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Interview – The Clink Speaks To Brother

O Brother Where Art Slough!

I dropped into The Academy to meet indie upstarts Brother on the afternoon of their sell out Dublin show. One of the most talked about bands of the moment, they’ve recently adorned the cover of NME, stoked up nostaglia and debate about Brit Pop in equal measures and also managed to incur the wrath of Liam Gallagher!

As I descend to Academy Number 2 I’m greeted with the 1, 2, 1, uhh, uhh, uhh of a secondary sound check going on. The band is waiting in their dinky dressing room completely surrounded by a rider of white bread, salad boxes, assorted sweets and drinks.

Peanut M&M? is the first thing singer Lee says to me, as I enter. Then it’s all handshakes and hello’s, with Lee, Josh, Sam and Frank.

This polite and cordial welcome from the Slough quartet takes me by surprise a little. Reading up on the band I’d come to expect some snarling bunch of angry hoodlums! (Eesh..I sound like my dad a bit there!)

Immediately and disarmingly charming they are at odds with what the music press tells us they’re like.

So meeting and greeting done and a bit of chit chat about their day in Dublin, then we get straight into it.

The Clink: You’re from Slough; tell us a bit about that. All I know is The Office and the John Betjeman poem Slough (the opening lines of which are come friendly bombs and fall on Slough it is not fit for humans now, there isn’t grass to graze a cow, swarm over death). Is it really that bad??

Lee: I’d say that’s a fair representation yeah! It’s fairly bleak and grey, but you know, it’s a suburb of London and I think they’re all fairly similar! It’s like a mini Sheffield. Nice

The Clink: Do you think growing up in Slough influenced the music you make?

Lee: Absolutely, our band really is a product of living there and not wanting to be a part of it really. We felt very separated from the place, and it wasn’t until we started playing in bands that we realised why we felt like that. It was that and being a little bastard at school!

The Clink: How did you get together as a band?

Sam: We’d known each other for quite a long time, we all made music, we all liked the same music, we talked about it and we thought it’d be a good idea to start making music together.

Lee: We’d all played in bands before but it just took a while to realise what we wanted to do and how to go about doing it.

The Clink: I read that some of you were in bands previously that played a very different type of music (like punky stuff), what made you change, was it a change of taste or did you see an opportunity for this type of guitar music?

Sam: It was just growing up really.

Lee: I mean tastes do change obviously as you grow up but we just kinda went back to the music we grew up with really, simple as that. We decided we wanted to make classic rock songs.

Sam: We didn’t consciously decide to make ‘this’ kind of music, we just wanted to get together the four of us and play what we wanted to play.

The Clink: Someone asked you (Lee) if you were in an Emo band and you shot that down pretty quickly!?

Lee: I I fucking shot that down in flames alright (laughs).

The Clink: Is there any significance to the band name any reason for Brother or is it just a name?

Josh: It kind of describes our gang mentality, that’s how we are as a band, kind of like brothers.

Frank: We all really liked the name when we came up with it, it seemed to suit us and what we’re like.

Lee: It is a bit of a weird name, because it’s just a single word and there hasn’t really been anything like that since the 90’s bands that we bonded over. I think the name is another reason why people think we’re trying to recreate the 90’s which we’re not, we’re just interested in playing classic, good, pop songs.

The Clink: Is this your first trip to Ireland?

Lee: For me it is yeah.

Frank: I’ve been here a couple of times. This is definitely the nicest time, the other times it’s been chucking it down with rain!

The Clink: Have you had any invites for any of the festivals here this summer?

Lee: Well yeah…but we’re not allowed to tell you yet! But we can definitely tell you that we’re coming back in September as part of the album tour, so (nudge nudge, wink wink) there you go!

The Clink: Every time I read about Brother you’re compared to the likes of Oasis, Bluetones, etc, but are those bands actually influences for you or do you just play music that comes natural and it happens to be reminiscent of bands of that ilk?

