The Strypes | Interview

It’s the 2nd July 2011, and it’s a beautiful sunny day for the Bailieborough Town Festival in Cavan. This writer and his erstwhile bandmates are booked to play on the truck trailer parked in the town square. Before we get our shot in the limelight, however, four youngsters dressed in black, sunglasses, polo-necks and violin bass all present and correct, climb to the stage and rattle their way note perfectly through some Beatles and blues standards, and capture everyone’s attention immediately. Not knowing what their name was we labelled them the “Mini-Beatles”. On the drive back to Dublin, we discussed the Mini-Beatles. And then, thought no more of them. Fast-forward two years and the Mini-Beatles, or “The Strypes”, as they are officially known, are playing to a packed Electric Arena at Electric Picnic and being talked about by Elton John and Dave Grohl on a U.S. chat show. In two weeks, they will share a stage with Foo Fighters in front of potentially 80,000 people at Slane Castle. “Yeah it’s going downhill isn’t it?”, says Evan.

We meet The Strypes in the ‘Boudoir Bar’ upstairs in Whelans on the kind of bright, pre-summer Friday, that has flip flops and beanie hats being worn simultaneously, though not by the band I should add. Wearing a cast as a result of a recent foot injury, Ross now leans on a gold-topped cane, which, as he keenly demonstrates, contains a secret poitín compartment. Paired with the sunglasses that rarely leave his face, he is the picture of the eccentric rockstar, like the lovechild of Alice Cooper and Bono, but quieter. “There're not many times you can go for the Ian Dury look, but this is one of those times”, quips Evan. Hit Me With Your Walking Stick perhaps? Indeed, while Pete, Evan and Josh bounce off each other with thoughts, jokes and anecdotes, Ross remains slightly distant, perhaps happy to let the others do the talking while he retains his front man mystique.

The hype around the band is back to a fever pitch with the imminent release of their sophomore album and the recently announced Slane gig. They disclaim any knowledge of whether Dave Grohl had anything to do with them being selected for the Slane slot although admit that it would make sense if he did. They seem to take the whole “celebrity admirer” thing in their stride. When talk turns to Elton John, the lads are quick to play down his role. “Elton owns the management company that we’re on the roster of and his name’s been attached to the band a lot when talking about celebrity admirers”, point out Evan. “It’s easy to say, ‘Oh Elton John is their teacher!’” adds Ross. It should be mentioned that they are just as quick to reiterate their fondness for the man, but it seems the constant association has started to grind. Elton’s admiration for them is clearly more than throwaway aggrandisement as he has them headlining his Homecoming Festival in Regent’s Park, London in July. This comes as complete news to the band when we bring it up, perhaps another sign that they are bigger than even they realise.

There’s no denying the fact that a large part of The Strypes original appeal was the novelty of their ages, and although they are all still in their teens (Josh turns 20 in September), there must be some sense of a ticking clock in the background as they approach young adulthood. “People who are fans of the band will be fans of the band whether we’re 19 or 21”, says Pete. Fair enough, but what about further down the line. “It feels very safe to be honest”, says Josh, “because you think, ‘God what if it all goes tits up in a couple of months?’, but then you’re like, sure I’m only 19! For some people in their late twenties or thirties, it’s scary.” “I’m quite content to age at the rate that I’m currently ageing”, quips Evan. Pete puts it in perspective for us: “We’ll be ten years in the business before Noel Gallagher started Oasis”.

The new album has been a labour but has it been a labour of love? A recent documentary on the band, “Best Thing Since Cavan”, laid out in fairly stark terms the strain that was on the band during the writing and recording of their second album. Josh appeared to be heading in a different direction to the rest of the band with the songs he was writing, and their producer was pushing back on a lot of the new material. “Obviously there was an angle to the documentary”, explains Josh, “but yeah, last May we had around 20 tunes written for the album that were rejected and we were really pissed off for about two weeks and those were the two weeks that they filmed. You have to understand that we’re at this age where we’re all getting into different things, and we all live in each other’s pockets and we’re all pissing each other off all the time, and when that’s filmed it just looks so much more dramatic. It was a very different approach recording this time because with the first album all the songs were there, we’d played them live for about a year, and it was just a case of go and record them and make them sound good. Whereas with this we were writing as it was being recorded, we spent a lot more time in production, and we didn’t get a chance to test them out on the road. In the end, though, we’ve got something that everyone’s really happy with. There are pressures there for sure but we’ve got good people around us and they’re looking out for our best interests: they want to make a great album, and we want to make a great album”.

The documentary was far from a puff piece on the band. The honesty of the lads in it is quite startling and several times you have to remind yourself that you’re watching teenagers reflecting on their lives, hopes and careers. It’s all quite surreal. “That’s why it was so nice to do the Irish tour we just did in February, playing small venues in small towns all over Ireland, away from the industry stuff meeting culchies like us!” says Josh. Do they get recognised around Ireland now? “It’s all very normal”, says Pete. “They’d be like, ‘are you from Cavan town? Oh yeah, I know your uncle. He’s a bollocks”. It certainly puts some manners on the “too big for Whelan's” idea.

Still, they have their rock n roll moments too. One memory in particular sticks out from a gig in Cavan last year. Pete explains: “We were doing White Room by Cream and a friend of ours came up on stage with us playing this terrible old guitar. He threw it down, poured lighter fluid on it and set it on fire. It looked great, but then he comes out with a fire extinguisher, sprays it everywhere and the fire alarm goes off, and people start panicking. It wasn’t the right kind of extinguisher you see. It looked class though. We had no idea he was going to do that. He’s a proper messer”.

When it is put to them that they are effectively too big for the venue that we are sitting in, they disagree. “I think it would reflect really badly on us if we thought like that,” says Evan with a shake of his head. “Whelan's will loom larger in Irish history than we ever will” adds Pete, rather poignantly, although only time will tell whether that proves to be the case, and these lads have plenty of time left.