Monday 24 February 2014

‘School's out: meet The Strypes, Elton John's new teenage protégés’ by Ruby Warrington of The Evening Standard


When the Rocket Man saw The Strypes on YouTube he invited the teen band from rural Ireland over for lunch. Two weeks later, he signed them. Now they’re jamming with Paul Weller and getting giddy with life on the road. Watch out Arctic Monkeys, says Ruby Warrington.

Oh my God, they are young!’ the man behind me gasps. The Strypes, aka bassist Pete O’Hanlon, drummer Evan Walsh, guitarist Josh McClorey and singer Ross Farrelly, have just exploded on to the stage at New York’s Webster Hall, and their reputation — as the latest must-see teen sensation — obviously precedes them. Aged between 16 and 18, the band have attracted some pretty hefty music industry backing in Elton John, whose management company Rocket Music signed them after the star saw one of their videos on YouTube. As he tells it: ‘I had them round to lunch and signed them two weeks later. I couldn’t believe the way they looked and sounded, their age, their musicianship and what they were playing.’

Seeing them play might be a bit like watching The Inbetweeners (with better hair), but listen to The Strypes’ music and you hear an accomplished band just hitting their prime. Add in the fact that they write all their own songs — high-octane blues that make reference to everyone from The Rolling Stones to Dr Feelgood and back — and the lads become the anti-One Direction, a breath of fresh, un-Simon Cowell-contaminated air. ‘It’s annoying that he has the power to make artfully unintelligent music huge, and tell everyone this is what you should listen to. Destroying music isn’t funny, OK?’ spits Pete backstage before the gig. So they’re not exactly Cowell fans, then? Evan rolls his eyes: ‘He’s just a w***er. It’s the manipulation of naïve young minds as well…’

And except for singer Ross, still officially a schoolboy (the others quit last summer), who overcomes his nerves by wearing a pair of shades on stage, the lads are outspoken beyond their years. The New York gig is part of a US ‘taster tour’ ahead of a proper go-for-it in the spring, and they’re gutted that blizzard conditions detained them for an extra night in Toronto. ‘New York was the place we were looking forward to the most,’ says Pete. ‘Coming into Manhattan and seeing the skyscrapers was the most giddy we’ve been yet. I mean, hello, Spider-Man lives here,’ he deadpans. No strangers to life on the road, the band have been touring together since 2011 (they started out gigging around their native Ireland in a converted disabled access van), and it’s safe to say ‘the novelty has already worn off 110 million per cent,’ says Josh, the heart-throb with his Bobby Gillespie bob.

‘The travelling is when you get to realise all the things you hate about the people you hang out with,’ pipes up Evan, whose dad, Niall, tags along as ‘chaperone, manager, ass-wiper and slap-giver-slash-amateur psychologist and mentor’, according to Evan. And speaking of mentors, Elton John says it’s their sound — think Arctic Monkeys via the 1960s — that puts them in another league to typical boy bands: ‘This is their career. It’s proper music. They’re writing their own songs and they’ll only get better, so the world is their oyster.’

Not that they’re on a mission for mega-stardom. As Pete puts it: ‘I would definitely take credibility over being a huge f***ing rock star, ’cos that’s bollocks anyway.’ While Evan claims: ‘The ambition is just to do something we love, to not be a dickhead and hopefully break even.’ No diva demands for their rider, then? ‘We have water and Skittles. We’re trying to upgrade to crisps, but it’s finding the space in the budget…’ And what about the groupies? Evan snorts: ‘Take a look! We’re here backstage with three middle-aged men…’ ‘It’s also kind of perverse to think, “I’m playing for this woman and I’m going to get her after,” says Pete, adopting a prim tone. Its horribly abusing your role as a musician. To be fair, its not exactly the kind of music that makes teenage girls swoon. Theres no mention of any girlfriends back home, and the Webster Hall crowd consists mainly of… more middle-aged men.

As for the hard-drinking rock’n’roll lifestyle: ‘If I was in a band with someone who just turned up smashed all the time, I’d think, “What a f***ing moron,” says Evan. Or as Josh puts it: If the fun bit of being in a band is going out and getting pissed, just go and do that! Dont waste your time being in a band…’

They come from the rural Irish backwater of Cavan (population c.10,000) and have acquired a sort of town mascot status. ‘It’s like if Cavan have a local football team, we’re the town band,’ says Pete. ‘We always do a couple of shows in the pub at Christmas, and it’s like, “Ahhh, the lads are back.” Its the kind of town where you get pub bands playing Thin Lizzy till the cows come home,’ says Evan, and where the occasional trad night still sees the old folks break out the spoons.

Music was always in the background for the boys growing up — Evan’s dad was in a band himself, and got his son his first drum kit aged just three. ‘In typical Irish fashion my grandmother sold a field to get the money. It was to stop me hitting things, like my sister’s head.’ Pete started playing guitar aged seven (‘after watching School of Rock, I can’t lie’), and Josh when he was eight or nine. Meanwhile, singer Ross picked up the harmonica two years ago. ‘Most of the singers of the bands we were listening to at the time, they were playing the harmonica,’ he explains.

And if anybody wants to criticise them for referencing their idols too heavily in their song-writing: ‘Complete originality is overrated anyway. Everyone’s too focused on being original, and everyone is s*** at the moment,’ says Pete (currently having ‘a big The Clash moment’). ‘Whenever you come up with a song, you have something in your head you want it to sound like,’ Evan chimes in. ‘Like The Specials: they were dressing like 1960s rude boys and doing ska covers, and they were regarded as this new cult band’ — when, in fact, as he points out, they were heavily influenced by other people. As Josh puts it: ‘It’s what Costello called “getting other bands wrong”.’

They’ve already met plenty of the greats — having played a ‘dream gig’ with Wilko Johnson at Canvey Island, and shared stage space with Paul Weller (‘he was like, “Guys, slow down!”’). As for Elton John: ‘We’ve met him a handful of times, but mainly we just talk about the weather,’ says Josh. ‘It’s not like he’ll pull us aside and be like, “Now, I’ve got just the nugget of advice for you...” But of course he has. His words of wisdom for his spunky new protégés? Work hard and enjoy it. Carry on writing your own songs and just enjoy the ride.

The Strypes, photographed by Diego Uchitel.

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