Ayrshire trio Sucioperro were as impressive as always as they hammered through a heavy but diverse set at Fubar on Friday. Prolific lead songwriter JP Reid is perhaps best known to the mainstream for his work in Marmaduke Duke alongside Biffy Clyro frontman Simon Neil, but this hardworking three piece have earned a steady, cult-like following over the past decade. They've also been playing as a quintet over the past few months, joining forces with The Fire and I.
Air3 asked the band about this, amongst other things, before the Stirling leg of a six date tour that has still managed to include both London and Bathgate.

Air3: Hey, guys. How is everything in the Sucioperro camp? How was England?
Stewart (Guitar/Bass/ Backing Vocals): Great, yeah! England was good fun, and very productive. We managed to sell out the London Barfly for the first time – after years of playing there – so yeah, that was fantastic.
Fergus (Drums/Percussion): The fact that the gig was on a Friday was great too. We had a great turnout, which we're really grateful for. People really made the effort, and brought mates along and stuff. Freeze the Atlantic, who were supporting, were great too.

Air3: This is a shorter tour than what you perhaps usually embark upon. Was it a conscious decision to come to the likes of Stirling and Dunfermline instead of Glasgow for example?
Stewart: I suppose it was to an extent. Having a three week tour was a nice change, and a good way of rounding off the year. We played Glasgow earlier this year, whereas we've not played in Stirling for about three years.
Fergus: Yeah. It's nice to come back up to Stirling, for sure, and we thought we'd save Glasgow this time round. The places we got asked to play in England are venues we love, so we were really happy to play them.
Stewart: To be honest, we get asked to play a lot of places, but it isn't always affordable. It's important that a tour is cost-effective, and the fact that we've been able to play long weekends has been great, because Mondays and Tuesdays aren't always feasible for people.
 

 

Air3: You used Pledgemusic [where people can pledge different amounts for different items] for your latest record (The Heartstring and How to Pull It), and admirably donated a cut of the money to Alzheimers Scotland. How and when did you decide to use such a tool?

Fergus: I suppose that the pledge thing came to our attention over time, but it took our manager to really convince us to do it. The album had been finished for a while, so we didn't want people thinking that they'd be funding our production or anything.
Stewart: Or cocaine binges! [laughs] It was a cool way for our fans to get their hands on limited edition stuff etc. It was a neat way of “marketing” too, because it meant that people that follow the band would feel like they were really investing in what we are doing. They're a brilliant fanbase and I feel that it was rewarding for us and the fans. In addition, having some of the funds go to Alzheimers was an extra incentive to do well with it.

Air3: What state do you think Scottish music is currently in? And do you have any advice for upcoming musicians in Scotland?

Stewart: Work hard. And believe in what you are doing. I get the impression that a lot of bands just don't do it for the right reasons.
JP (Lead Vocals/Lead guitar): Absolutely. The reason we still make music is because we love it. We're not necessarily making any money from the venture. The X-Factor generation we live in is very fixated on fame, and it's a cliché, but a lot of bands go into the business with the wrong motivation, and many end up frustrated because they're not at the Foo Fighters' level within a few years! It took a band like Biffy Clyro 15 years to become successful in Europe alone.
Fergus: To answer your first question, Scotland's the same as most places in many respects. There are good bands and bad bands in every scene.
Stewart: Make Sparks are great, they played with us last night in Bathgate. It's great to see bands like Twin Atlantic and The Xcerts making it bigger as well.

Air3: Have you started work on the new album? The new track tonight sounds notably heavy.

JP: It's all written. We just need to learn to play it. I'd say it's going to definitely be our “dirtiest” album yet.
 

 

Air3: A return to the heavier style of Pain Agency then?

JP: Not exactly actually. When I say dirty, I don't mean that we've written a metal record or some weird prog album. It's more restrained than that. When you think of hard rock bands playing “dirty” rock riffs, you tend to think of bands like Queens of the Stone Age, and they're definitely notoverly-technical or heavy for the sake of it. The same could even be applied to a trio like Muse.

Stewart: It's our most relaxed, fierce and dirty record yet. How's that for a description! Definitely not angry though. Our records are all pretty different to each other, and this one will be no exception.

