Word of warning to Manchester: take better care of Twisted Wheel’s lead man Jonny Brown or he’ll decamp to Japan. “In the summer we did Fuji Rock and it was mint,” enthuses Jonny in a plump Oldham accent.
“We had a full night there watching bands and stuff – we just thought, ‘We’ll see what happens, we’re not a massive band or ’owt’. But then the next day, 3,000 people came to the gig – it was a massive uproar. Anything I said on the mic they just cheered to.
“It got to the point where I was just kicking the drumkit over and they were cheering – it were mint. It was like being The Beatles in the Sixties.
“Adam (Clark – drums) told all the girls I liked squid. So every gig I turned up to, they all had bags of squid.
“Every type of squid you can imagine: squid tentacles, squid head, full squids in bags.
“I had to be nice to them and go, ‘Wow, squid, ******* nice one’.”
Two years ago, when CityLife put Jonny, Adam and bassist Rick Lees on the cover, everyone knew Jonny Brown wanted stardom. But when we meet up for tapas at a little eatery in Manchester today, it’s the first time he’s really sounded ready for it. Since CityLife last talked to Jonny ahead of the Oasis shows, they’ve toured Britain, Europe and Japan.
Italy loves them, France and Germany have proved tougher nuts to crack, but sitting here listening to Jonny talk of tours with Oasis, text exchanges with Paul Weller and waking up to teams of adoring female fans in his bedroom, he sounds very much like a man living the dream.
“People say that,” he says, furrowing his brow. “People come up to me in Japan, ‘You’re a big star’, showing me their guitars and that.
“I don’t think we are living the dream – I think we get treated like crap. I think we’re a great ******* punk rock ’n’ roll band from Britain and we’re very underestimated.
'Grafting'
“I think a lot of writers out there have been brought up different to me, and the only thing they can do is go and get involved in what we’re doing – which is very hard for them people – or knock us.
“I think we get knocked by a lot of people who sadly do matter. I think people think we’re hooligans. We’re far from that. But people say we’re yobs, all throwing beer round and lads together.
“I wouldn’t write songs like Bouncing Bomb if I was a hooligan. “For people to say it’s simple yob meat is pretty hurtful. I think we would be living the dream if it wasn’t for all those *****.
“I’m living the dream compared to my mate who’s in a band and is skint and trying to get somewhere, I’d never knock it. But I still have to worry about paying my rent – I still think about whether I should be turning my lights off.
“I don’t wanna be one of those ***** who drives round in a Merc and has to have a red carpet.
“But living the dream is when you don’t have to worry about anything in life. I’m grafting to pay my way.”
It’s little wonder Jonny’s a tad disillusioned by life on the frontline of punk rock. It’s a reality he’s dreamed of since he was a kid – even down to the details of gigging in a forest.
“When I was a kid, my dad was dead into walks and he’d take me out into the hills walking places.
“I remember thinking it’d be great to be a rock star and play in this forest. I’d watched Woodstock and Led Zep on his videos.
“It was Jimmy Page that did it. I thought, ‘I wanna be on stage with some massive flares on, ripping a guitar to bits’.
'Wilderness'
“I used to say to me mam, ‘Mam, I want some flares’, and she’d say, ‘You can’t get flares for your age – we’ll make some’.
“So we went and bought this pair of blue cords, cut them up and got these teatowels in the gap so I could look like Jimmy Page.
“Beyond the fashion and all that ****,” he laughs, “I just always wanted to be a rock star playing in a forest.
“So when it got to happen supporting Paul Weller, I was actually living my own dream and more, supporting a rock ’n’ roll legend.
“It’s great – you’re in the wilderness. You’ve been cooped up in a room writing songs or in the city dealing with all the people you’ve gotta speak to in the industry, and the next thing you’re in a forest playing a gig to the squirrels. I’m a very outdoors sort of person – not at the moment, I’m doing my job, but I’m sure when I stop doing this I’ll spend days out in the weather.
“I just like seeing what England’s got. You hear all these people going to Thailand and stuff to get away, but they forget how beautiful England is.
“If you go to Japan and say you’re from the north of England, they know it’s beautiful.
“If we get a good bit of time off, I’ll always be out there, with me tent and that.”
Wherever the band’s fortunes are, major label life is still looking after them well.
They’re currently taking their eponymous debut record on its final live outing – stopping at a sold out show at the Academy 2 tonight – before heading into the studio to finish the new record, which Jonny says is ‘half done’.
'Angry'
There’s a new single out in a couple of months and they’ll be airing some of that live.
It’s a good opportunity to get things right before the final studio sessions – and make sure the set’s in shape for their big appearance at Hooky’s new club, Fac251, on February 26.
“I’ve wrote stuff that I’ve been really happy with and thought, ‘This is me at this time’,” says Jonny.
“I’m kicking my own songs’ a***s. I can write a slow song and write a ballad and all that, I can do whatever everyone else is doing and try and sell this soft side of me – ‘I’m dead romantic me and dead nice to women’, which I am.
“But I will be like that when I’m 30-odd. But now I’m a very angry, feisty young man who wants to blitz out my rock ’n’ roll songs. I don’t wanna aim for the middle class market who have just discoved Elbow cos of the Mercurys.
“I want kids to know you don’t have to be a ******** intellectual to bring a crowd to your gigs. You can be a scally, uneducated b*****d, but if you can write some words that please people and make people feel better about their lives, you can do it.
