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furiousfeature_Layout 1 08/04/2011 17:06 Page 1

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Rock N

Roll

LongLive

Ben Archer sits down with Andrew Halligan,

guitarist and songwriter for Furious, to discuss

family feuds, Chuck Berry, Russia, and just

how he ended up on stage with Lemmy at the

age of 18...

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ndrew Halligan has been labeleda British Style Genius (by theBBC, no less.) His band have re-ceived rave reviews for their ex-

plosive live performances, as well as for theirdebut album, Wreck The Hoose Juice,which made Number 10 in the HMV preorder charts.His band has played all over the world, in-cluding Germany, Spain, Russia andAmerica. He is only 21, and has a longcareer ahead of him; Modernage satdown with the youngest rockabillyidol on the scene.It all started in 2005 when his brotherwas part of a band playing small gigsaround Liverpool."I used to follow them in the pubsaround Liverpool and ended up joiningthem."Was it the same style of music as Furious?"Yer, they weren't very good but I came inwith my Crazy Cavan records and said, thisis it, and we got a bit wilder!"So did you end up kicking everyone out of

the band?"Noooo, I think the other lads were a bit tooself-conscious at the time. We were all inschool and they just didn't get it!What was the band called?"They had a different name every week!"Was that because they were so bad, they hadto change their names between every bar?(Laughing) Yer! They played all the clubs

around Birkenhead, all the clubs in Liver-pool, it was good fun!"Was it your idea to change the name to Fu-rious?"No I wanted to call them something com-pletely mad but Mark thought of Furious. Isaid no, then he said yea, the next thing I

know it was on the flyers for our next gig soit stuck. It was to do with our connection toBilly Fury really and we were mad at every-one! Especially all those who gave rock nroll a bad name."So what was the first gig you ever did to-gether?"The Nalgo social club in Old Swan. Itended up burning down that night but it was

nothing to do with us! Its where theBeatles played quite a bit but the firstgig as 'Furious' was at the Heaven &Hell club on Fleet Street. The drum-mer left us on that Wednesday topursue a proper career; luckily wemet Dave Searson who was in BlueDemon, a great Liverpool band! Thatwas on the Thursday then we played

on Friday with him. It was crazy but brilliant!I've still got the live recording somewhere!"So how did you and Mark end up into thiskind of music? It is pretty rare these days tofind a band that play this type of old rock nroll."Well, when I was four years old, my brother

The Halligan brothersprepare for battle

The way he looked and sang was asif he was fighting society and every-one who lived by rules! I wanted a bitof that!

He has been involved in bomb scares, punch ups, and shared a drink or two with Lemmy. At the

age of 21, what has motivated Andrew Halligan to take the rockabilly world by storm, and

produce one of the most talked about albums on the scene this year...A

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threw a brick at my head! I haven't beenright since you know! Nooo, thats true butwe found a few crazy records and they blewus away!"They were me dads, it seemed like musicno one had ever heard! It was mad stuff!The records were Crazy Rhythm, Rare andRockin Eddie Cochran. What people don'tunderstand is the music was so exciting andso passionate! Its not the cheesy stuff themedia likes to put out. When we first heardthese records, the likes of the Spice Girlswere in the charts, you know, and we'd belistening to Crazy Cavan. He looked like hecould eat these bands for breakfast!"So was the Crazy Cavan look and stylesomething that appealed to you?"He was just dead hard and dead cool!Thats what rock n roll is to us! The way helooked and sang was as if he was fighting so-ciety and everyone who lived by rules! Iwanted a bit of that!"So who were your main influences growingup?"Eddie Cochran was the biggest, ChuckBerry, Little Richard, Stevie Ray Vaughan,Brian Setzer was brilliant but you've gottalook past his image to see what he's really

doing! I'm influenced by everyone I haveever heard!"Is it true you travelled to a gig in Moscowafter sacking your last drummer?"Yer, we travelled to Russia without a drum-mer. We ended up getting a Russian lad todrum with us. It was pretty weird; he knewall our songs off the album. He had learntthem all from drum tabs; it even got to thepoint where he was telling us how to playthem! He couldn't speak a word of Englisheither so he had an interpreter telling us howto play our songs!"How many shows did you play with him?"Just one night in Moscow. We would havetaken him home with us if we could, he wasbrilliant! Did you see Vladimir Putin singingBlueberry Hill on the telly as well?! Im notsaying we influenced him but its a bit of acoincidence dont you think, that hessinging Fats Domino a few days after ourgig." (laughs)What was the crowd like in Russia?"Amazing, I've never seen anything like it inmy whole life!On some of the photos I've seen of the Rus-sia gigs there were guns."Yer, I dont think it is like that everywhere

Influenced

SupportingImelda May inManchester onher recent tour

Live inValencia, Spain

Andy takesbacks up brother

Mark on vocals

ChuckBerryA pinoneer of rock n roll,Berry took the world bystorm in the 1950s with hisfast paced guitar work. Bestknown for hits such asJohnny B. Goode, still touringthe world.

