honoured to meet them…
Edinburgh four-piece O.B.E. have been gathering momentum for some time now, and their funky, angular pop has earned them comparisons with David Byrne, The Dead 60s and (dare we say it) Franz Ferdinand. Sharp, entertaining and possessed of a manic live energy, they feel like a success story in the making. We spoke to lead singer Stitch about their plans for 2007, and the new directions they`re heading in.
Is This Music: How long have you guys been together now?
Stitch: Almost two years, we formed in May 2005. We met in Perth, when James, Jason and Kieran were at music college. I was in another band and the old singer from OBE left, and my old band split up, so they were looking for a new singer, just for one gig. I sang a couple of songs and a few other singers from Perth sang. It went pretty well, I enjoyed doing it. Then a promoter offered the band `5000 to move through to Edinburgh and stick together, if they could find a new singer. So I got the job. We got a house down in Trinity and played a lot during the festival, about fifty gigs in two months. Got a general tightness, and just kind of went on from there.
ITM: So the other three guys have a background in music ` what about you?
S: I just tune up for them! I`ve never taken a lesson in my life, I just love music. The other guys are all trained musicians. They played before they went to music school, obviously, but they honed their skills there, and they`re fantastic musicians. It`s a pleasure to play with them. I just stand at the front and get drunk and make an arse of myself, then wake up the next morning feeling remorse. They only have remorse through association, I have it first hand. But it`s good fun.
ITM: How about influences? What music inspires you?
S: I guess it was Oasis`s first album that did it for me, like a lot of people my age` basically hearing some working class guys singing. I thought: maybe that`s something I could do. When they first started I thought they were fantastic, although they really did get terrible after that. But they definitely influenced me. Not so much the other guys. Kieran was listening to early punk music, Jason generally listens to lots of Seventies stuff, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Frank Zappa. We all listen to Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart right now.
ITM: Do you feel that you`ve gathered a bit of a following here in Edinburgh?
S: Yeah. It seems to come and go to be honest, I guess because we play so many gigs. We maybe put a lot of people off coming to see us by playing the same songs over and over, but we do have a lot of people who really like our stuff. There are a few regulars who come along.
ITM: So what are your plans for this year? Are you guys going to be recording again?
S: We`ve got a few new songs that we`ve been working on, because we`re quite conscious of the fact that we keep playing the same songs all the time. We play them pretty well, but it gets a bit stale playing them over and over. So we took some time out, wrote a few new songs. We`ve added a second bass to the band, too, I`m playing that now, and Kieran`s got a MicroKorg synth. We`ve added that in, put that with the backing vocals. Just trying to layer the songs a bit more, just to break it up, to try and get that upbeat, kinda dancey feel. If you`re just playing fast music people are going to get tired of it.
ITM: Plus you`ve got to keep it interesting for yourself.
S: Obviously yeah. It had hit a bit of a lull, we`d been doing the same things over and over, playing the same songs. Really you need to take some time out, and it might seem a bit of a struggle to try something different, a bit like, `this isn`t what we`re all about`. But then you try it out in the set and it quickly becomes part of it. It`s just getting over your own mental block of playing something different. We`re just trying to alter the dynamic and see what happens.
(Dan Coxon)