Air3: When will we get to buy it?

Fergus: Hopefully next year at some point.
Stewart: When we have the money!

Air3: How do you find the time to be so productive? Your most recent singles had five B-sides a piece, and that's not including the new Chemicals EP...

Stewart: We wrote around 30 songs this year, and not all fitted on the record. We're lucky in that JP is very prolific as a songwriter, and we try and use as much as possible. He's usually in the studio for about 14 hours a day, for a month at a time.

JP: There's no real mystery to it. Cigarettes and tea help me function I suppose. I don't throw everything in, mind you. If I think something is crap, it's usually gone by the time we play, and I'm blessed to have a band that plays the music I love.

 

Air3: You're playing live as a five-piece at the moment, thanks to the additional support of The Fire and I's Gordon and Hooligan. How did that come about?
Stewart: That's a very long story!
JP: The shortest answer is that we talked about having keyboards and more percussion in the band for a while. We all play different parts in the studio anyway, so rather than get a new guitarist, we decided to thicken the band's sound out that way.
Stewart: We've known The Fire and I for a while, so we phoned them up and asked, and they've regretted saying yes ever since!
Fergus: It's a better way of doing it as well. We thought about using backing tracks for a while, but who likes backing tracks?
JP: It's a more unique experience to go see as well, I think. I'm no prodigy, and yet we're often marketed as the “new Biffy” or whatever. Simon's [Neil] one of my favourite songwriters, and we certainly don't want to look like just another rock trio doing the type of thing they do so brilliantly.

Air3: Speaking of Simon, is the final Marmaduke Duke segment going to see the light of the day?
JP: That's the plan. It really depends on when Biffy's label [14th Floor] are ready. It might not be until after Biffy's next record, unless we sneak it out in the new year. Simon's incredible though, he's only been home for a week at a time for about four years, so he'll need some rest.

Air3: Okay, so, you vs. Biffy. Who'd win in a fight?
Stewart: Us.
JP: There's five of us now, and Hooligan's a Mexican wrestler in his spare time! [laughs] Even with Mike Vennart [Biffy's live guitarist], I think we'd still take them.
Fergus: Nobody would want to fight though, except maybe Ben Johnstone. He'd be well up for it!
JP: We're lovers, not fighters.

Air3: Also JP, I should mention the Invisibles project that you've been plugging on Facebook. Could you describe what this has entailed?
JP: I decided to do it on a whim really. Basically, it's a “solo” project that I wanted to undertake in my downtime. I'm nowhere near talented enough to do a Damien Rice-esque acoustic album but I record a lot, often just with a condenser mic in my room or whatever. When recording I began noticing things like a truck driving past being as sonically interesting as what I was doing. That's when I got the idea to ask people to send samples in, and the response was overwhelming. I think I received about 4.4 gig of material in four days, which is just phenomenal. I didn't just want to go “Oh, let's write a song with rain in the back” though. I sub-consciously began to intimately know the different recordings anyway; like the rain in Cologne would sound significantly different to rain in Aldershot, for whatever reason! Some of the pieces were amazing musical pieces as well, but you didn't need to be technical or musical to contribute. That was the beautiful part; you don't need to be Beyoncé or Van Gogh to be a part of it. Making music is a learning curve, it's not about being a genius. So in that sense, Invisibles is a chance to be part of something humbling and rewarding.

Air3: Wow, that's fantastic. To conclude, how would you sum up your sound in three words for Air3 listeners?
Stewart: Super. Effing. Awesome.

 

Air3: Cheers guys!

 

Stay updated on Sucioperro at www.sucioperro.com. Details on the Invisibles project at: http://www.facebook.com/invisiblesx

 

 

Charming and mischievous, Micky Flanagan presents old school Cockney humour at its best. Filling out the Edinburgh Festival Theatre is no mean feat and it was there that I saw, gasped, laughed until I cried at this very funny man and his enrapturing material. And I can assure you, I wasn’t the only one wiping a happy tear from my eye, especially toward the end of the second act.

That saying, ‘it’s the way you tell them’ is very true for Micky’s style of stand-up. His Cockney accent gives him that cheekiness and likeability. Appealing to the men as a man about town, or rather, ‘mahhn abaht tahhn’ and the women as, well a bit of a Lothario?