EddieCochranDelivered a youth edge onrock and roll in the late 1950s,befopre he was tragically killedat the age of 21 in a car acci-dent. His short career lives onas his songs are still played tothis day on the rockabillyscene.

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in Russia but it seemed like everyone lookingafter us carried a knife and some others justtake it a bit further. I remember one fella be-hind the bar at the after party; he had to puthis gun down to serve me a pint. That wasmad! We were taken there after theMoscow gig, we had to walk through metaldetectors to get into the place but they ob-viously didnt workYou have played all over world, Spain, Ger-many, Russia, America"Yer, we're going to America again nextyear. We had to turn down a tour a whileago but we've gotta go for it this time! FromTexas to New York and anywhere else in be-tween. The last time we played in America,a few years ago, we ended up playing withLemmy out of Motorhead. He was playingin a band he's got with Slim Jim Phantom,who was Brian Setzer's drummer in the StrayCats. We only played a few songs with thembut it was great fun! It was surreal! The gigwas in a Casino, and you know you have tobe 21 in America to drink or even to get inthese places. I had just turned 18 the weekbefore and I was slaughtered on stage withthem! We know we're dead lucky and notall our gigs are that glamorous."Did you have a few drinks with him after thegig?Yer, it was a festival spread over 2 days, soin the day he was just in the casino on theone arm bandits. I was just walking roundtrying to find the stage and he shouted meover and said 'Come over here Ted' and wejust got on.So it was me and Lemmy sat at the slot ma-chines with him telling me old stories aboutthe time he lived in Liverpool, he had a girl-friend here years ago. It got even more sur-real after the gig as well, Slim Jim put hisarm round me, called me a 'cheekychappy' and said come and have adrink with Lemmy backstage, so wegot into the back room and Slim Jimgoes 'This is Mark and Andy, theyrelike a little John Lennon and PaulMcCartney all over again', andLemmy replied 'I know I met themlast night! They were so down toearth, they even wanted to come andsee us playing our own gigs but how couldwe do that in America?"So how did you end up getting those gigs inChicago? This was when you were 18 andthe band had only just come together in aserious form."I know, it seems crazy but we were youngand just took our chances! We originallywent to Wisconsin for that festival; this was

at the same time our 'ASBO Shuffle' wasgetting a bit of airplay. We got to know acouple of DJ's in Texas who liked our stuffso it all stemmed from there really. We wereeven offered a chance to record in ChessStudios with Bo Diddley but we weren't busi-ness men and we couldn't organize it! I re-gret that like hell! Not long after he passed

away."You were also a TV star, appearing on BBCTwo.(Laughs)" Yer, the BBC was making a TV se-ries about British style. They asked us to bein it for the street style episode; they wentright back to the 50's and worked their waythrough the decades. At first we said no, we

don't really have faces for the telly do we?!Looking back now it was daft saying no tothe BBC but luckily they said its alright we'llcome to you. We finished this gig inSouthampton, drove home for work and theBBC van was waiting outside my house! Itlooks glamorous but we were hung over onthat!"

Lets go back to basics, and song writ-ing. How is the process for you?"Well it changes, most of the time I'lljust be sat down playing about with myguitar, coming up with tunes or amelody.Then the lyrics come to me when I'mout and about, I write them down inmy head and put them together withthe music later.So you can't just sit down and think to

yourself, I'm going to write a song?"No it just doesn't work like that for me, assoon as you sit down to write something youdon't get anywhere.What are your main influences when writ-ing?Women and beer, Buckfast is a big influ-ence!

Andy rides a wave ofadoring fans

I would like to add at this point,our songs are about real life. Aboutbeing 21 years old, unemployed,got not m oney, but your still having

a good tim e.

