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ON THE COUCH WITH: Five O'Clock Heroes

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ARTIST INTERVIEW

Access All Areas.net.au: So just who are the Five O’ Clock Heroes?
Five O’Clock Heroes: 2 alcoholics, 1 stoner, and a singer who can’t work out whether he’s English or American.

Access All Areas.net.au: Can you tell us about your new album?
Five O’Clock Heroes: Recorded in 4 days in Nyc with Eli Janney(GVSB) at Stratosphere Sound Studios. Made the lyrics up for White Girls as I was singing them. Those songs are a pretty good description of us coming together as a band, they are like chapters of the the first year or so we were playing in New York City.

Access All Areas.net.au: You recently shot the video for new single ‘Run To Her’, can you tell us about that and the concept behind it?
Five O’Clock Heroes: One of the heroes went home with a bartender onetime and she told him this story of how a guy came in to the bar most nights and kept asking her out, eventually she gave her number to him and after much persuasion and they went out. This guy had a girlfriend and she checked her boyfriends phone and called the number of the bartender, they met and had a few drinks and the girlfriend made a move on her. This story is completely true. Except in the video we actually makeup that the guy walks in a sees them making out. The biggest argument we had about that video is what the guys reaction would be. I was a big believer that the guy would have had his ego hurt, complete shock. instead of thinking that he was walking into a threesome.

Access All Areas.net.au: Touring is very much a constant part of your life, have you ever become sick of being on the road all the time and how do you guys keep yourselves from getting bored during long drives or flights?
Five O’Clock Heroes: It has taken a serious toll on us I would say. There is nothing normal about it. We’ve done it for a long time and its something that if you start doing very seriously becomes your only safe haven. You come home from tour, sleep for a while, see some old friends. Get back to three meals a day then you start to get restless and want to run away again. Im not sure how healthy that is. But there is a slight addiction to it I would say. But it takes a toll on the body and mind, that Is a fact….

Access All Areas.net.au: Are there any plans to tour Australia?
Five O’Clock Heroes: Dear Lord we hope so! Would love, love, love to……..

Access All Areas.net.au: When a fan goes to a Five O’ Clock Heroes show, what can they expect?
Five O’Clock Heroes: Energy, some james brown moves, heat, sweat, spit, winks, shouting, talking, singing, some mean guitar playing, some lights.

Access All Areas.net.au: Can you tell us something about yourself or the band that people may not know?
Five O’Clock Heroes: We can all run the 100 metres in under 11 seconds.

Access All Areas.net.au: Whats ahead for Five O’Clock Heroes?
Five O’Clock Heroes: Another Album called Speak Your Language, and its full of left and right hooks, some uppercuts, complete distrust for people, passion for trying to work out how women work. Waking up in bedrooms you don’t want to be in, waking up in bedrooms you want to stay in.

The 5 O'Clock Heroes brand new single, "Head Games", is now available for FREE DOWNLOAD: CLICK HERE

Their highly-anticipated debut album, 'Bend To The Breaks', will be released Febuary 2008 on Rogue Records via Inertia.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

We know what you?re thinking. Just who are these mysterious Five O'Clock Heroes, whose album you currently hold in your eager little hands?

Well, there’s a long and a short answer to that question. The short answer is that they’re the Anglo-American quartet whose take on the late-70’s jerk-pop mastery of the likes of Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello has been causing a quiet stir on both sides of the Atlantic, and who are on the verge of releasing their long-gestating debut album, ‘Bend To The Breaks’, a record so riddled with post-punk infectiousness, it should come bearing its own STI warning with a complimentary body-condom to boot. The long answer is, however, somewhat more complicated than that. Essentially born out of frontman Antony Ellis’ seventeen year-old desire to escape his native Northampton and follow his elder brother to the bright lights of New York City because, as he puts it, “England was too shit and cynical at the time”, the Heroes first came into being in 2003. “I guess it was that sort of time in New York when being in a band seemed like the most natural thing to do,” explains one-time Visa renegade Antony, “from 2000 onwards, it seemed like the most exciting city in the world. It was that sort of time when The Strokes, The Rapture and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were all getting really big and everything seemed to be focused on New York”

Eventually, Antony met Elliot (Thomson, guitarist) in a bar and they started playing together, then within a two-week period they both met Nader (Khierbek, bass), and after going through a couple of drummers over the next few years, in early 2006 they’ve finally managed to find the person in the UK that’s gonna be with with ‘em for good, and that’s Sam Embery. Elliot comments, “When I first met Antony and we all decided to start playing music, I really wasn’t sure if the difference in backgrounds/cultures of the members would be a hindrance or not, but, as it turns out, we were able use it to help add another dimension to the band. I think it has played a large role in what success we’ve had in both countries.” Nader adds “Our geographical origins, which were exhibited sonically with our various accents, were not our only differences. We hailed from a wide range of musical influences, from Brit Pop to Rock to Punk. Finding a common ground gave us our edge, and we soon learned the art of shaping catchy hook laden songs into high energy, fast paced, danceable tunes. “

The route hasn’t been the most direct, and it’s taken a lot of hard work to get to where they are now. After quickly developing a cult following in New York, the band swiftly began their relentless assault on the UK. Sans record label backing, the band booked and paid for their own tours – “That’s what credit cards are for,” quips Ellis when questioned on the funding for these jaunts – right down to the van-driving duties. “I’ve got 9 points on my license from driving the tourbus around Britain with an illegal number of people in the back,” says Antony. “One more self-funded tour and we’d have had to find another driver!”