Also true to that saying are his brilliantly questionable impersonations and impressions of women and people in general. So bad they are good, you’d be forgiven for not paying attention to the punch line when his idea of women is to brush his long curly locks over his face whilst putting on a slightly different voice. But it is crucial to remember, he is not an impersonator and he knows this, laughing at himself and digressing from his material only added to the show and made him even more endearingly hilarious! He is however a bit of a philosopher some would argue, with his thoughts as to why teenage pregnancy has risen in the UK over recent years definitely getting the most laughs and gasps throughout the course of the evening.*

There were times when I found myself not quite getting his material as some of it was mainly aimed at people who were my age (21) in the 80’s but this didn’t bother me, as I still found myself cracking up merely by his performance.

The way he performed physically shows that Micky not only has a very well thought out, cheeky sense of humour but also he is just a funny person, strutting about doing the ‘Cockney Walk’, physically peeping out at the audience when he performed my favourite part of his stand-up material.

There was a main structure and narrative to his stand-up material. Jokes he would mention, in the first part of the evening, would return again for extra comedic affect later on in the show giving a real sense of enjoyment and pleasure to the whole evening. Also reflecting how much time and effort he put in to perfect his material.

So if you were thinking of ‘popping out’, but weren’t sure if you really wanted to ‘go out’, but you ended up ‘out-out’, I would strongly recommend you go ‘out-out’ and see Micky Flanagan live as that would be the old school approach Micky would encourage you to do. Failing that, his first live DVD is out 14th November, *rated 18, as some of his material is slightly risqué and not for the faint-hearted. It includes extras such as The ‘Out Out’ dubstep remix. Buy it! It will certainly be a most appreciated Christmas gift. BOSH!

 

Join Micky Flanagan with his debut live DVD Out Out, available from 14th November 2011

 

“Gut wrenchingly hilarious” - ***** The Mirror
“Arguably the funniest comedian in Britain…the future of comedy” - Frank Skinner, Absolute Radio
“In the form of his life” - **** The Times

 

 

Almost everyone has seen the classic 1990 film Ghost and if you haven’t then you’ve definitely heard of it. Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore play the film’s blissful lovers Sam and Molly, who are torn apart when a mugger shoots Sam on the streets as part of a money laundering scheme. Sam is trapped between real life and the afterlife and struggles to protect Molly from dangers she is unaware of as well as getting to the bottom of his own murder. After Patrick Swayze’s tragic real life death two years ago the film strikes a chord with many fans worldwide. It was the perfect time to bring Ghost to new life in a musical adaptation.

Ghost the Musical had its world premiere at the Manchester Opera House in March of this year before beginning previews at the Piccadilly Theatre in London on June 22nd with the official opening night gala on the 19th of July. Directed by Tony Award winner Matthew Warchus (previous credits include the musical adaptation of Lord of the Rings which I sadly never got to see), the musical stars American beauty Caissie Levy and Coronation Street eye candy Richard Fleeshman as Molly and Sam. I saw the Thursday matinee show on the 6th of October. I was sitting in the Grand Circle which, after getting over my initial fear of being so high up, I decided was a really great place to sit as my view of the stage was great. The show was surprisingly well attended for a mid-week matinee, especially since Richard Fleeshman had taken an impromptu holiday. We were entertained instead by Mark Willshire in only his 8th performance as Sam. I settled in to my seat looking forward to experiencing ashow that I knew nothing about which is definitely a rare experience for me these days.
Initially I wasn’t too keen on Caissie Levy’s voice but as the opening number “Here Right Now” progressed I fell more and more in love with her. She has a soulful and powerful voice, perfect for the big ballads that Molly has. I was eager to see what Mark would bring to the role of Sam and he didn’t disappoint. His voice surprised me in its clarity and conviction throughout the show. Although the songs are beautiful as individual numbers, song after song about how much Sam and Molly miss each other can drag on a bit unless you’re a hardcore musical nut like me. Sharon D. Clarke plays psychic Oda Mae Brown who brings some life and colour to the show. She has big jazzy numbers that involve some big vocals and some big productions. This stops the show from becoming too depressing. The ensemble also help in this with their songs about the daily life of New York City,making it seem routine and almost robotic in nature.

