Craig caught up with Michael and Andy from Therapy? backstage in the Nerve Centre to have a chat about record labels, local Northern Irish bands and a lot of other stuff.

How’s it going guys?
(Andy) Very well actually.

How many dates have you done on this tour so far?
(Andy) We started in Malta. Then we went to Scotland and England. Then over to Belguim and Holland and Germany. There’s been 12 dates so far.
And where to next?
(Andy) After tonight we’re doing Dublin and a few more shows after that.
You’re missing out Belfast?
(Andy) No, we’re doing Belfast in December I think.
Right ok so will it be a more extensive tour then?
(Andy) Yeah we’re coming on tour in September up to Christmas. We’re doing tons of festivals this summer. We’re doing Oxegen and stuff like that. We’re doing a bigger tour and coming back to Belfast. We haven’t been to Derry for a while so we came here first.
How long has it been?
(Michael) It’s probably been 9 years.
(Andy) 9 years
You’ve played this venue before.
(Andy) This venue was the last one we played here.
Where else have you played in Derry?
(Andy) We played the Gweedore and…
(Michael) Magee College back in the day.

So guys the 10 year plan is now the 20 year plan?
(Andy) Next year it will be, aye. That will be our 20th anniversary
Did you think ever you’d still be around now?
(Andy) No. Well, we never actually thought about it. We’re quite friendly with Manic Street Preachers. James, their singer and I were talking one night on tour in France about how a lot of bands have 5 and 10 year plans, like business models. None of us ever had that. We were saying so much for the 10 year plan, it was a bit of a joke. We never had a model of how our career would go.

At the very start of it all, what was your ambition?
(Andy) Well our big ambition when we started was Caroline Music in Belfast, if you had your own single out on vinyl, if they liked it would put up 10 or 20 copies behind the counter. We pressed 1000 7in vinyl copies of our first single and he put it in the shop. That was our first ambition. We had 1000 copies of a single we could sell at gigs. It got played on Across The Line and John Peel and stuff. It kind of took off from there really. It was always little bits at a time, we never looked at the big picture, just at what was coming next.
You started off as a 3 piece, went to 4 and back to 3.
(Andy) Yeah
Why did you go back to being a 3 piece after so long?
(Michael) It just felt like the natural thing to do at that time. We had been doing the 4 piece thing for a while and we . . it was just something that fell into place. We just wanted to strip it back a bit and get back to the essence of the band. You know, that sort of classic power trio thing.

This new album is number 13?
(Andy) 12, this is the 12th one
Of course we’ll see a 13th?
(Andy) I hope so, yeah.
And it’s taken how long? 2 years to get this one out?
(Andy) Yeah, we signed the record deal just over 2 years ago. Then we thought we were releasing albums every other year and we wanted to have a bit of a fresh approach to this one. We gave ourselves a bit of time, we got together and started from scratch. We didn’t go into the recording studio with any ideas or anything. We just wanted to see where it would take us, on a wee bit of a journey. We took a little bit of time with song arrangements, with getting ideas together. What we ended up with was a lot fresher than the last couple of albums we made. The last couple were alright but this one was more exciting.

How difficult a process was it? You had taken a break for a while, was it hard getting back into the swing of things?
(Michael) Not really, it was more . . . I suppose to make any kind of record, a good record, it has to be a bit of a challenge. Once we started getting back into it, it was quite straight forward. You sorta forget about all the peripheral bullshit that sometimes can cloud a recording. We just focused on writing songs and getting the arrangements right.
No Pressure?
(Michael) Well I suppose there’s always internal pressure. We want to make something better than in was before, sorta push things a wee bit. If it’s that easy everyone would be doing it so it has to be challenging. We’ve had much more stressful recordings <laughs>
(Andy) Oh, we have
(Michael) This was a real pleasure to make the record.

