The Sheffield Scenester

In a back room of The Boardwalk, prior to their double headliner with The Tivoli, I arranged to meet singer Chris McClure and drummer Alan Whittaker of The Violet May, we at Scenester just wanted to find out what they had planned over the coming months. This came down to a posting on their Facebook wall saying that this was due to be their last gig in Sheffield for a while and they wanted to make a few changes, what did they mean by that, it was our mission to find out……..

Chris: Yeah I put that…..we just want to look for different venues to play; we’re fed up with playing the same old places
Alan: Maybe not necessarily that but, we think if we carry on playing the same set to the same people they’re gonna get bored with us, whatever we get up to on stage.

Chris: I’d like to just go to pubs or whatever, go to other parts of Sheffield to see the different vibes and stuff. Yeah that’s what we’re on about then; try to create a special night where we can get away from the city centre.

Alan: Where it feels like an out of town gig, you know….just out of your comfort zone. Its not on West Street, it’s not on Division Street, you have to travel a tiny bit and it’s somewhere you’ve never been. You’ll get to see a cross section of people and maybe play to a few proper Sheffield geezers, maybe while they’re drinking their ale.

Chris: Yeah that’s what we’re trying……

Alan: Yeah, scouting about the city looking for places, there’s loads of great little boozers out there with function rooms and that. Without sounding too tight we want to keep it quiet, make it feel a bit naughty and a bit special, you know you get into this place where you’ve never been before, maybe it’ll be a bit of an adventure getting there...you never know.

Scenester: So after tonight you’re appearing at The Leeds Festival, you have a gig in London followed by one in Leeds, and then you’re playing several dates in Italy, how did that come about?

Chris: Some Italian geezer booked us to play Florence, Bologna and Venice, I think he heard ‘Bright Or Better’ so he just rang us….

Alan: There’s this Italian underground slight obsession with British music thing, I think they’ve got this British invasion big gig they’re doing and that coincides with what we’re doing….so they said they could put us on elsewhere as well…..

Chris: It’s paid for as well, you get there and everything is sorted for you……..If it’s worth doing, its worth doing innit?

Alan: The number one priority of the band is to have a laugh and experience things so as soon as we heard that, we said yeah we’ll do it.

Chris: I’d like to get out to Europe a bit more really, I mean a few bands make the effort to go over, like Bromheads went to Amsterdam, they have quite an underground following over there, I can’t see it being that stressful to be honest. Yeah it’ll make it a lot more interesting for ourselves, let’s face it there’s no money in music at the moment, there’s no point in chasing the ‘record deal’ carrot is there? So you may as well have a good laugh while you’re doing it man, if by chance someone likes your tunes and wants to put money into to it then so be it, but for now we’ll just have a good laugh and enjoy it while we can!

Alan: We got a little bit obsessed with chasing the contract or whatever, but it’s not worth it. Don’t get me wrong it would be great but you lose track of what it’s about, cos we’ve been gigging quite a lot, we put September aside to get in the rehearsal space and play, when new songs pop up, you don’t want to just shoehorn them into the set without letting them stand up on their own. Hopefully add them to the set and mess about! I just want to do it for the laugh!

Chris; Yeah we’ve stopped worrying about it all and it’s just party time, let’s have it, lets be the loudest. I mean we got lucky, we’re off to Italy together and we’re doing the Leeds Festival, we’re on to an absolute winner at the moment!

Scenester: You also play quite a few gigs down in London as well?

Chris: We’ve got a residency at a place called Death Disco, which is ran at The Notting Hill Art Club by Alan McGee, he used to head Creation Records, he likes us, it’s his night and so puts us on every month, that’s a wicked night. Louise, our manager, put him onto us; he loved us and said “You can play every month if you want!” Pretty weighty praise when it’s coming from someone like Alan McGee, he’s found some of the most influential bands in the country. It’s free to get in and cheapish for London drinks so it’s all right…..

Alan: I just wish they’d give us more than just two beers each, but I think they know if they give us any more than that they’ll have a bit of trouble on their hands!

Chris: Yeah London is a cool place, face it, there’s no point in going all the way down to London to do a gig you know nothing about, if you go down you may as well make sure it’s a banging night.

Alan: One of the things Louise said, cos she’s from London, was that she didn’t realise how hard it was for Northern bands to play London….

Chris: It’s like £200 before you’ve even started, that’s just for hiring a van, it’s ridiculous, you’ve got no chance! What I understand of late is that bands are like bottom of the tree, when you play some venues you’re told if you want to play you have to sell so many tickets. I’m like no…we play to get fans not get fans to play, it’s upside down that isn’t it? It’s like you’ve done all the work, just what does a promoter do if you’ve done all that? That’s why we want to play outside of the city centre so we can go and play some in pub, cut all that bullsh*t out and do it ourselves….

Alan: We always used to have that at The Stockroom…..

Chris: Yeah it was a great venue that had respect for the artist, it was about music, their primary aim was to say “That is great music, I’m having it on!”

Alan: It was never about what they charged at the door…..

Chris: That were a wicked place, it was real, but now that has deceased…..that seemed to suit what we were about so we have to find another place like that to create our own mayhem!

So there you have it, Chris and Alan, two mates who have a definite opinion on what they’re doing, where they’re going and how they’re going to get there, all they want in return is a good time. Whilst they obviously rue the day The Stockroom shut down, there is light at the end of the tunnel for The Violet May, and if they have their way it will be promoter free! So thanking them for their time I left them to get ready for the evening and settled down ready for a great night’s doubleheader Soundclash :-)