However, one aspect of this production outshines all others. The staging is simply sensational. Instead of using traditional scenery like the majority of stage productions, the set consists of threefull LED walls allowing the scene to change quickly from Sam and Molly’s apartment to the busy NewYork street to Sam’s office at work. The onstage illusions and projections allow for some incredible special effects. One second there’s a solid door and next thing you know Sam is actually walking through it! Ghosts spring in to existence almost instantly, leaving their fallen body behind them onthe stage and although sometimes the quick swaps of set pieces or actors on stage is hidden by a blinding strobe light it doesn’t make the production any less spectacular. I can’t put in to words how much the effects amazed me. I hadn’t seen the movie Ghost before walking in to the Piccadilly that day and I think it made the production far more enjoyable. I had a basic idea of the storyline but I didn’t expect the show to affect me in the way it did. At the finale where Sam enters Oda Mae’s body to dance with Molly I found myself beginning to cry. When Molly is finally able to see and hear Sam, I nearly broke down. In two and a half hours I’d become so involved in these two people’s lives that I was so touched to see them almost reunited, both longing for each other but knowing that this was the last time they’d be together. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but if you like the film then you’ll like the musical. If you haven’t seen the film then you should give the show a try. It deserves a lot more praise than it sometimes gets.

 

Over the past ten years, Welsh post-hardcore band Funeral For A Friend have continued to release records which inspire fans, both old and new. Winning Kerrang Awards such as Best UK newcomer in 2003 and Best British Band in 2005 alongside their introduction into Rocksounds Hall of Fame in April 2011, confirmed that they are "living legends" in today's music industry. 

 

We caught up with singer Matt on the band's tour bus to ask him a few questions on the second date of their UK headline tour with support from Escape The Fate, The Amity Affliction and The Bunny The Bear.

 

Air3: So Glasgow is the second date on the tour, how was Wolverhampton last night?

Matt: It was good, you know somewhat trying to work out the kinks of playing again, like in a headline set for the first time in about six months, so it was fun.

 

Air3: I noticed that Glasgow is the only Scottish date on the tour, was that a deliberate move?

Matt: Glasgow, every time we've played it in the last 10 years has always been fantastic.

Air3: So was it the obvious choice for the Scottish date?

Matt: Pretty much. You know we've played places like Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee and Edinburgh before but you know Glasgow is the place that I think we kinda get the best response.

 

Air3: I noticed that the tour is only about 6 or 7 dates, was it always your intentions to have it as such a small tour?

Matt: Yeah it's kinda deliberate. Basically because you know we've got a lot of cool bands with us and we wanna make the tour as concise as possible. We're not gonna drag it out, we did one extensive for the album back in March and this is just to kind of round off the whole album cycle. 

 

Air3: Over the past ten years you have released a number of albums and EPs, I understand that you're now working with the same label that put out your first record.

Matt: In the States, yeah.

Air3: So how has that been?

Matt: Good. It's always nice to work with people who kind of understand you and understand the concept and the ideas of what the band are about. Having a label run by people who create music. 

 

Air3: Do you find that you have more creative freedom?

Matt: There's a lot more mutual respect and a lot more understanding and a lot more room for ideas to be discussed. Whereas if you have somebody working for you who's never even picked up a guitar or never wrote a song, sometimes it's hard to take their attitude and their advice towards music and what they think you should do. I've always had that issue with like A&R people who have not got any musical background creatively whatsoever. It's like they tell me to do something and it's like, you've never written a song in your life. If you learned how to play the guitar and you come up to me and said can we try this then I'd be like okay. We spent years and years in our bedrooms, just growing up learning to play instruments listening to songs and trying to better ourselves and that's what we put our belief in, our ability to continue to create music that we enjoy. 

 

Air3: What has been your favourite release?

Matt: Oh God, my two favourite things we've done are 'Welcome Home Armageddon' and 'Hours'. Those two rcords pretty much sum up, to a degree, what Funeal For A Friend is for me anyway and they're my personal faves. 