After all this time you still defy labelling.
(Andy) Yeah well that’s good. I think we’ve never been a part of any genre as such. From the very first record we ever made we’ve never had any sort of an image.
How difficult was that for you? Your fans buy an album and love it. You then release a totally different type of album and they’re not so sure.
(Andy) What happened was, we’d do stuff for ourselves really. It can be frustrating you know? You’d like to think that whenever you have new ideas, whatever journey you’re on, your fans will go with you. That’s not always the case. We did Troublegum then Infernal Love. We went from having this melodic rock record to making this darker experimental record. Our more metal fans didn’t like it. If you’re going to be a formulae band like AC/DC, Ramones, Motorhead, you have to be really good at it. You have to really stick to your guns. As creative people, we’re so restless and we couldn’t make the same album again and again.
Yeah, do you think your fans accept that more nowadays than in the past?
(Andy) I think they do now. I think with the first 3 or 4 albums, everyone thought that we didn’t know what we want to be, thinking we were jumping onto bandwagons or whatever. I think now that they realise we’re on album number 12, then that’s what we’re about, just musicians who get restless. They realise we’re just creative and listen to absolutely everything.
(Michael) I think a good thing about the band is that there’s quite a unique core sound. I don’t really hear that in a lot of other bands. For example our set list, we’re playing songs from 1991 right up until now. It all sound cohesive, even though there’s a lot of different elements. Not a lot of bands have that anymore. I can hear a Metallica song and know straight away who it is. It can be different but still totally recognisable. Those are the bands we like. Bands who maybe have 10 albums. They have funkier ones, jazzier ones.

Ok cool. What are your opinions one the whole trend on downloading music as opposed to buying cds, vinyl?
(Andy) I think it’s fine, the way I judge it personally is if I was a 16 year old kid what would I do? When I was 16 if I wanted the new album by . . . I dunno . . . Fighting With Wire, lets say. If I can get a bus from Ballyclare into Belfast and go to Caroline Music which was the only place that would have stocked Smalltown America back in the day. I buy it there, get a bus and come home. Or if I could go onto itunes or something, press download and have it in a few minutes I’d obviously have done that. I think the music business has to move with the times. People are beginning to get their heads around it. I have no problem with it. It has interfered to a degree but if you’re a hard working tour band it won’t interfere too much.

Is the touring more important than the records?
(Michael) No, I think they both go hand in hand. The record will be around for a long time, people will discover it over a longer period of time. The live concert is more like a one off presentation of those songs, like a snapshot of that band live. They both play off each other.

You’ve had some great press reviews for the new album but what are your grassroots fans telling you?
(Andy) The fans absolutely love it. The guy who runs our website came to the gig the other night and he says it was the best he’s remembered in years. People who belong to our message board have reacted positively also. That is really nice because they are the hardcore fanbase who have kept us afloat through the tougher times. Some of them have been frustrated with some of the albums but the reaction to this one is, they absolutely love it.

(Michael) It was nice because to write a record, you have to be quite selfish to a degree. It’s our names on the record, we have to be 100% happy with it. When you put it out, it’s fingers crossed. It was pretty nice to see that our hardcore fans got it straight away. I think that’s a testament to the open mindedness, the diversity of people who like the band.

Going back to the start, when did you think you could make money from this thing called music?
(Andy) We always broke even. When we did local gigs we put petrol in the van and we drove there and back. The first time we made any kind of money was when we released the Nurse album. We did a big European tour.

(Michael) It was never really a money making concern, that wasn’t the plan. It was more about making the music. Most bands never get the chance of making a living out of their music. We were very very lucky. Most bands never get the chance to get their music out to so many people, actually being able to play concerts to people.

And the key is playing your own music? You aren’t playing and writing what someone else wants you to.
(Andy) That’s the thing. We’ve got our own little organisation going for the last few years. We were on a major record deal in the 90’s and since then we’ve been on indie labels again. We have this little setup where we look after each other. We have different little infrastructures like one for touring, one for sorting taxes and stuff. It’s like our own little cottage industry. It’s quite good that we keep it all inhouse. We’ve had the same crew and management for years.

