2012 promises to be an exciting year for London based singer-songwriter John O'Shea. After years of performing as a solo artist he has bough together guitarist Rosie Botterill, laid back bassist Chris Pinkston and down-to-earth drummer Anna Thomas to form a four piece rock outfit named JOS, giving his songs a new lease of life. After a few months of rehearsing in 2011 John O'Shea and the newly assembled band were ready to hit the gig circuit with their first gig at The Water Rats in January 2012. Playing songs which John wrote 10 years ago and has not yet heard performed, it was a momentous and emotional night. He recalls “When I came home I must have gone to bed about 12:30 and I just stared at the wall until about 4 o'clock in the morning. It blew my brain”. I join them at their third gig at the Dublin Castle to see how it's all settling in.
As I arrive Camden's Dublin Castle, slightly late courtesy of the London Underground engineering works, I am met by exuberant guitarist Rosie who fills me in on the current situation. The band were supposed to have sound checked by now but due to the unexpected disappearance of the headlining act the running order for the evening has become confused and sound checking has over run. Musing that a life in rock 'n' roll is never uneventful, I follow her through the bar and into the venue to be greeted by the sight of glum looking musicians, bored of waiting around. JOS have changed their slot to first as Anna and John are both ill, John with a bad throat. Being the first band to play means being the last to sound check so I sit with Rosie and watch a band who clearly want to be Iron Maiden perform their sound check. Most entertaining. As they finish and the next band begin to set up, I suggest to Rosie that we make use of the surplus time and go somewhere quieter to talk. She agrees, poses the idea to the rest of the band and in no time we're headed to the bar next door, buying drinks and gathering around a table to chew the fat on the topics of song writing, internet marketing and the music industry in general.
I am curious to know how they would describe their music. There is a pause while the band consider their style.
“Broad rock.” John breaks the silence first.
“Definitely got an element of grunge in there,” adds Anna.
“Radiohead is an influence and I can hear that,” says Rosie.
So do you think your influences show through in your music?
“I think a little bit,” muses Chris “because some of the recordings have come out more bluesy since we've all started playing them together.” They all agree.
The demo, which was recorded before Chris and Rosie joined the band, and the live set do sound different. They mull this over for a bit, deciding the sound is a bit looser now.
“And I make it faster,” Anna smiles, spoken like a true drummer.
“For me rock is like Elvis, Marilyn Manson, Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd, the whole spectrum,” says John. “I do everything within that. At the moment we're just doing songs that can be played by the four of us.” He states that his song writing is diverse and what the band are playing now is only a tiny part of it. “I don't want people to get a specific idea of what we're like, because then they'll expect that from you all the time and they're not going to get it.”
Currently they are only playing songs written by John.
“He has about a thousand songs!” exclaims Rosie.
Originally John had planned to make an album because he felt that his time to do so was running out. He met Anna last year and the two of them recorded the album with John playing all the guitar parts. The band was formed afterwards for the purpose of gigging the album and each member has added their own unique flavour to the songs.
“I'm not a drummer,” states John “so Anna goes 'well I know what to do with that'. The kind of stuff I was asking Chris to do was like playing lead guitar on bass but bass is a different instrument so now Chris just does what he wants.” They all chuckle. “And Rosie is a better lead guitarist than I am. I'm the worst musician in the band.”
Conversation turns to Rosie's obsession with Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Slash. “She just needs a heroin addiction and a hat and we'll be fine,” jokes John. Everyone laughs.
“Slash was addicted to heroin?” asks Anna.
“Slash was the biggest heroin addict after Nikki Sixx,” replies an incredulous Rosie. “He died!" She is discourage away from adopting all aspects of Slash's life and John goes on to elaborate about his song writing process.
“I think using the word process and how I write is giving it a bit more credit.” he says with a cheeky smile. “Basically I sit around watching TV, playing guitar and if a riff comes out I go 'oh that's a nice riff'.”
“But you never write it down,” mockingly scolds Rosie.
“Yeah,” admits John. “The process is never to write it down...and if I remember it the next day...” “Means its worth keeping,” finishes Chris.
“And I put words to it,” continues John, which he earlier mentioned were floating around in his head, “and that's a song. Its not a question of lyrics first or music first. I'm not a composer, I'm not a songwriter,” he pauses to think. “I can write a song I just don't know how I do it. I know a song when I hear it.”