Tour supports with the likes of Brendan Benson, The Bravery and The Paddingtons brought them to the attention of British gig-goers, their jittery, hook-laden pop classicism winning fans the length and breadth of the country, on the back of their own dime. It paid off, but it wasn’t easy. As Nader remembers “ Touring was truly a test of tolerance. Especially the way we toured: crammed into a tiny transit van, sharing one Travelodge hotel room, and performing on small stages. We were within arms length of each other 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for months at a time, like young siblings growing up in a tiny flat. The potentially volatile situation actually galvanized us into a tighter band. We learned to live with each-others eccentricities, and embrace our differences. In the end it made us sound better, perform better, and most importantly, become best mates”

Antony continues. “We did 42 dates in 46 days, and at the end of it, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. But the reaction of British crowds has been validation for us. We’ve never had much money to throw around – we’ve only ever released four limited edition singles, so the support of our British fans has been incredibly important to us. We look at everything we do as being building blocks, and hopefully the release of the album will have a domino effect on everything we’ve done so far.”

‘Bend To The Breaks’ itself – sparsely recorded on their own buck in former Smashing Pumpkin James Iha’s New York studio, is a jerking, jittery post-punk meisterwork that’s less concerned with aspirations of skuzzy NY cool and concentrates instead on the multi-faceted delights of razor-sharp pop songwriting, with doffs of the cap to the likes of The Cars and – gasp! – The Police. From the spiky angular come-on of opener ‘Head Games’ to the joyous reggae-pop hybrid, er, come on of ‘White Girls’ (‘ I see you from behind/ You know what’s on my mind,’ indeed, Mr. Ellis), it’s an infuriatingly catchy collection of twelve potential singles rife with bedhopping sexual frustration and choruses that etch themselves into your grey matter after a mere cursory listen.

“I don’t like lazy comparisons, but I do think that people like Joe Jackson played an incredibly important part in the songwriting aspect of the album. People often get the wrong idea about us, they automatically think that because of our name we’re gonna sound like The Jam. But for me, Elvis Costello and people like that are a HUGE influence. That’s what we aimed for with this record, to get the sound of an album like ‘My Aim Is True’, or Joe Jackson’s ‘Look Sharp’. But we’re our own band, and we’ll play what we wanna play. Who we sound like isn’t the hugest thing we think about. I just want things to sound catchy and melodic, and I think a lot of people are scared of that kind of songwriting these days. I’m not ashamed of writing catchy songs. I don’t give a fuck about which direction we go in.” says Ellis

The Heroes’ current direction, however, is onwards and upwards, with a planned (and long-overdue, we might add) autumn return to these shores to coincide with the release of ‘Bend To The Breaks’, this time no longer funded by their overworked Mastercard.

Just who are the Five O’ Clock Heroes? You’re about to find out very, very soon.

www.thefiveoclockheroes.com

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MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE

The Panics
One of the best was Splendor In The Grass a couple of years back when we had just released our album cruel guards. I just remember this massive circus tent overflowing with people singing along,people on each others shoulders, just great atmosphere.

Worst Festival Experience?
Remember being very young and losing my friends, and my shoes at a festival in Perth. I had to climb a tree out the front and wait for them and try and spot them on the way out, and someone threw a chicken at me!

Do you remember going to you first festival? What was it like? (How old were you? Who did you go with? Who did you see? What did you wear?)
I remember going to festivals with my guitarist Drew when we were teenagers. I think the earliest was one called sommersault in perth, I was about fourteen and remember Beck playing. I think we probably had pink hair and army pants like everyone else that day! I remember kissing a girl, I was pretty stoked with that because I remember drew did not kiss a girl...ha!

What festival essentials do you always bring with you? Or are there certain rituals you always do or things you always check out?
I dont bring many valuables because I lose them often... including guitars!

Best and worst things you’ve seen people wear at a festival?
I've seen people nude,generally that goes in the 'worst' bin. white dresses with red wine stains down the front are a favourite.seen a guy passed out in a tux on a forty degree day, I enjoy that too.

Funniest thing someone has come up to you and said at a festival or silliest behaviour you’ve witnessed?
I've seen people fall out of trees. I remember a guy in a bin wearing lipstick laughing his head off,thats pretty weird. ive had a guy come on stage when we were playing, put his arm around me and just stand there giving the crowd a thumbs up and a big smile for a song,that was pretty strange.