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Article for DPS
The Genuine Articles, the best thing from Ireland since Guinness. Although they’re unsigned they rock the O2 Academy, Liverpool where we sent Gemma Wright to have a chat with them
The indie/pop four piece Genuine Articles, voted ‘best on MySpace’ by rocksellout.com, have been together for almost three years, half of the band is made up of brothers Hugh, lead vocals and guitar and Mo, bass, the other half is made up of James on lead guitar and Micky on drums. Three of the band being originally from Ireland, have moved over to Manchester, home town of James.
The Articles formed in 2007, originally started by Mo and Micky, who, according to Hugh, lead vocals, were ‘both shit’ and after he ‘was dragged into it’ they became better. Nothing like a bit of modesty! The unique name of the band was thought of the older brother of Hugh and Mo, only for the fact that Mo wanted the band to be called ‘The Mopaccinos’, then after ‘being quickly thrown out of the band then eventually being allowed back in’, their brother suggested the name ‘The Genuine Articles’ after announcing that he would disown his brothers and not come and see them play if they called themselves ‘The Mopaccinos’ and the name stuck from then on.
The bands main influences, lyrically, are bands like The Stone Roses and Oasis. Hugh, lead vocals, writes the music and lyrics for the band, says his inspirations for the songs are, ‘9 to 5 jobs, fucking everyday lives, people who call you an arsehole and people who use sun beds too much.’ This can be understood more after listening to their songs, as they sing about a cleaner from Poland, who Hugh thinks likes him, but she called him an ‘A-Hole’, taken from their song Magdalena.
They also believe that ‘there’s nothing really hard about being in a band’. According to Mo, the hardest thing for him is ‘carrying all the equipment.’ Mo says that going to college everyday and carrying his bass and the rest of his equipment up to the fifth floor of the flats where he lives, ‘pisses him off’, but on the other hand he says ‘it’s worth it’ and that he ‘loves it.’
The Articles who told me ‘gigs are what they live for’ said that ‘for the first five to ten minutes and a couple of hours before the gig they’re shitting themselves’ but they said that they love getting up and playing, especially at the likes of the academies, they say that when they get a good response from the crowd ‘it makes all the shitty gigs worthwhile.’ They also told us the story of their first gig in Manchester, and how the venue was the size of the dressing room we had the interview in, and how the bar wasn’t even open, and it would have been pointless to open it anyway as it had an empty fridge behind there. Hugh, lead vocals, said that ‘you hand to walk a mile to get a pint, no one was gonna come and watch us.’
I asked the band about them being currently unsigned and whether they send out any demos. Micky, the band’s drummer gave us his opinion on the matter of being signed, this is what he had to say, ‘I think it would be harder for people with a more obscure music sound, whereas we’re kinda indie-pop like, I’d say that’d be more popular in the charts and stuff, so if labels were lookin for people, I’d say they were lookin for indie music rather than heavy metal and all that sorta stuff, it’d be a wee bit harder for genres like that to get signed and get the backing from the labels.’ Hugh also added, that they don’t send demos out as they were told the best way to get signed is if you can get a headline at a gig, and sell out the place, but the band think they aren’t quite there yet.
Every member of the band has an everyday job that they have to manage and fit in all the band practices and gigs around their jobs. Hugh who teaches music and art, but is a supply teacher at the moment, says that he ‘can’t really teach, he’s just ‘bluffing’ he also said that ‘sometimes it can be difficult to manage both his career and the band.’ Mo, studies music in college and says the hardest thing is ‘carrying his equipment to his flat on the fifth floor because the lifts are broke.’ Micky, the fashionista of the band working in ‘Primarni’ said that ‘it was difficult to fit gigs around his hours at work’ because the band wanted to hit the student crowd most gigs would be during the week. James who is studying accountancy and ‘can’t even count to ten’ says that hardest thing is getting everybody together at the same time’. But because the band stick together they find a way to make it through surprisingly without a manager to take away any of the stresses.
The Irish descents have been together since mid 2007, and have apparently played ‘well over a hundred gigs’ but have never ‘attempted to count them all’, however, lead vocalist Hugh plays some single separate acoustic performances, back in Ireland, but has said that he ‘wouldn’t count them as gigs’ because he doesn’t play them with the rest of the band members. With their favourite place to play in England, being Liverpool, I was glad I chose the Capital of Culture to interview the guys. The Articles said they base their favourite places to play on how the place is set out and the sound systems they have there, but most the most important thing is the atmosphere of the crowd, ‘you’ve gotta love a scouser haven’t ya!’ is Mickey’s attitude on the citizens of Liverpool. And ‘back home in Ireland’ their favourite place to play is a bar called ‘Charlie’s’, simply because of the way it’s built. Easily pleased aren’t they!
The Articles were by far the nicest band that I’ve ever interviewed; with their enthusiastic attitude on going into gigs, and the appreciation they show their fans for coming to support them at the gigs. In my opinion, this is the band to watch over the next year or so.
If you would like to see the Articles live they are headlining at the O2 Academies in various places in the New Year, for more information visit:
www.myspace.com/thegenuinearticlesmusic
or,
www.tgamusic.com
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