It’s a sad day when you realise all those older people in the movies weren’t lying. It is true, everyone does reach a point in their life where they look back at old photos or videos and think, “Oh my god! What is with my hair?!” Or, “what am I wearing?!” And other such over the top, self involved phrases. The other guarantee is that if you are a musician, it’s one hundred times worse.
But it’s not all about regret, they don’t call them our formative years for nothing. Sometimes our earliest attempts at creativity and life in general can have a massive effect on our future decisions. Recently over the Christmas holidays I got together with the three other members of my first band 'The Park', named of course after our local teen hang out. Whilst together we decided it would be an idea to try re-recording some of our old songs, for fun but of course to simply see if they stood the test of time (they do… Kind of.) But during the process, reminiscing, drinking, trying to recall what certain songs were about, I quickly started to realise how much The Park ethos had in common with that of Lovers Turn To Monsters.
The Park started off when we were around 15 and admittedly we had absolutely no clue what we were doing. Although the three members had been acting as collective for a few months, when I was drafted in I had been playing bass for around a month. The group had been trying their hand at being a covers band and had grown instantly tired. With a new line up we all decided the best plan of action would be to jump right in at the deep end. With no prior song writing experience we put a practice in our diaries and demanded we all appear with at least a song each. And surprisingly, when the time came, we did. Our drummer and guitarist had a lot more than that in fact. This hyper active writing process continued week in week out and after our first two practices we had collectively put together ten songs. Influenced heavily by Nirvana and the indie rock of the early noughties they were all basic verse/chorus/verse but that’s what we wanted. The first recordings of the songs are of course ungodly, but they developed as we went on and to this day we can still run through them and they work. In fact I even played one at my Tut's show last summer, (albeit translated onto the Banjo but still!)
The Park taught me some very important musical lessons; sometimes it is best to just throw yourself in.
Art to me is about being in the moment and just because you’re not the best player or have no idea how to record yourself to a listenable degree doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. As long as you have heart and passion it will shine through any of that other nonsense…
But it’s not all about regret, they don’t call them our formative years for nothing. Sometimes our earliest attempts at creativity and life in general can have a massive effect on our future decisions. Recently over the Christmas holidays I got together with the three other members of my first band 'The Park', named of course after our local teen hang out. Whilst together we decided it would be an idea to try re-recording some of our old songs, for fun but of course to simply see if they stood the test of time (they do… Kind of.) But during the process, reminiscing, drinking, trying to recall what certain songs were about, I quickly started to realise how much The Park ethos had in common with that of Lovers Turn To Monsters.
The Park started off when we were around 15 and admittedly we had absolutely no clue what we were doing. Although the three members had been acting as collective for a few months, when I was drafted in I had been playing bass for around a month. The group had been trying their hand at being a covers band and had grown instantly tired. With a new line up we all decided the best plan of action would be to jump right in at the deep end. With no prior song writing experience we put a practice in our diaries and demanded we all appear with at least a song each. And surprisingly, when the time came, we did. Our drummer and guitarist had a lot more than that in fact. This hyper active writing process continued week in week out and after our first two practices we had collectively put together ten songs. Influenced heavily by Nirvana and the indie rock of the early noughties they were all basic verse/chorus/verse but that’s what we wanted. The first recordings of the songs are of course ungodly, but they developed as we went on and to this day we can still run through them and they work. In fact I even played one at my Tut's show last summer, (albeit translated onto the Banjo but still!)
The Park taught me some very important musical lessons; sometimes it is best to just throw yourself in.
Art to me is about being in the moment and just because you’re not the best player or have no idea how to record yourself to a listenable degree doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. As long as you have heart and passion it will shine through any of that other nonsense…
With this in mind I decided to head to the internetz and ask some other musician types if their first bands had effected them in a similar way, or if they’d simply covered '...Teen Spirit' with a PE teacher taking lead vocals and moved on with their lives…
Ewan Grant a.k.a. Algernon Doll
What was the name of the first band you were in?
The first proper band I was in was called, 'Judas And The Mullets'. It was with some guys older than me at school who played classic rock that I hated. I quickly used this to get the attention of the older year's bands and joined a metal/hardcore band called 'Talus' and I played guitar in that. It was super fun as we got to play with Allergo and we had a really good home town crowd.
Do you feel that they played a big part in shaping your music today?
Probably just reminds me that music should be fun and never taken too seriously. I mean it's serious art but people take themselves to seriously.
Do you ever go back and visit any old songs? Any embarrassing titles or song subjects you regret?
Nah, we had a song called , 'Gravecrawler' about the singer's dead cat (it was quite sweet really). We also used to replace words in titles with 'minge' for some reason so there was, 'The Leprosy Minge' and 'Greed For Minge'.
I don't find myself going back to these songs but I should consider it!
http://algernondoll.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/AlgernonDoll
Do you ever go back and visit any old songs? Any embarrassing titles or song subjects you regret?
Nah, we had a song called , 'Gravecrawler' about the singer's dead cat (it was quite sweet really). We also used to replace words in titles with 'minge' for some reason so there was, 'The Leprosy Minge' and 'Greed For Minge'.
I don't find myself going back to these songs but I should consider it!
http://algernondoll.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/AlgernonDoll
Michael Cassidy
What was the name of the first band you were in?
My first band were called Signals. I was the lead singer and I also co-wrote the songs. Mainly we played pop rock/punk.
Do you feel that they played a big part in shaping your music today?
The band was an amazing introduction to writing music from an early age. I wrote with the whole band but primarily my friend Gez. We always tried to have ideas that we enjoyed but also that people at the shows would enjoy. That's something I still adhere to.
