Pretentious, arrogant, moody and patronizing. These were my preconceptions of Nine Black Alp’s front man Sam Forrest as I battled with the wind to meet him after their sound check. However the pint sized Manc rocker turned out to be anything but. Donned in flared jeans and a checked shirt that wouldn’t have looked out of place on John Wayne he tells me about his days off in the zoo, working at a police station, his new band and their last tour ever…
Shefbase: Welcome to Sheffield Sam, it’s fantastic to have the Nine Black Alps playing at Fuzz tonight, the questions may not be up to NME standard or anything but…
Sam Forrest: They can’t be much worse.
SB: Ok, let’s go back to the beginning, how did the band get together
originally?
SF: It was all fairly organic, we met at a bar in Manchester called the Star &
Garter, which was our local indie club I guess, we didn’t place any adverts or
anything, we just got together and started jamming.
SB: Do you all have the same influences then?
SF: Kind of yeah, I mean our music tastes all differed a bit but there was a lot
of common ground, when we started out we were listening to Nirvana and The
Pixies for example.
SB: What about life before Nine Black Alps then? Did you go to University?
SF: Yeah, I went to Cardiff Uni, back in the day, I studied Film Studies kind of
thing…I passed anyway
SB: What about jobs then, did you have many jobs before the band?
SF: Oh yeah,loads of shit jobs, I worked in a sawmill, a police station, just
loads of shit jobs.
SB: What was your job at the police station?
SF: I just had to answer the calls when crimes were reported by the police, I
had to do loads of night shifts, typing up about all these horrific crimes…
that was a bit weird. That was the job I was doing immediately before joining
the band, so it was nice to leave that.
SB: So did you always dream of being in a band?
SF: Yeah absolutely, never thought I would do it though, its all I really could
do I guess, I tried to get decent jobs but that didn’t work out. I had been in
bands before, I played bass mainly, but with this one it just took off.
SB: So who would you say your biggest influences are?
SF: Oh goodness, there are so many, people from The Beatles to writers like
Charles Bukowski, Kim Deal, The Breeders, then stuff like Neil Young and The
Everly Brothers. There was also just the influence though of trying to avoid
having to get a shit job.
SB: Ok the new album, it seems to be a lot more diverse than the first, there are a few more ‘poppy’ influences in there, I can hear The Kinks in places…
SF: Oh yeah definitely, with the new album we tried to put a few more harmonies, drawing on a lot of our 60’s influences such as The Kinks and The Beatles, the first album was a lot more grungy, it was just kind of venting your spleen but the second we tried to make it a lot more personal I guess. The second record is largely about relationships and the problems that accompany them.
SB: You now have two albums worth of material to play live, do you have any favourite songs that you particularly enjoy playing?
SF: Well this is the third time we have toured this album so we are going to
throw in some B-sides just to keep things interesting, it’s all just pretty
much the same though and it’s really hard work, there is no real light moment
in the set it’s all fairly hard to play.
SB: I guess it takes it out of you a bit?
SF: Yeah definitely, I get migraines now when I sing because of over straining.
We took six weeks off before we started practising for this tour and then after
the first practice we were just all dead, sometimes you just wish you were in
nice light pop band.
SB: You spend a lot of time on tour and a lot of this time is on the tour bus, what do you do to kill time?
SF: Not much really, we listen to music, drink and generally just take the piss
out of each other.
SB: What about days off, do you get many and what do you?
SF: I think we have got three days off on this tour and we usually try and do
something interesting like go to a zoo. Its difficult with this tour though
because we have got a day off in Portsmouth, I mean what do you do in
Portsmouth, just hang around the docks all day?
SB: Indeed, looking to the future then, where do you see the band going?
SF: It’s difficult to say really…
SB: Well are you going to do the festivals this year?
SF: I don’t think so, because we have just been dropped by our record label
about a month ago, so at the moment we are just trying to stay alive. I don’t
think we will be touring after this tour because we won’t have any money left,
I am just going to write a load of new songs and we will try and get another
label, I don’t know though, we will just see what happens.
SB: As a man in the music industry can you recommend any new bands to look out for?
SF: I don’t get much chance to listen to stuff any more and I don’t listen to the radio or read magazines because I don’t really trust what they say. I heard
this band the other day called It Hugs Back, they are really good. I have
started a band with my girlfriend as well called The Sorry Kisses, which I am
really proud of, we are on Myspace.
SB: Is it difficult having a girlfriend whilst being in a band, do you see each other much?
SF: Sometimes, she travels with us but she does her own music as well, but yeah its ok, I probably get to see her more than if we both had normal jobs.
SB: Ok Sam, if you had to recommend one album that everyone should listen to, one life changing album, what would it be?
SF: Neil Young, After the Goldrush
SB: Ok cool, now finally if you had to pick your fantasy Fuzz Club line up of three bands to play the Thursday night event, who would you have?
SF: Oh gosh, I think I would have to go for Motorhead, followed by The Beatles
and then well…us.
SB: I am there, any chance of backstage tickets? Sam thank you very much, good luck for the tour and for tonight.
SF: Thank you very much.
Well until there are some significant developments in cryogenics we can only
imagine what that Thursday night would be like.
As the band head off to indulge in their pre gig rider of Calsberg, apples and
ready salted crisps I feel a little guilty and certainly disappointment in myself for my pre judgements of Sam. From what I first thought would be an interview with your average self-important egotistical rock star, it turned out to be a pleasant chat with a very shy, down to earth, talented musician. So if you have a few pennies knocking around, give their very much underrated second album a go and certainly check out Sam’s side project with beautiful girlfriend
Hayley Hutchinson.
www.myspace.com/nineblackalps
www.myspace.com/thesorrykisses
By Ben James
See the review of their gig at fuzz club here
