JJ72 Interview - Always Echoes Online

Touted as the New Manics, the New Suede and, along with so many others, the New Radiohead, JJ72 are rapidly exploding into the brightest star in the music industry's night sky. But this young Irish band takes its greatest pleasure in comparisons with another of the great bands of the last decade. "Nirvana started off the band, the reason we formed was Nirvana," explains Mark Greaney, lead singer, guitarist, and guiding light, "it was always a conscious decision for the band to be a three piece".

Placing JJ72 into any category is difficult but Mark takes the simplistic view, "We're guitar music, if that’s what they call it, we're not breakthrough, just powerful trio based stuff playing selfish music". So what influences such selfish music? "I started to listen to Joy Division and Nick Drake, slightly darker stuff. Fergal is into Ska, reggae all that stuff, and Hilary is more pop diva orientated". Certainly as diverse as they come, but no one is complaining.

After the release of two singles (October Swimmer and more recently Snow) the music industry have sat up and taken notice of Dublin's answer to every success band of the nineties and have started to whistle their tune. As the year 2000 picks up speed Mark Greaney, Fergal Matthews and Hilary Wood are destined to become household names. With an album already mixed and mastered, festival appearances, and a forthcoming nation wide tour promised we are guaranteed to be hearing and seeing a lot more of JJ72. In their presence you are aware of potential greatness and with the mysterious origins of the bands name and a bassist described as "Charlotte Hatherley (Ash) squeezed into the skin of a Hollywood babe" JJ72 certainly have that extra edge that breaths success.

But what of the name JJ72?

"To me its only guitar music as people call it but it just happens that I picked up a guitar because I heard Nirvana and it just happened that Fergal was playing drums at the time. We started playing music together, and then Hilary joined the band. So we had a band playing instruments that lots of other people play so in that respect we fit into what other people call guitar music. But I like to see the band as a separate entity, as an object, as a machine. Maybe a machine that is very beautiful on the inside but on the outside is just another object. We know nothing about the Dublin music scene, the London music scene, music scenes in general and we don't want to. As far as I am concerned the band is just like a piano or something, its just there, you either like the piano or you don't, and in the same way you like us or you don't. That’s why the name ties in with that, it's like a barcode. It very difficult to define moments in time that’s why the lyrics to the songs are very retrospective of things I have thought and felt in the past four years. It's all very selfish, the band is a selfish machine that is built on confusion. The songs are based on confusion, the band is organised confusion, and we have to be so to play gigs. If we didn't want to sell records we'd be in my house making weird noises but ultimately we do want to sell records and we're enjoying what we're doing. But just because we are enjoying what we're doing doesn't mean we know what we're doing".

So will the meaning behind the name JJ72 ever be disclosed?

"It's sort of so arty-farty and pretentious, but it represents something to me like the songs represent something to me. At face value its just a couple of letters and a couple of numbers, but if you take the songs that you hear at face value and write down the notes and the words it's just there to read like the name. The reality is that you hear a song that turns you on and does something to you, the lyrics written down are completely meaningless, the notes alone are completely meaningless. I suppose my attitude is very purist, the band is something abstract and everything stemming from the band won't make sense to lots of people. We don't want a big communal single, people either get them or they don't".

At this stage of the journey touring has a huge part to play and as in Warwick the night before people were "won" allowing the band to feel a connection with new fans. A number of venues are lined up for May with some to be confirmed, one to look forward to is a support slot alongside Idlewild plus their homecoming gig in Dublin with the Charlatans. JJ72 are not yet in a position to choose a support act but if they could it would be Tenner. Mark explains, "they have a lot of attitude not trying to be too special. But we are not well know enough to get anyone people have heard of". So opportunities to meet the rich and famous come as the warm-up band. "Our favourite band to support? Definitely not Ocean Colour Scene who we're doing at the Astoria ("Yuk"). Mansun maybe, it's not that we're better than everyone else we just don't care".

With so many new bands billed as the survivors of the music business JJ72 are wary of their current spell in the limelight, "there are so many touted because the journalists aren't going to go with one band. We could be, Coldplay, Muse. You hear about so many but again we don't really care."

"You can't judge this band by just the CD" was Marks warning to the writer of the NME who gave them a poor report first time round. "You need to see the so called live experience, we love playing live. He may have been right, we might be terrible, but again ultimately I don't care. We're doing festivals because we want a lot people to hear us and sell records rather than please lots and lots of people. Next month we could be going to college or something, we're not dedicating ourselves to this".

So as the interview winds down Fergal explains his limp, "I decided to get fit after laying around the tour bus eating crisps so I went out for a run and turned over on my ankle." After photographs we began to leave the room. Just as the lights were turned off Hilary discovers that she has left her bag behind. The event is marked by Marks version of the big Crowd House hit, "Everywhere she goes she always leaves her bag behind." Unfortunately the tape was turned off just before this outburst so the moment was lost forever, shame; we could have made a fortune selling that in the future. But never the less in years to come we can say that we had the pleasure of chatting to Mark, Fergal and Hilary, headliners at Glastonbury and makers of the widely acclaimed album of the decade, back in 2000. Grab the opportunity to see this band in a small venue and live through the "Live Experience" the way it was always intended. It won't be long before JJ72 are taking over your CD player and holding it to ransom. Do not resist, you won't regret it. JJ72 are drawing out of the station, you would be a fool not to jump on board.