Do you ever go back and visit any old songs? Any embarrassing titles or song subjects you regret?
I do listen to our old EP's and I'm still proud of them. I don't just hear the music. I hear the jokes and stories attached to the songs. I loved being in that band and when we were 17 that was going to be our job for the rest of our lives. Our last EP we done about four years ago still stands up as great songs I think. An embarrassing title would be 'Dani's Song'. It's safe to speak for the other guys when I say we collectively regretted that!
Peter Kelly a.k.a Beerjacket
What was the name of the first band you were in?
My first band was called Nectar and we formed on the night of our first gig. We were named by the gentleman putting on the gig. He gave us two options; either he would announce we were called Nectar or something MUCH WORSE AND VERY, VERY RUDE INDEED. After being bullied into this name, some of the very funny neds from school took to calling me Hector Nectar. How we laughed.
What was your role in the band?
I sang and played guitar. We were a Nirvana covers band to begin with and so we were very much the archetypal noisy grungy band. I won't speak for the others involved but I certainly couldn't really play very well at all. Or sing well. In fact, my main role was putting a face to the name Hector Nectar.
Do you feel that they played a big part in shaping your music today?
If playing that first gig had an influence on me it would be that it created my love of spontaneity when it comes to performance. Little or no rehearsal: just play what you feel. I look back on it quite fondly. When I started playing my own songs with and without bands, I suppose I always looked back in one way or another to compare what I felt playing them with the feeling of first playing classic songs by my heroes. I think it's probably only now that I could feel my set could ever be as strong as it was playing those Nirvana songs. It takes a while to become a good songwriter!
Do you ever go back and visit any old songs? Any embarrassing titles or song subjects you regret?
My most embarrassing song was probably my first, although I never played it with a band. I have no idea what its subject was but I do remember it had a rap in the middle. A rap. Me rapping. Me.
http://beerjacket.bandcamp.com/
https://twitter.com/beerjacket
Shambles Miller
What was the name of the first band you were in?
Well that depends. I had a wee band in school with my friend Neil Slorance called Pablo Slowfish. We didn't really play gigs though, except in the school, which I'm pretty sure kids only came to because it got them out of class for half an hour. My first proper(ish) gigging band was called The Dostoevskies. Neil was in that too. We've been bros for a while.
What was your role in the band?
I was the guitarist and I wrote some of the lyrics. We played a mishmash of funk and punk. And nonsense.
Do you feel that they played a big part in shaping your music today?
No, not really. I wrote some of the lyrics, which is where my passions still lie, but my music is nothing like it was in The Dostoevskies. I mean, we had a song with a disco breakdown in the middle. So yeah, nothing like my music now.
Do you ever go back and visit any old songs? Any embarrassing titles or song subjects you regret?
I recently found an old demo CD we did, which was hilarious. The only song I can still play bits of was called 'Lost In Disneyland', which I guess was an early precursor to my lyrical style of using a comical backdrop to convey serious themes. It was pretty ridiculous though. I painted quite a scary picture of Mickey Mouse. A lot of that early stuff was also quite political, which is still a common theme in my music now, but back then it was pretty naive. I don't regret any of it though, partly because I can't remember half of it, but mainly because it was a good laugh. You have to have a good sense of humour if you're going to name your band after a 19th-century Russian novelist.
http://twitter.com/shamblesmiller
http://shamblesmiller.wordpress.com/
Sean McKenna - So Many Animal Calls (vocalist/guitarist)
What was the name of the first band you were in?
Bad Day? – with the question mark. We thought this distinguished us from other bands but in reality it was confusing for fans and promoters. We were once incorrectly billed as 'Bad Day With A Question Mark'.
What was your role in the band?
I was the singer/guitarist. I, regrettably, wrote most of the lyrics as well. We described ourselves as 'indie/pop'. I realise that doesn’t paint a particularly vivid picture of what we sounded like. We started off really pop/punk before my voice broke (my voice broke twoweeks after recording our first EP and we had to re-arrange or cut those songs). As the swathe of NME bands (The Wombats, Klaxons, et. al) edged their way into the mainstream we tried to go with it by changing our sound in hope that it would turn more people onto us but it may have come across as contrived. That being said I’m still immensely proud of some of the songs we played. Our last EP had some flickers of things that I later incorporated into So Many Animal Calls.
Do you feel that they played a big part in shaping your music today?
Definitely! I used to sing in a faux American accent, the lyrics were sickly obvious and the music wasn’t really similar to what I listened to. When me and Ross (Stewart) came to write for So Many Animal Calls there was no pressure for it to turn out well and we had no idea what it was going to sound like. It took a lot of weight off and I think the result was a lot more hones. It might sound like Kerrang in 2004 but I like a lot of that music! I’m glad to be in a position where I can write and play what I want and have people who support me in it.
Do you ever go back and visit any old songs? Any embarrassing titles or song subjects you regret?
I went through a period of revisiting our old songs and re-working them into slower and more gloomy arrangements. Some of them worked but I doubt I’d ever let them see the light of day. I think it would ruin the nostalgia of being 18 and playing at ABC2 to everyone I knew if I re-recorded the songs and made them sound grim. It’d be a bit of an insult to anyone who had supported us as well.
In terms of embarrassing song titles, I’ll leave a list. I think all are equally embarrassing
Don’t Mention The War
Salsa Dancers
(This Girl Could Put In No) Effort
Last Look At The End Of The Book
I wouldn’t say there are any subjects I’m embarrassed writing about – I think it was more just the poor execution of some of them.
Most of these lovely lovely bands can be found on Myspace and YouTube. Search if you dare!
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