Lee: Yeah, we might be reminiscent of those bands but we certainly don’t want to replicate anything. I don’t think those bands were really an influence on us either. I mean I listened more to bands like Suede and Happy Mondays rather than The Bluetones. Although I do like The Bluetones, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think we sound like them.

The Clink: The album Famous First Words has been produced by Stephen Street, and from what I read he contacted you, that must have been amazing having someone like that wanting to work with you?

Frank: Yeah he heard our demo, like a 1 hour demo that we’d done and pretty much liked it and got in touch.

Josh: Yeah, Lee and I had a conversation when we first started out and we were like if we were doing a record, Stephen Street would be the perfect person to do it with.

Lee: Yeah, we didn’t really think about any other producers to be honest.

Sam: Even when we went round his house to talk about a single he was already talking about an album!

The Clink: That must have been a huge boost for you?

Lee: Yeah it really was!

The Clink: The album comes out the first week in July. Are you going to take some time off and celebrate the release or pack more shows in?

Lee: We don’t actually have any time for any more shows, but I mean that’s all we want to do!

Sam: Yeah we just celebrate in the window of time between finishing a gig and going to bed, like those 5 hours or whatever.

The Clink: And the single Still Here is coming in a couple of weeks?

Lee: Yep, looking forward to that as well.

Still Here – Brother

The Clink: So do you know what you’re doing tonight after the show?

Lee: Well we’re going to go to Temple Bar, but we don’t know where abouts. So why don’t you show us around!?

The Clink: You say you’re an ambitious bunch?

Unanimous Yes’s from all members.

The Clink: As ambitious as setting goals for yourselves?

Lee: Yeah definitely, we keep setting ourselves mini goals and we keep achieving them so it’s good. I mean we don’t have an ultimate goal, but as long as we’re enjoying ourselves and writing good stuff that people like, then that’s it, that’s our goal I suppose.

The Clink: We’ve been hearing for a while of a return to guitar music or ‘Brit Pop’ for want of a better term. Do you care about other bands like you joining you on this kind of brit pop revival or do you just want to do your own thing and screw everyone else? Would you like a rival band to recreate the whole Blur-Oasis thing

Sam: They tried to create a rivalry between us and The Vaccines but that didn’t really work. They have their album out and stuff already so there’s no direct rivalry.

Lee: I mean we don’t really care about what other bands do really, it’s about us.

The Clink: There’s argument continually raging about music formats and online ruining music etc, what format do you guys buy/listen to, vinyl, cd etc?

Josh: I buy vinyl occasionally when I get time to go out record shopping.

Lee: I think CD’s and vinyl are lovely to have for the art, but also if it wasn’t for the internet we probably wouldn’t be here now, so there’s pro’s and cons to each.

The Clink: What are you listening to at the minute, any bands you’ve played with or heard that we should listen out for?

Sam: I dunno about bands coming out of England right now (pauses for thought) I do like Group Love though. That’s what she said!

Lee: There’s also Sharp And The Magnetic Zero’s.

Frank: We’re digging Everything Everything’s album too.

The Clink: You’ve played SXSW – what was that experience like?

All members: Amazing, great, really good.

Lee: It was our first trip to the States and it was great.

The Clink: Did the Amercian crowds get what you’re doing?

Lee: Yeah totally, like even more so than over here (UK & Ireland).

Josh: We also played some shows in NY and stuff and that was amazing too.

The Clink: So, we have 2 questions that we ask everyone we speak to. What’s your ultimate getting up for the weekend track? And your favourite coming down from it Sunday track?

Lee: Friday night tune…jeez I can’t think with that going on out there (there’s someone giving a Hammond Organ sound a workout on the floor). Let’s say She Bangs The Drums, by Stone Roses, that’s a tune.

The Clink: And a Sunday number?

Lee: How about Every Day Is Like A Sunday by Morrissey…perfect!

So there we have our chat with indie new kids Brother, a close knit bunch with drive and the ability to create a media persona that belies their true nature. A Band of Brother!