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JOS's first gig at the Water Rats on January 14th had an extensive turn out. The band played well, giving a tight and thoughtful performance. Since then they have played at The Good Ship in Kilburn and have added several more dates to their up-and-coming gigs. How do they feel about their gigs so far?
“The first gig was really good,” says Rosie. “When its your first gig everybody comes but then after your first gig they're like oh well I've seen you.”
“Its difficult for an originals band to get loads of people to go,” Anna agrees.
John reveals that he doesn't like to talk on stage.
“Yeah he's a bit anti-social,” laughs Rosie. “So we say you're not allowed to talk.”
“He complies with that,” jokes Anna.
One reason John doesn't talk on stage is because he doesn't like to talk about the songs.
“I don't explain songs,” he says flatly. He considers those who do to be a bit pretentious. “They spend like twenty minutes explaining the song then you hear it and its shit.” The other reason for his silence is related to changing from a solo artists to a rock band front man. John originates from a solo acoustic background where gigs are intimate, with a different connection between the artist and the audience. “People are like that,” he makes a hand gesture to show someone being up close to his face. “You can just have a chat to them.” It is a different dynamic with a rock band, not one he dislikes but one he is not used to. He doesn't favour one over the other as long as people are listening. “Being ignored, that's the worst thing.”
Discussion turns to the internet. It has become such an important tool for bands to promote themselves. The correct viral marketing can break a band, as seen with the Arctic Monkeys in 2005, or simply gain a band wide spread exposure which is what OK Go's video for Here It Goes Again featuring a choreographed treadmill routine did for them in 2006. It is now so easy to record a demo and put it online that hundreds of thousands of bands are floating around in cyber space, all vying for the attention of the online music seeker. Surely this creates more competition in a medium which is praised for aiding bands?
“There's definitely a lot more interpretation,” agrees Anna who seems to have a firm grip on the workings of the music industry. “You can pull it in so many different ways. Potentially you can pull in a bigger audience. You have to have online presence or you're no one.”
Aside from Anna, for a band where all the members are under the age of 30 they are a bunch of technophobes!
“I don't like technology,” admits Rosie, the youngest member at 19 years old. “I'm trying to use twitter and I just don't like it. I don't understand it!”
“It's like you have 140 characters to say nothing,” adds Chris.
“I just feel like such a twat writing about nothing,” continues Rosie. “And there's like one person reading what you're saying and its like your sister.” She laughs.
“I hate the whole thing,” grumbles John. “There's just too much. Its like when you go into Starbucks and you just want a cup of coffee. And most of its shite anyway.”
Anna concludes “It's weird how you can just get a computer and make your own music, make your own facebook and it can be really terrible but you can still put it on there and get all your friends to like it and if you've got 100,000 friends [maybe she knows some popular people] they're all going to like it and there's your online presence.” She orders the rest of the band to facebook more despite their technophobic tendencies.
At this point the sound checking band are packing their equipment away, meaning that it is finally JOS's turn to sound check. As we all traipse back to the venue for the sound check John takes a swig from a bottle filled with a pale yellow coloured liquid.
“Its not wee,” he assures me, “its honey water”.
After a fairly uneventful sound check we recline on the cushioned benches lining the venue walls, listening to a Queens Of The Stone Age album which is playing in the background, most likely for the entertainment of the sound engineer. As an unsigned band I wondered what JOS thought about creating their own record label as doing so allows a band to have complete artistic control while avoiding being unfairly treated in terms of finances by a record company. It has proven a successful venture for Enter Shikari. “I think it would be hard to establish yourself as a record label,” remarks Rosie.
“But it'd be a good idea to be the whole productive thing” interjects Anna.
Rosie cuts across her “If you get to a certain level as a band then it would be really cool to do it, but if you're just starting out as a band and trying to make that work on its own, to make a record label and try to make that work as well, then it'd be even harder.”
“They're usually affiliated with somebody else,” says Chris. “Even if they have their own [record label] it's still technically a part of Warner Brothers or Sony Music.”
“Most bands who did their own record companies anyway were a disaster,” says John. “The Beatles did it with Apple and it was a disaster, The Rolling Stones did it with their own label and that didn't work out, Led Zeppelin did it and that didn't work out. We're practically our own record company anyway.” He reels off the tasks they carry out which a record company would ordinarily arrange including booking and promoting gigs, paying for rehearsals and recording the album.
So would you sign with a big label if the opportunity came along? Its a unanimous yes.
“If it's someone good that weren't going to be like dogs,” says Rosie. Perhaps high expectations of the record companies there.
