As they get set to take to the main stage at this Saturday's Wivenhoe May Fair here is my exclusive interview with Animal Noise. First published in the November 2011 issue of Colchester 101 magazine.
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| Cover photography by jdoyle.com |
Arriving back at my local after spending the early part of the evening at the St Denys Fayre at the newly opened Firstsite building, I’m recognised by someone else who had been there who asks me “You were at the Animal Noise gig weren’t you? They’re one of the best bands in Colchester right now.” I can’t help but tell him how much I agree with him.
Rewind a couple of days and I’m sitting out the back of the King’s Arms
(formerly the Hogs Head) on Crouch Street ahead of that Firstsite gig with
Joel, Jack and Birdy from the band that is currently receiving bucket loads of well-deserved
attention around the town. They had been booked to play a set at the visual
arts facility on top of the Berryfield Mosaic, the Roman mosaic which has been
lovingly restored and returned to almost the very spot where it was discovered
in 1930 after spending several decades hanging upright in the castle. I ask
them what it’s like to soon to be playing a gig in what was basically some
Roman guy’s dining room, and the last person to play anything there was
probably a slave playing a lute 2000 years ago. They admit it’s going to be a
strange gig!
Over the past year Animal Noise have taken the local music
scene by storm, filling venues around the town as well as delighting their growing
army of fans at various local festivals throughout the summer with their
exciting and energetic sound which they describe as “bruised, battered and
beaten folk.”
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| jdoyle.com |
So how did the Animal Noise story begin? It’s simple, they all studied music at the Colchester Institute, albeit that Jack and Birdy were students there six years before Josh. “We call ourselves musos” Birdy jokes. As a result they were all mixing in music circles, “it was only a matter of time before we clashed” says Jack, who then goes on to explain how Josh had been looking for a rhythm section whilst he and Birdy, who at the time were playing in a punk band, had been on the lookout for a frontman for their own project. They had been playing together in one band or another for 15 years. Then, one night at a house party, fellow guest Josh played the guitar and they knew they had found their man. “He mesmerised everyone,” recalls Jack. “That was it really. Six weeks later we had a gig. Josh had been booked for a solo gig and he asked us if we would play the drums and bass just to warm the songs up a bit. It was all really quick. We only had six weeks to learn his songs, and it went from there.”
Josh continues, “Our first gig was billed as The Josh Sandifer Band or something and we did quite a mellow set. Then we started writing new stuff, and jamming and stumbling across things we all liked”. Jack explains how their sound came about more by accident than by design “We were playing hard rhythms and Josh just put something beautiful over the top.” The resulting distinctive Animal Noise sound is hard to describe, and folk certainly doesn’t cover it. Flamenco punk comes closer.
Their next gig came a couple of months later, by which time
they had their own material and had decided on the name Animal Noise. That was
back in April 2009 at The Twist on North Hill. Being an acoustic night, the new
band were worried how they would be received with a loud drummer and bass
player. They needn’t have worried, they went down a storm and were immediately
booked for a gig at The Minories. The rest, as they say, is history.
They love playing local gigs, especially back room at the
Bull aka the Soundhouse “You can make a great atmosphere in there and you don’t
need a lot of people to do it,” says Birdy. Other favourites have included The
Arts Centre, where the other week they supported New Town Kings, and of course
The Twist where it all began. It’s
obvious from their enthusiasm that they love what they are doing. “It’s great
when you gel together,” says Jack. “You can’t really force it. You get bands
that trawl round looking for the perfect drummer or bass player, but it
shouldn’t really be like that. It should be accidental”.
Josh agrees, “But
it’s really hard though, to meet people you do gel with.”
Birdy adds, “Us three
are all sort of on the same wavelength, we’re the same kind of people.”
“We haven’t got any
set style which makes it even easier,” continues Jack. “You can audition other
musicians and sometimes they want to play a certain style, and that can make it
difficult to work with them.”
They have so much adrenalin that whilst only a three piece
they don’t need any more band members, though Josh admits to occasionally
fantasising about having a brass section and maybe some soul backing singers.
“Not for every song,” he jokes “maybe just one day when we are playing stadiums
we could have some backing singers.
Joking aside, I ask them where they want to go with Animal
Noise, “We’ve been gigging all over the summer,” says Josh “ just relentlessly
gigging and gigging and we haven’t really had time to write music, and jam and
just really enjoy ourselves with it. It’s made me realise that I don’t really care
if it doesn’t go anywhere, so long as we can always have fun writing and
connecting with the other two because that is the best part of it.”
Jack adds, “It’s never a chore, but it gets more business-like
when you’re constantly gigging as you’re just rehearsing for the next gig all
the time.” But they have observed that at each gig there are more people dancing
“That’s what I like to do, to get more people dancing each time we play.”
They recently supported German band LaBrassBanda in Germany after playing on the same bill at the Dublin Castle in Camden, London. Over a few drinks after the gig LaBrassBanda frontman Sepp rather told them he would get them over to Germany one day” Josh tells the story, “We were like yeah, yeah because a lot of people say things like that, but then we actually got an email inviting us over.” Come the end of July and they were on the main stage at a festival in front of over 7000 LaBrassBanda fans in their home town. “We had the time of our lives. It was great to feel like a proper rock band. To wake up every day and just play music would be the best thing ever.”
They take a philosophical view over their future. Gone are
the days when you could put a band together, go into the studio and make a
first single, send it off to John Peel who would call you one evening a few
days later to tell you he was about to play it on his show, then maybe, just
maybe, find yourself on Top of the Pops the following Thursday. In this X
Factor day and age a band’s chances of getting noticed are much, much slimmer “It’s
a shambles really. And that’s why we’ve cut down on the number of gigs we play
in London, because people there only really want to go and see you if you are
the next coolest thing in Shoreditch or wherever, says Jack. “The venues don’t
pay you and all the people that come to the gig are there to see their mates
play, so they go outside for a fag when you’re on. There’s been no atmosphere
at all in the last few venues we’ve played there.”
The only way to make it work in London seems to be to get a
support slot with a decent up and coming band, as Birdy enthuses “Those are the
ones to aim for! But don’t get us wrong, we’ve had some crackers in London too,
like at Dublin Castle.”
However, we all agree though that ultimately if a band wants
to make it they need to be getting out of their own areas and play in London
because, as is often said, you never know who is going to be in the audience. “It’s
best to build something in your home town first though because if you’ve got
nothing in London and nothing at home nobody is going to come and watch you
anyway” concludes Jack. Well, there’s no denying that Animal Noise are building
something in Colchester as lovers of the local music scene can see them going
from strength to strength and picking up more and more fans along the way. They
are soon to go into the studio to record their first album, due for release in
December, and you can catch them on February 4th 2012 when they
grace the stage at our Colchester 101 Presents event at the Judge and Jury.
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