How difficult has it been to deal with the different record labels? Did any of them let you have a free run?
(Andy) These days they do. We’re not on particularly big budgets. The way we do it is we say we’ll make the record we want to make and we’ll deliver it. If we were to sign another major record deal, in return they would want x amount of sales and a certain type of record. That’s the thing, you really have to be careful how you play it. Now it’s like they give us what money they can afford and we give them the record we want to make. So far it’s proved alright.

Have you been keeping an eye on the local scene?
(Andy) Yeah, recently it’s been the same names coming up. I like And So I Watch You From Afar, I like their last album. Fighting With Wire are really good. There are a lot of bands coming through, Dutch Shultz are really good as well.

There are a lot of bands trying to come through at the minute. Do you think it’s going to be harder for them because there’s so many?
(Andy) I think in Northern Ireland it’s slightly easier because of local radio stations and local media, moreso than in our day. There’s magazines, tv stations, internet. When we started out there were a few radio shows and that was it. There was the Limelight to play or the Gweedore and that was your lot. Nowadays you have local press, local djs, local mags and they all have influence over in England as well. I still think Northern Irish bands do get a rough deal, they don’t get it as easy as bands from the south. There still isn’t that major label infrastructure that has been in the south for years now. That has generated a D.I.Y. ethic which hasn’t been in place since like the days of the Undertones.

Have you any advice for these bands who are coming up?
(Andy) Yeah, just be yourself. If you do a cd or a few tunes for myspace or whatever and you think it’s brilliant then someone comes along that you don’t trust and tries to make you change it, always go with your instinct. How you behave in relation to your own music early on will affect how your band will turn out. From experience, releasing our own record and doing everything ourselves meant that when we maybe did get to the point where we were in trouble a few years later, we had the experience of working from a grassroots level so it didn’t affect us so much. We see a lot of young bands getting signed after 6 months and being completely changed and manipulated by a record label. They then get dropped and have lost all sense of identity and self worth. It’s hard to recover from that. If you believe in yourself, that self belief will stay with you.

(Michael) I totally agree, it’s that self belief thing. One day one a wet Sunday you’re gonna be hungry and have the flu. You’ll be having a row with your missus on the phone. You’ll have no money to pay the rent. If you are not doing what you really love, that’s when you’ll crack.

(Andy) You’ve gotta take the rough with the smooth. If you’re a local band and you get your first sellout show in Belfast, don’t be downhearted when you go and play in Hull to 25 people because that’s the way it works. Bands I’ve known have done their shows in the UK, shows in Ireland. Then they’ve went on a European tour and split up. They’ve come back and said they were playing to 25 people. Nobody knows who they are there.

You still have to do the hard grafting.
(Andy) Yes definitely you do. We’ve been around 20 years, we still visit countries where no one knows who we are. We did Malta for the first time recently. That was an eye opener. We got a good turnout. We got about 700 people but I’d suspect there were about 500 of them who had no idea who we were. They turned up because there was something on.

That keeps your feet firmly on the ground? You can’t act like a big rock star.
(Andy) Yeah, I don’t think we’ve ever been like that. I think there’s 2 types of people in the music business, cocks and nice people. The same person who would be the diva in a rock band would also be the bully if he was a factory foreman or if he was an IT consultant. Whatever workplace he was in he’d be bullying everybody. He’d also be the guy who ends up on his arse in a credit crunch while people who have been a bit canny have been ok. The thing with the music industry if you have had success is being surrounded by ‘yes people’. When everyone is getting money out of you, no one wants to tell you ‘no’. If I say I want to go onstage with a 25 piece Ukranian orchestra dressed in a red velvet clown’s outfit, no one’s gonna say ‘don’t be fuckin daft’. They’re gonna say ‘you’re a genius’ <laughs>
And if it doesn’t work it’s your fault?
(Andy) In the business columns of any music papers, if EMI or Polygram or Universal are having a good day with profits up, it’ll show a picture of the MD of the company in his big suit with a glass of champagne. If the sales in shares plummet, it’ll show one of the artists. Like if EMI shares fall there’s Robbie Williams looking out at us.

Guys, it’s been a pleasure. I won’t take up any more of your time. I’ll leave you to chill out before stage time.

Interview by Craig Young