“Punk rock exists between the ages of 15 and 26, and that’s what I’m doing. Until I’m 30 anyway. Then I’ll get all my love songs out.”
http://www.citylife.co.uk/home/news/15061_interview__twisted_wheel
“We had a full night there watching bands and stuff – we just thought, ‘We’ll see what happens, we’re not a massive band or ’owt’. But then the next day, 3,000 people came to the gig – it was a massive uproar. Anything I said on the mic they just cheered to.
“It got to the point where I was just kicking the drumkit over and they were cheering – it were mint. It was like being The Beatles in the Sixties.
“Adam (Clark – drums) told all the girls I liked squid. So every gig I turned up to, they all had bags of squid.
“Every type of squid you can imagine: squid tentacles, squid head, full squids in bags.
“I had to be nice to them and go, ‘Wow, squid, ******* nice one’.”
Two years ago, when CityLife put Jonny, Adam and bassist Rick Lees on the cover, everyone knew Jonny Brown wanted stardom. But when we meet up for tapas at a little eatery in Manchester today, it’s the first time he’s really sounded ready for it. Since CityLife last talked to Jonny ahead of the Oasis shows, they’ve toured Britain, Europe and Japan.
Italy loves them, France and Germany have proved tougher nuts to crack, but sitting here listening to Jonny talk of tours with Oasis, text exchanges with Paul Weller and waking up to teams of adoring female fans in his bedroom, he sounds very much like a man living the dream.
“People say that,” he says, furrowing his brow. “People come up to me in Japan, ‘You’re a big star’, showing me their guitars and that.
“I don’t think we are living the dream – I think we get treated like crap. I think we’re a great ******* punk rock ’n’ roll band from Britain and we’re very underestimated.
'Grafting'
“I think a lot of writers out there have been brought up different to me, and the only thing they can do is go and get involved in what we’re doing – which is very hard for them people – or knock us.
“I think we get knocked by a lot of people who sadly do matter. I think people think we’re hooligans. We’re far from that. But people say we’re yobs, all throwing beer round and lads together.
“I wouldn’t write songs like Bouncing Bomb if I was a hooligan. “For people to say it’s simple yob meat is pretty hurtful. I think we would be living the dream if it wasn’t for all those *****.
“I’m living the dream compared to my mate who’s in a band and is skint and trying to get somewhere, I’d never knock it. But I still have to worry about paying my rent – I still think about whether I should be turning my lights off.
“I don’t wanna be one of those ***** who drives round in a Merc and has to have a red carpet.
“But living the dream is when you don’t have to worry about anything in life. I’m grafting to pay my way.”
It’s little wonder Jonny’s a tad disillusioned by life on the frontline of punk rock. It’s a reality he’s dreamed of since he was a kid – even down to the details of gigging in a forest.
“When I was a kid, my dad was dead into walks and he’d take me out into the hills walking places.
“I remember thinking it’d be great to be a rock star and play in this forest. I’d watched Woodstock and Led Zep on his videos.
“It was Jimmy Page that did it. I thought, ‘I wanna be on stage with some massive flares on, ripping a guitar to bits’.
'Wilderness'
“I used to say to me mam, ‘Mam, I want some flares’, and she’d say, ‘You can’t get flares for your age – we’ll make some’.
“So we went and bought this pair of blue cords, cut them up and got these teatowels in the gap so I could look like Jimmy Page.
“Beyond the fashion and all that ****,” he laughs, “I just always wanted to be a rock star playing in a forest.
“So when it got to happen supporting Paul Weller, I was actually living my own dream and more, supporting a rock ’n’ roll legend.
“It’s great – you’re in the wilderness. You’ve been cooped up in a room writing songs or in the city dealing with all the people you’ve gotta speak to in the industry, and the next thing you’re in a forest playing a gig to the squirrels. I’m a very outdoors sort of person – not at the moment, I’m doing my job, but I’m sure when I stop doing this I’ll spend days out in the weather.
“I just like seeing what England’s got. You hear all these people going to Thailand and stuff to get away, but they forget how beautiful England is.
“If you go to Japan and say you’re from the north of England, they know it’s beautiful.
“If we get a good bit of time off, I’ll always be out there, with me tent and that.”
Wherever the band’s fortunes are, major label life is still looking after them well.
They’re currently taking their eponymous debut record on its final live outing – stopping at a sold out show at the Academy 2 tonight – before heading into the studio to finish the new record, which Jonny says is ‘half done’.
'Angry'
There’s a new single out in a couple of months and they’ll be airing some of that live.
It’s a good opportunity to get things right before the final studio sessions – and make sure the set’s in shape for their big appearance at Hooky’s new club, Fac251, on February 26.
“I’ve wrote stuff that I’ve been really happy with and thought, ‘This is me at this time’,” says Jonny.
“I’m kicking my own songs’ a***s. I can write a slow song and write a ballad and all that, I can do whatever everyone else is doing and try and sell this soft side of me – ‘I’m dead romantic me and dead nice to women’, which I am.
“But I will be like that when I’m 30-odd. But now I’m a very angry, feisty young man who wants to blitz out my rock ’n’ roll songs. I don’t wanna aim for the middle class market who have just discoved Elbow cos of the Mercurys.
“I want kids to know you don’t have to be a ******** intellectual to bring a crowd to your gigs. You can be a scally, uneducated b*****d, but if you can write some words that please people and make people feel better about their lives, you can do it.
“Punk rock exists between the ages of 15 and 26, and that’s what I’m doing. Until I’m 30 anyway. Then I’ll get all my love songs out.”
http://www.citylife.co.uk/home/news/15061_interview__twisted_wheel
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