“Unless a record company comes along that has something to offer us which is going to benefit us then there's no point. There's a lot of labels that'll just do you over,” declares Anna.
“I aim very high,” says John as he considers the bands future. He reveals that he doesn't tell anyone his goals because they won't believe him.
“Oh say it,” invites Rosie, “and we'll just go 'Yes John'.” She nods her head slowly as if humouring someone. Everyone laughs.
John has already stated his definition of making it big.
“In my head big is Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin.” An animated discussion ensues, defining and categorising “legend bands”, “great bands” and bands-who-made-it-big. John continues “You see the top ten and you want to get to the number one spot? Well I won't be happy until all of those spots are mine.” Ambitious.
You want to knock yourself off number one?
“Yeah!” he replies enthusiastically. John admits to being very competitive. “I don't think you get anywhere by being hippy-ish, like 'I'm going to sing on top of a mountain and let the birds hear me',” he mocks.
Rosie lets out a small gasp “That would be so cool!”
“I just don't want to be a British band that Guardian readers wank over and the rest of the country has never heard of,” grumbles John.
“Like Cheryl Cole,” chimes in Rosie. Ok? Not too familiar with the Guardian's demographic then. John outlines his game plan for success which involves building up a fan bass from playing as many gigs as possible, gaining better gigs and using merchandise to make money.
“Just try to be a successful gigging band,” he declares. “That's the aim for the moment...so world domination can happen.”
They begin to discuss today's music.
“Everything's so shit now,” signs John.
“It's not shit, it's just different,” counters Anna.
“In the '90s, when music was good,” John starts.
Rosie cuts across him. “I disagree!” she exclaims passionately. “In the '60s, when music was good-”
“Screw you, I'm going back to caveman era,” Anna cuts in. “Ugg!”
When drummers ruled? I offer. She smiles and nods.
Rosie reminds John of the Spice Girls, the '90's disfigurement of music, and their banter filled discussion over what constitutes good and bad music continues. Rosie soothes John's worry that good musicians or songwriters no longer exist by assuring him that their lack of representation in the charts does not mean that they have perished.
“They're only in certain circles,” she reveals. “If you go to Download [music festival] there'll be thousands of brand new bands who are all amazing and playing this huge festival. That's successful.”
“Rock as a genre is kind of getting its teeth kicked at the moment, in terms of chart music anyway,” says John. “I think there's a feeling in rock music of everyone sticking together. It's a lot less bitchy now. All the bands I've met have been nice. I've only met one dickhead band.”
“Who was that,” asks Rosie, eager for gossip.
“I can't remember their name,” replies John.
“The wankers with the snare and cymbal?” asks Chris. Descriptive.
Throughout the evening the conversation has been fraught with jokes and gentle teasing of one an other. This cheeky banter has a constant presence in their relationship. It shows how well they mesh together as a group of people and emphasises their relaxed attitude towards one another. They inform me that it's one of the best things about being in a band.
“Having fun,” smiles Chris. “Joking with everybody, all the 'that's what she said' jokes.”
And the other merits of being in a band?
“Playing our instruments,” says Anna, reminding everyone why they are originally here.
With John's back catalogue of songs ready to be rehearsed and played it means that there is no urgent demand for songs to be written.
“It takes the pressure off everyone,” remarks John. “There's no pressure in this band.”
“Its really chilled,” agrees Chris.
“Which is really nice,” John concludes. They all nod. However it's not all fun and games, they are a very productive band.
“We do mess about,” admits Anna, “but we do get so much done.”
“There's been bands I've been with for eight months and at the end of that eight months we have three or four original songs,” says Chris. “Everybody was lazy and drunk.” They giggle.
Being in a band is a new experience for John. As a solo artist his situation has always been him against the world.
“So I've got a bit of an attitude problem,” he confesses.
Rosie bursts out laughing. “That's putting it lightly!” she exclaims. John smiles sheepishly.
“Get us some bad press,” says Anna. “We might become a new Design The Skyline!” [A band which she earlier claimed gained much exposure from copious bad press.]
As we are preparing to leave the venue John leans over and says “Oh we kill people as well.” Laughter ensues. A prime example of the banter, which they tell me fills their rehearsals. They collect up their various belongings and head over to the bar to wait for the venue doors to open, admitting the public to see them perform, leading them one small step closer to John's goal of world domination.
For demos and gig listings go to www.johnoshea.com
or follow them on facebook www.facebook.com/johnosheaofficial
Live photos courtesy of Georgia Vallis.
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