Hundred Reasons - London, UK, Spring 2002
By: Toby L
You observe the stage, listen to the music, then return your vision back to the stage. Are these five personalities in front of us really supposed to be the saviours of hard-edged alternative music? After all, just look at 'em.
Frontman Colin Doran sings sideways on, and stomps around the stage, moving around with all the flair of a recently reborn dinosaur. Drummer Andy Bews, meanwhile, steamrollers the sticks over the tubs and occasionally flicks his carefully-placed hair from side-to-side to resemble a man that has just won third place in a competition of the most boy-like member in a current UK guitar-band (those sprightly lads in Electric Soft Parade both managing to get in front). Elsewhere, the razor-sharp sideburns of Larry Hibbitt, and just as stinging guitar-talent, wrestle with the mighty, six-string axe-display as put up with on the other side of the platform from the group's comedian, their Johnny Vegas if you will, Paul Townsend (very possibly not a relation to the great Pete). Finally, you find the introvert, the mysterious and the simply pleasant Andy Gilmour on bass. The overall product? A live-act of gigantic proportions, song-smiths for a rather disaffected youth for a change, and a band that have possibly created Britain's best rock-LP for 2002. So, yes, it ain't the Dum Dums with a return out of the blue, but - more likely - Hundred Reasons.
Their unconventional image, however, and distinctive personalities (wow - personalities, people - whatever happened to those in music?!) is exactly what allows you to enjoy and savour their manic tunes in all their full, occasionally endearing, and breakneck velocity. They're impassioned, driven, sensitive - but simultaneously mental, riotous and as heavy as the frontman from Soundtrack Of Our Lives.
Yet, to say that they're a fine 'new' talent wouldn't be true - you see, they aren't that fresh on to the scene. Preferring to hone their craft for twelve months after signing a deal with major-label Columbia, HR spent time touring, writing material and gaining a viciously loyal fanbase before releasing heavily-backed singles. As such, when it came to them unleashing their third EP - the only one that was chart-eligible to that point, 'I'll Find You' - it gate-crashed into the pop-charts, right under the noses of the usual irritations of the great, UK hit-parade. Their follow-up single, 'If I Could', went top-20, and their next, 'Silver', cracked into the top-15. Obviously, the word's spreading - and for good reason.
On the eve of the release of their debut LP, 'Ideas Above Our Station', twelve tracks of distorted bliss, we catch up with the guys in their dressing-room, prior to a promotional-concert for London's largest alt radio-station. They're relaxed, in good spirits and have just experienced a relatively successful sound-check: all the necessary factors for an interview, then... Seemingly, they must think so - for the next twenty-five minutes are the equivalent of a stand-up comedy show, the members constantly playing off each other's comments - Townsend particularly stirring the conversational-matter, occasionally donning his now-legendary blonde female wig for added effect.
Of their incendiary live-performances, a recent tour that raised eyebrows - just prior to the group's own sweep of sell-out shows - was their co-headline jaunt up and down the country with punk-purveyors, and rather different in styling, Capdown - how were the results?
'Amazing,' the frizzy-haired frontman professes, 'It was wicked; we had a really great time with Capdown every night: they're an awesome band...'
The exquisitely-named Hibbitt feels it necessary to speak and provide a background to the event's coming. 'Yeah, the whole point of that tour is that we are different bands in what we do - and that's why it was called the 'Co-operation Tour'.'
Paul grins. 'Yeah, the only way we could get away with playing with them was by putting it under the 'Co-operation Tour' name! We'd really wanted to play with them for ages, though.'
More recently, Cave-In are an act that the band have invited on the road with them...
'It's always good to take out bands with you that you like,' explains Colin. 'If you're gonna be with a band for twenty days to a month and you're going to be there watching them every night, then the idea is that you should at least like them!' The singer smiles momentarily and lets out an inhibited laugh. 'If you didn't like them musically, then you'd be putting up with a lot for a month!'
They say it'd be a lot to put up with, but endurance is most likely one of the many attributes of Hundred Reasons; they may appear quirky, but, surely, there must underlie some inner madness to their operation which allows them to live the rock 'n' roll life-time to the extreme..?
Paul looks at us bemused and cocks his head to the right. 'Are you trying to say we're ugly?!'
Just before we protest our innocence, he laughs gently and then states for the record, 'Nah, we're never able to do things like down Jack Daniel's...'
Colin tries to think of a substitute activity that constitutes for their insane hi-jinks, uttering peculiarly, 'We go swimming everyday, though! We just want to find swimming-pools that have really high stuff next to them, so we can jump off and land into the water!'
Larry shares the bizarre enthusiasm. 'Yeah! But, we did find one that had a five-metre diving-board and it also had a water-slide that you could go down on in rubber-dinghies! It was awesome!'
We politely change the subject.
As aforementioned and during the time we speak to the guys, their first ever full-length record is yet to be unveiled to the public-eye. Now, however, the chances are that many of yourselves reading have been able to experience such untainted beauty as 'Avalanche' in the same sweaty hour as the up-tempo, raucous-thrashings of 'Remmus' and 'Dissolve', but the guys behind the music certainly had a few original points to raise about its long-awaited arrival-time and content.