 

Air3: Obviously the bands that you grow up listening to are going to have an influence on the music you make, what kind of bands/music did you listen to growing up?

Matt: I grew up listening to everything that was in my Dad's record collection when I was younger, like The Beatles and The Beach Boys and stuff like that. Then I got into kinda Punk Rock and stuff when I was a teenager, stuff like Bad Religion, Penny Wise, Lagwagon then Hardcore bands like Gorilla Biscuits and Youth Of Today - pretty much formed my musical experiences from then on and from the age of 16 up until well, now really. I've always been very much emerged in Hardcore and Punk Rock so that's pretty much kinda been the music and the attitude that I've lived by since I was 16 years of age. 

 

Air3: So, what's your favourite record at the moment then?

Matt: There's a few that I've got that I really like, which is unusual for me because sometimes I am a bit of a music-phobe, I don't listen to a lot of music unless it's really old. The last couple of records that I really liked were 'End Measured Mile' by a band called Make Do And Mend, a phenominal album! And, 'Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me' by a band call Touché Amoré.

Air3: Oh yeah, they went on tour with La Dispute.

Matt: Yeah, the new La Dispute album is incredible and the new Lower Than Atlantis record is phenomial. Also, 'This Polar Noise' EP by a band called POLAR, they're really cool guys.

 

Air3: What's the set list like for tonight?

Matt: It's just good [laughs].

Air3: So is it a mix of your old and new stuff?

Matt: You know after playing for ten years and doing things you kind of come to realise that you've gotta really try to put your best foot forward when it comes to playing sets now. I think ten years of being a band, you kinda wanna play what you wanna play and the songs do kinda reflect our attiude at the moment and there's a lot of new stuff in there but there's also a lot of touchstones that people recognise, so it's not as if we've just decided to literally dump all the songs that people will know. We've incorporated a lot of the new record and like the new song from the EP (High Castles) and stuff to kind of make it an exciting set, both for us and hopefully for the audience.

 

Air3: Do you feel that there are songs that the fans expect you to play?

Matt: There are. I think when you release an album, especially ten years in, songs stop being your songs and they become the people's songs. 

Air3: They become the fan's songs?

Matt: Yeah, you gotta treat that with respect and you just kind of gotta do what you gotta do and you know those songs are still fun to play. There's been moments in the last decade where we've felt like, shit do we still have to play this? But, when we do get to play them to an audience you understand the reason why we play them.

 

Air3: So over the past few years, you've played festival like T in the Park, Download, Reading and Leeds. What is the major difference between playing a gig and playing a festival, considering the fact that a gig you know everyone is going to be a FFAF fan whereas at a festival that's not always the case?

Matt: The festical is a bit more chaotic to a degree, it's a bit more kind of - like you said - you kind of know the people are gonna want to watch you but it's also an opportunity to maybe get new fans. But with a headline show and touring your own stuff you are playing to fans who know what you're doing. But it's also the reason we release records every couple of years, is that hopefully somebody new who might not have seen us before might come along to this tour now and check us out for the first time ever, even after ten years we're still bringing new people in so it's kinda weird.

Air3: Yeah, this is my first Funeral For A Friend gig.

Matt: It is? Oh, brilliant. 

 

Air3: Do you have any advice for bands who are trying to make it in this industry?

Matt: Have belief in what you do, do it for the reasons of making music with your friends. I think if you try to achieve success and that's the sole aim of you wanting to be in a band then I think it's gonna be a hard ride. There's gonna be disappointment, but if you're in it just with your mates and you wanna make music that you love to play then that's all that should matter regardless of what people say, just continue doing what you do, if you have conviction and belief in your music then that's what's important.

 

Air3: Do you still have those raw emotions in regards to the music you make even after ten years?

Matt: Yeah that's why we write new music, if we didn't have that then we wouldn't write any new music. We're always finding stuff to inspire us and to push the boundaries of what we do and even if we do kind of find ourselves feeling a bit down or in a reflective mood about where the band is creatively, we play shows and see the audience and their reaction to what we do. I don't know anything else, ten years I've been doing this - I don't know anything else to do and it's the best job in the world. 

 

Funeral For A Friend's new EP "See You All In Hell" is available now.