the front. On first sight, I thought I had the wrong room; surely these three weren’t in the same band? Yet within moments, they stop chatting and go over to the instruments and start playing. The sound that comes out is a jumbled mix of different genres: heavy metal drumming, slightly distorted rock and roll guitar riffs and a bouncy bass line that wouldn’t be out of place in a pop song. Yet somehow it works well together - and I find myself unable to stop myself from tapping my feet and nodding my head!
When they finally finish we go into the next room to sit down, each one with a huge grin on their face. The drummer, Joe, seems to be leading the chatter between them, poking fun at the performance of the bassist who is laughing along and pointing out Joe’s mistakes. Dan, the guitarist, is just smiling, not taking much notice, but giving Joe the odd look as if to tell him to be quiet. Eventually he pipes down and they begin telling us about how they work together with such different tastes. Joe instantly pipes up again blurting out almost instantly that they don't really know. What proceeds is an awkward silence as if no one really knows what else there is to say. Finally Dan says,
“We don’t really have such different tastes, yes we all listen to different things – Joe’s into metal”,
“Punk for me” says Steve, their bassist, “and I’m into more classic rock” Dan continues, “but we have enough shared tastes to get along without too much hassle”. What follows was the band pointing out different bands that they all like, three bands come out most strongly: Green Day, Muse and Foo Fighters.
“We do a lot of covers, by all sorts of different bands we like” explains Steve, “Our best is probably a version of The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, but most of them are Green Day, I think?” There are murmurs of agreement from the other two, and Steve carries on talking, “But it’s been a lot harder to cover things and adapt them in our own way since [second guitarist] Alex left a month or two back”. Joe's smile quickly fades and turns into a bitter pout. He turns his face away. I ask him what happened and Steve replies for him, “we don’t really know all of it, but Joe had one of his little moans and Alex thought he was being blamed for something, and took it out of proportion.”
“Then he left” Dan adds. I ask why it hit Joe so much harder, to which Joe finally replies “because I didn’t do anything! Now he’s just removed all contact from me. Removed me on Facebook, completely blanks me when I try and talk to him - he won’t even look at me!” Steve notices how worked up Joe is getting and butts in to stop him from getting carried away, “which means the argument can’t be sorted out. It’s more Alex’s shyness than anything else – he’s going out of his way to avoid an argument or suchlike”. By the way Joe suddenly changed; I can already tell how true that statement probably was.
Overall, the leaving of Alex has left the band in a muddled, confused state,
“but,” says Dan, “We’re not taking it to heart. We’re changing the songs we play to get around his absence and we’re not going to stop playing. The band has had breakups before and we’ll be damned if this one stops us,” nods of agreement all round.
“To be honest, I think it’s a kick up the backside we needed.” says Steve, “and since it happened, we’ve begun to step up our game.” Dan nods his head in approval and a smile spreads on his face, and with that, they return to their instruments in the next room, grim faces replaced once again with huge, sincere grins. Joe gives a countdown by tapping his drumsticks and the music starts, and listening to the sounds coming from their studio, they prove that last statement totally and utterly correct. Their game has been upped and by God does it show! •