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Furious: Wreck the HooseJuiceNervous Records2010Tracklisting:1. Hang Your Head2. Cool Little Sue3. My Eyes Run Dry4. No Ifs No Buts NoMaybes5. All Night Long6. Crazy About MyWhiskey7. Pretty Little Lilly8. For You (My Angel)9. Don't Change YourStyle10. Let It Out11. Pill Poppin' Annie12. Me Ald Man RobbedMe Bike13. Crazy High SchoolBaby14. Carry On15. Punk Bashing Boogie16. We Are The Teds17. Crazy About MyWhiskey (Instrumental)

TheAlbum

You have something of a connection withBuckfast."Nooo, not anymore! We've got a reputa-tion to keep! (laughs) We're sponsored byGeorge Cox creepers though, 150 for a pairof shoes! We get given them for gigs andphoto shoots. I would like to add that oursongs are about real life, you know, whenyoure 21 and unemployed, you've got nomoney but your still having a good time."So don't you think the songs and artists whomake up the charts are representing reallife?"Well no, Lady GaGa, whats that all about?!It's just for kids! You can't relate to thatstuff!So you believe people can relate to yoursongs more?"Yer, give me a song about bargain boozeand hairy women any day! (Laughs). We dowrite some meaningful songs as wellthough!So your first official album is out, how longdid that take you to record?"It took about a year to go through theprocess of writing and recording. We werestill playing gigs across the country whilerecording and we could only use the studioon a few weekends.

We went through a few drummers as well.One of them couldn't play in time so Markis on quite a few tracks playing drums. It wasstressful just trying to keep it all together."Why was there so much stress?We had a lot of pressure to get the albumout as soon as possible. We brought out anEP which created a buzz around the band.A lot of people couldn't wait for us to makea full album but it took us too long to get itout. Its one of my biggest regrets, not cap-italizing on that buzz and getting an albumout sooner"How long was it between the EP and the re-lease of the album?(laughing) Three years! We released the EPin 2007 but then we lost a drummer, I lostmy job, Mark got a mortgage and life justhappened to all of us.But Im happy we've got the album outnow, we were number 10 in the HMV chartsyou know! Above Elton John and ThinLizzy, Eric Clapton was above us but wedon't mind that, I can't play guitar like hecan.But yer, how lucky where we to get tonumber 10, we had no backing from anymajor label, no manager and hardly any pro-motion.

On location for themusic video shoot of

single Cool Little Sue

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Would you be happy to join a bigger label?(laughing) Yes!Wouldn't some of your fans see that as sell-ing out?Probably but I don't think they could thinkany worse of us.Why?We're a bit heavy arent we?! Writing songsabout ASBO's and drugged up girls.So is this not what teddy boys want tohear?Ah I don't know... We just write aboutstuff we know and please ourselves. Wecan't write about trains or juke joints, itjust doesn't fit! We know we can't pleaseeveryone. We're like Marmite; you eitherlove it or hate it. We would never sell outthough! We hate all that!So lets go back a couple of weeks to theReading gig."Yer, the Rockers Reunion. Its been goingon every year for about 25 years. Its one ofthem gigs that mean a lot, we played therea couple of years ago and it was like our realstart for the band.So we were really excited for this one,couldn't wait, we had been putting in extrapractice, then when we turned up there had

been a bomb scare so we got kicked out thevenue. We were gutted, our gig was cut short. Weended up fighting after as well so we donthave great memories of this one!Was this just an argument or actual fighting?"We had a proper fight, a lot goes on in ourpersonal lives and then spending all the timetogether it just happens. There was a lot of

whiskey and vodka involved though!"Can you see it splitting up the band in thefuture?"Well you know we are brothers aren't we. Ihead butted him but he knocked my teethout, he's twice the size of me!The next morning when we woke up wewere best mates again. If we weren't broth-ers, the band would have finished a longtime ago."With concerts, do you find there is a partic-ular place where the crowd loves you more?

"I can't say, we seem to get good crowdsaround London, we played a great gig inGlasgow, right in the city center, you could-n't move in the venue. Most gigs are gettinglike that now, we've started getting goodcrowds in for our own songs as well, thatsimportant you know!If youre playing covers and the crowdcheers, it feels like they're cheering because

they like the original song youre playing,not you as a band."What direction do you want to take Furi-ous in?"At the moment we're just focusing onimproving constantly. Imelda May's hus-band Darrel has been asking us to record

with him for a few years so well be workingwith him on that!We're having fun playing and thats the im-portant thing. We just want to improve andbe the best we can be."It was with this the interview came to anend. They may not be situated in the mostmainstream part of the music industry, butFurious are doing everything they can to beheard, rocking all over the world, and withexperiences like Mr. Halligan has had overthe past few years, then why stop now.

Andy and Mark play a liveacoustic set on BBC Radio

Merseyside

If we werent brothers then theband would have finished a longtime ago

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