'It hasn't really been released that long after all the gigs,' reasons Colin. 'We've only been signed for about a year now, but we've been trying to really build up and develop as a band and now seems more the right time as opposed to a delay or anything like that... The pressure itself, I don't know, I don't really feel it myself personally...'
'Luckily, we're getting really good reviews,' raises Paul. 'Our main worry, but it's not a worry so much, is just hoping that people who buy it really like it.'
'Yeah,' sniggers Colin, 'At least, Bob down the pub thought it was great!'
Paul joins in. 'Yeah, but Bob does like a lot of music... He's got quite a wide range...'
Anything else you care to mention that Bob's got?
Paul stumbles. 'Erm... OK, Bob's a made-up character... Sorry.'
Apology accepted; but, more relevantly, do you consider the work to stack up as strongly as your previous EPs or concerts?
'It's very varied,' ponders Bews, attempting to find an answer.
'Yeah, consistently inconsistent,' Paul adds somewhat less helpfully.
Andy B suddenly gets excited. 'It's also shorter than 'Dances With Wolves...'
'But we wish it had won twelve Oscars, too,' laughs Paul, before thinking to himself briefly. 'It doesn't have Kevin Costner on it, though... So, it should sell!'
Andy smiles, but becomes momentarily serious. 'No, there's quite a lot of range in the songs anyway; it goes from Will Haven-type stuff to things like 'Falter', which is like a ballad...'
Paul goes for another cheap one. 'Yeah, that's the 'More Than Words' of Hundred Reasons...'
Andy grimaces on hearing the suggestion of their work being similar to the mega-hit once produced by the heavily-dated boy-band, Extreme.
'Erm, yeah,' he replies. Then, looking over to our direction, he begs, 'But please don't print that!'
'The varied thing is just the way we write songs,' begins Doran, meanwhile. 'We all write the songs together, so, because there's five people coming together that all like different things, they all end up being that way. You normally find with a band where there's one person that writes the songs, there's twelve songs on an album that sound similar to each other, or any part of the tracks could feature in any moment of those songs...'
Andy continues, 'Yeah, we don't write music to obtain a specific kind of song: we just write and it comes out the way it does.'
Known at this stage more for their reckless gigs as opposed to being an albums-band, how does their present live-set compare to 'Ideas...'?
'Hopefully,' Bews answers, 'It's exactly the same! If you've seen us play before, you'll notice that we try and put forward a lot of energy in all of our songs, and, hopefully again, our album contains that sort of feel.'
Bearing that in mind, are any special efforts in the studio made in order to recreate such an edge?
Reflecting on the query, Paul responds, 'Yeah, we tried to, as far as possible, play in tune for once! Aside from that, I like to kick myself in the butt sometimes...'
'Actually,' shares Andy, 'We did eat a lot of junk-food, too...'
Were there any fights or traumas?
Larry laughs and states matter-of-factly, 'No; we didn't really have a Ross Robinson thing going on - it wasn't quite as intense as that!'
'Yeah,' Bews progresses, 'We just got all our instruments together and recorded it the way we'd do our demos... It was just a very relaxed atmosphere...'
As discussed in length, less relaxed is the quintet's presence in live-venues (that's slightly more frantic) - but how would they describe themselves on-stage if they watching?
'I think just two words: shit sandwich,' laughs Larry, using a famous gag from 'This Is Spinal Tap'.
'We'd probably be more harsher about it than other people,' reckons Paul. '70% of the time we'll get off the stage after a gig and just...'
'... Have a go at each other,' interjects Larry.
'No!' Paul asides seriously for a rare moment. 'Just kind of talk about how it honestly went.'
Doing things 'honestly': refreshing, but not enough to really generate a huge media-fuss prior to their career really kicking off - the guys hardly as much gained the hype that could have propelled them into the limelight in a shorter amount of time, unlike certain worthy and recent US bands of merit. But, would they have wanted the attention so soon? 'No,' they answer in unison.
'I wouldn't want to speculate on something like that because I really don't know if we could have received that in the early days,' Doran answers fairly.
'Well,' adds Larry, 'It's not really something that's up to us anyway!'
'Yeah,' Colin attaches; 'No one gets to control anything like that - that's just something the papers want to do. Before, when we were first signed, we weren't particularly great anyway and we didn't have that many songs - it's true! The one thing our label understood was the fact that we didn't want to shove an album out straight away that wasn't going to be good.'
'Yeah,' giggles Paul, 'We wanted to a wait a while first before we stuck a bad album out!'
'Actually,' points out Hibbitt, 'We finished most of the songs for the album in a ten-day writing-period!'
Bews reflects, 'Yeah - under a train-arch in the Elephant & Castle...'
'That's true, though,' Doran notes. 'It's where we used to practice!'
Oh, so you're leaving that behind and moving up in the world to bigger, more glitzy locations?
'Not really,' answers Larry. 'They kicked us out because the company that owned it had gone bankrupt, so we had to move all our stuff out before it got repossessed!'
So far provided, alongside the schoolboy humour, are decent, well-calculated, often thoughtful and considerate answers. Why are you guys so nice?
