The 22-20s Chat About PrimalScream, Cynicism And BeingLabelled New Rock!

Wed 6th Oct, 2004 in Features

“Even before we signed to Heavenly, they started grappling. I don’t know, I think in England people look at … a lot of companies, a lot of people…they’ll jump on the bandwagon, because somebody else is looking for a band, and more often than not its to please their managing director, rather than having a passion for that band, or what they do.”

That’s 24 year old Martin Trimble, guitarist and singer with Oxford four piece the 22-20s, and to say that this band has a critical take on the industry they’re about to plunge into is an understatement. Trimble talks with a wisdom and cracking cynicism that enables him and his band to look at things in a new-blood thirsty England with one foot planted firmly planted on the ground – and the other lingering above the Muddy Waters. He goes on:

“That’s one of the reason we ended up signing with Jeff and Heavenly because he was the one guy from a record company who didn’t bother taking us out for lunch, he just took us around to his office and we got absolutely hammered till about three in the morning listening to soul records.”

Trimble makes it sound so easy, “Me and Glen the bass player, we’ve been playing together for ages. We met at school when we were about 11, and got into playing in a band when we were like 14, and then were really influenced by the blues, and we gigged on the blues scene for about three years before getting told we couldn’t play certain songs because they weren’t blues enough. We got Jason the drummer when were 18 and it kinda started there and we recorded a demo, and got signed after that.”

But in actuality, he, and band mate Glen Bartup have always been a little different. Engaged by the blues at an early age they started playing the European blues circuit at age15, and while their mates were doing the ‘usual’ thing, they were putting together the first incarnation of the 22-20s.

“It was pretty easy. We were 15, 16 and all our mates would be going out, or down to a club and we’d go out and play gigs on a Friday and Saturday night just to earn a bit of money really. We loved playing blues, and we got into this scene in the north, we’re it was like….well towards the end it all got a bit cabaret, and we would play some of our own songs, and we’d have agents coming up to us and saying ‘you can’t play that! That’s not blues!’

“They had this very defined idea of what blues was, which was pretty restricting, and I wasn’t interested in singing about ‘leaving Chicago’ anymore, or relating to a place that I didn’t come from, so we kinda got shoved off that.”

Casting aside the shackles of what ‘some old guy defining blues’ was, Trimble took his own songs, now a fierce and passionate combination of blues and rock on the road in support of a demo they recorded, basically, at home.

“It kinda hit us, so toward the end we were kinda using the money to go into a studio and record our demo. And we ended up doing a gig at The Social, in Nottingham and there were loads of kids there, and we played a Muddy Waters song in our own way, and they just got that rush. That raw energy without analysing it, or analysing what was going on with the guitar playing. They just got it. Got the feel. To me, when you have kids coming up to you after a gig and they go out and buy a Charlie Patton record then that’s great! That’s a job done. There’s so much crap around that’s going around, they wouldn’t normally be exposed to this stuff. I mean they got it more than the middle aged guy who’s been listening to this stuff for years.”

Does this sound at all familiar? Another artist has been echoing these sentiments since their debut album in 1998…The White Stripes, but again Trimble takes all this with the usual grain of salt.

“I don’t think musically we’re that similar…instinctually? Maybe, I think the traditional art of song writing, the interpretation of blues should be something that you work with, something that you make you own. Something that should be raw – and that’s why, maybe, they associate more with blues. And I think why we do as well. The one thing I can’t understand is why they classify jazz and blues as the same thing in a record shop – to me that’s just a different thing.

“The Stripes kinda kicked the door open I think for live music in the UK especially, about three years ago, I think they’re a great antidote to what’s been doing on with all this really substandard British rock.”

For a band used to touring their visceral, addictive blend of raw energy, stepping into a studio could indeed be fraught with problems, however their debut offers a window to a young band who want to keep things simple and pure – even if they’re producer, noted Primal Scream collaborator Brendan Lynch – is not.

“I think the main reason was Primal Scream. I think of them as a band that uses that rock’n’roll energy – MC5, Stooges – but has a really contemporary outlook on making records. And making really soulful records as well, and I think we just really respected what Brendan had done with that – and Jeff from our label got in touch with him and he came along and did it. I thought it was really important for us not just  to get … we had never been in a studio before to record an album …so we wanted to get someone, so we could make an intelligent start.”

But stepping into a real studio, for first time, that wasn’t at all daunting?

 ”I think through demoing we saw everything as being a demo and with Brendan we’d just get together and go in a play live, and once we laid all the basic tracks down like that and even with vocal takes, we kinda got the basic template down live and then took it out as we went on. I think we never really knew when we put a final take down anyway – so that kinda took the pressure off. We never used pro-tools to programme the whole thing and then we didn’t really know at what point we were going to get the song anyway.”

For a band so young, yet so assured, are they fearful of anything? ‘Substandard British rock’ appears  to be the answer, even if the UK is experiencing a resurgence in original music all signs appear that  the agitation which spawned its popularity, will also play a part in its downfall.

“It’s coming back now! It’s really disappointing, I though music – especially rock’n’roll music was getting really exciting there for a while…and now things, it seems to have gone back to that….

“But all that art-rock nonsense…I just thinks bands get loads of these ‘art-rock’ thing, or the ‘New York’ thing – I mean everyone of these bands fits into a certain stereotype that you’d associate with ‘art-rock’...like geometric haircuts, and slightly homo-erotic lyrics. And really, their songs aren’t really there and I think that’s one thing we suffer from is not ever being willing to, we didn’t want to be part of that whole ‘new-rock’ revival.

“That kinda implies that the lyrics should be pretty unintelligent, but then again, we chose to be a rock’n’roll band rather than an ‘arty-rock’ band, so it’s been quite hard for us. We never really plugged in.”

But just sometimes that originality sparks something, and just maybe that something will outlast them. It is the first time in the interview that the thoughtful and assured Trimble is a little particular, describing the environment in which talented new British bands are received:

“It’s weird really. It’s so small, that bands get a lot of heat at one amount of time, and then it all spreads around quite quickly. When we first came out there was this big hype, people wanted to push us pretty quick, and rush something out – and we didn’t really want to do that. So I think we became a band that decided that we wanted to do things our own way, with touring, getting sings on the radio. I think – in Britain – there’s a lot of heat on your back at a certain time, and then it either flies or it doesn’t. And I don’t think we pout ourselves up to be one of those types of bands. We’ve kinda put our names down for the long haul.”

Such a serious soul in an unforgiving industry, Trimble does allow himself one flight of fancy in regards to making money, “I want a big house with a moat around it…that’s been my dream, with a draw bridge.”

The 22-20s stellar debut is out now through Heavenly/EMI.