Colin knows. 'Our mothers raised us all really well, that's all,' he informs.
You got any tips for others to be nice to each other?
The group's singer goes on, 'Everybody on this planet is a human-being - treat them as such.'
Larry isn't impressed. 'Every body that's on this planet is a human-being?! What!?'
'OK, OK,' Colin bellows, 'Let me start that again: every human-being is a person.'
'Oh, piss off!' Larry, evidently, still isn't impressed.
Paul shares his band-mate's frustration. 'God - it's like Colin's just making it all up as he goes along as if it means nothing! OK, Colin's sacked, by the way...'
The group laughs together and Townsend entertains with his rule for life, proclaiming, as if from a past experience, 'My tip is to never eat yellow snow...'
Drummer-boy Bews instead takes the next turn to irritate the bespectacled guitarist. 'I think that if your mum is a good cook, then it makes for a good upbringing.'
'Shut up!' Larry doesn't seem to be any more impressed than he was before.
Suddenly, the truth is released on Hundred Reason's moral philosophies - shockingly, from Paul. 'Yeah, so to answer the question, we haven't got a clue!'
Colin, silent during this episode, suddenly perks up, barking, 'WAIT! I've got it: treat others as you wish to be treated yourself!'
Andy Bews is certainly satisfied. 'That's a great one!'
Paul is less happy. 'Yeah, but I like getting spanked everyday - so how does that fit in?'
Ignoring Paul, we continue, still on the band's ever-loyal niceness - which is shown in their treatment of their fans, too...
Larry seems perplexed. 'Well, we give away free stuff and reply to emails, but there's not really a lot more we can do...'
Gesturing to Bews, Paul mentions, 'Occasionally, we give away nude photos of Andy.'
Oh, really - are these in any compromising positions?
Andy sighs, 'No, just normally doggy...'
Other things that the boys give away are unique singles featuring themselves and other hand-picked, emerging artists...
Adopting a mock-friendly tone of voice, Paul explains, 'You know, we just wanted to give something back to the fans.'
Colin ignores him, offering a proper return. 'The main idea behind it is that it helps other bands as well; it gives real fans something for free, which is always good, and it also allows other bands that may or may not be heard by other people to be on there with us, and that does them really well... We'll do it for as long as we can.'
'Yeah,' nods Paul, 'We'll rip people off later, so we'll be nice now.'
Colin beams to himself. 'It'll just be something to show we were all right until all the Hundred Reasons box-sets come out and everything!'
Silent up 'til now, bassist Andy Gilmour speaks up: 'Don't forget our dolls as well!'
'And then there's the Colin Doran 'Book Of The World' - out next week,' Paul manages to plug.
'... But don't miss 'Andy Bews' Drums-Explosion',' slips in Colin, cunningly.
But, if there was ever to be a cash-in, Hundred Reasons DVD-compilation of all their promo-videos to date, it'd be pretty samey-samey, consisting merely of their hit-singles accompanied by, so far, very-similar-in-setting live-performances... Were these originally made just to advertise you as a live-band just so you could sell tickets for your gigs?
The group laugh at such a cynical proposition.
'Nah,' clarifies Paul, 'It was mainly down to the fact that we had to be in the video and, since none of us can act, it had to be like that!'
'I can act,' declares Andy B.
'OK, then,' returns the guitarist: 'Quick - do some Shakespeare for me.'
Andy widens his eyes and looks towards the ceiling, about to utter Hamlet's speech.
'To be, or not to...'
'See,' shouts Paul before Andy's really had a chance to speak. 'Told you - none of us can act!'
Do you possess hopes to direct any promos of your own in the near-future?
'We've got some ideas that we're working on,' speaks Colin, not giving the game away. 'But we can't tell you them!'
'We're not gonna direct any of them, though,' confirms Paul. 'If I was directing, the only thing I'd be saying is to the crew, 'Right, then - please put those sandwiches over there, thank you!'
The building is filling up with people as we speak. The band are due onstage in ten minutes. Obviously, we better round off proceedings.
What keeps the band motivated in all of your work?
Colin has the query fielded to him. 'It's just by having a good time - all the time...'
The tour-manager, all of sudden, laughs loudly in the background at hearing the familiar phrase.
'Hehe, yeah, that's the slogan with the band; I mean, how hard is it to get up in the morning and play music for a living?'
Larry thinks on this. 'Actually, rephrase that: how hard is it to get up in the afternoon and then play music?!'
'Yeah,' Colin says, correcting it further, 'How hard is it to get up when ever you feel like it?!'
With the demand to follow up strong efforts made thus far into your career, what are your aims for 2002?
'Er,' whimpers Paul, who doesn't know how to answer, 'To have a good time all the time?'
Doran keeps it simple. 'We don't have any set objectives; we just hope that people like the album...'
'Yeah,' concludes Paul, 'And, after that, we want to tour loads more and work on the next record... As well as find time to grow ourselves some mighty fine mullets.'
Let's wish them well in their endeavours; at least, it'll surely account for a most satisfying musical-story. Despite the suspect hair-styles.
Artists in this article: Hundred Reasons