Pretty 'Fly for a White Guy (Cyclefly in general)

Member Name: a-true-ben

Product:	Cyclefly in general
Date:	15/05/02 (133 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great band and nice people too

Disadvantages: I've only seen them twice. I want more albums and more gigs :)

As I said in my recent live opinion on Cyclefly (they were great :) btw) I was privileged enough to be able to interview frontman Declan O’Shea before their recent gig at the Oxford Zodiac (23/4/02). To begin with though, those of you who haven’t read my other three opinions on Cyclefly might still not know who they are so (sorry if this is getting repetitive) they consist of:

Declan O’Shea – vocals
Ciaran O’Shea – guitar
NoNo Presta – guitar
Christian Montagne – bass
Jean-Michel Cavallo – drums

They have two albums out – ‘Generation Sap’ and ‘Crave’ both of which I’ve reviewed. I’d consider them to be pretty much equally good, both 4*. ‘Generation Sap’ is probably my marginal favourite, but ‘Crave’ is probably more accessible and may be a better introduction to the band. I’m not going to go too much into what they sound like now, that’ll come out later.

Oh yes, did I mention how great they were live? ;)

** The Interview **

When I turn up at 6pm, I’m slightly nervous (not just about the interview, but also because the Zodiac are prone to screwing up guestlists, let alone this) however I’m waved straight in (must try that more often). Out back, Cyclefly are running through ‘No Stress’ for cameras from a local cable station, before completing their soundcheck. I’m left to just stand around for a while, but at least I can see (hear) the band are in pretty good form.

Once that’s completed, I approach tour manager Kriss and see if the band have time for an interview – I’m in luck, he introduces me to Declan and it’s off to the tour bus for a chat. Unfortunately the rest of the band aren’t there – one or two drift in and out, but generally they’re too busy preparing their instruments and the like.


‘It’s easy for me’ Declan says, ‘I just have a microphone. Of course, it means I don;’t get the endorsements…’ Well, I ask, isn’t it true his mum makes his clothes? Yes, apparently it is, although he’s no longer in the bright green/yellow skin tight PVC costumes he used to wear; he’s dressed all in black with a matching mohican replacing the former red dreadlocks.

It’s the first time Cyclefly have played Oxford and Declan seems to like the city, having only arrived in the morning. I mentioned I’d seen them before, on their first headline tour with Queen Adreena. ‘Colchester Arts Centre?’ he asks – as it happens it was, not sure how he knew that! It’s a great venue he adds, a converted church which is a really interesting place to play I suppose (Terrorvision also singled it out in Metal Hammer once).

Back to the subject, although the rest of the band aren’t present, I ask how they met. Declan and Ciaran are two brothers from Ireland, whilst the rest of the band are French and Italian – it seems a strange combination. Apparently NoNo, Christian and Jean-Michel were in a band called The Seventeen who had come to Ireland and toured for a year before splitting up. That left the three of them, who were still jamming together and living next to Declan’s mum – who phoned her sons (who were working in Euro Disney at the time!) and asked if they wanted to join up to form a band with the guys from next door.

Although I didn’t know of the band myself until about 3 years ago (and most of you probably still don’t know who they are…) they’ve actually been going around 7 years. Like most bands that aren’t suddenly put together Popstars style, playing small gigs and working on their songs until they could finally get a record deal. In this time Declan actually worked as a part-time postman to support hi
mself because his mum was the postmistress.

The band’s aim now is to support themselves with their music. Touring pays for the bus and food, but not much more and the aim is to promote the new album ‘Crave’. Of course, Cyclefly can’t count on major label backing and promotion to do that, so it’s up to them to get out and win over fans – the entire band signing all 1,000 7” copies of last single ‘No Stress’ being just one way of doing that.

Do the band want commercial success though? One of the standout tracks from ‘Crave’ is ‘Karma Killer’ which features backing vocals from Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington (recorded before his band took off). Hopefully this will be the next single (with ‘Drive’ and ‘Crave’ also under consideration apparently), possibly remixed as well. I must have been the 1000th journalist to ask Declan about this, but still he’s happy to answer my questions. They met when Chester and Sam of Linkin Park saw Cyclefly touring the US. When they were looking for someone to guest on their album, Chester seemed an obvious choice having heard promos of his work (this was before the release of ‘Hybrid Theory’ I believe), and so they asked him to record the backing vocals.

But would Cyclefly like to take off in the same way? It’s a question of what you mean by success. Declan points out that obviously the band have to sell records, they want to support themselves and to be able to make more records. If they achieved chart success, it seems they’d welcome it, but on their own terms – Cyclefly aren’t selling out. What they are doing is trying to spread their message to as many people as possible, and upcoming slots both at Ozzfest and supporting Alien Ant Farm should see them winning over more fans (they’re also hoping to return to Reading/Leeds this year).

Cyclefly̵
7;s music doesn’t obviously lump them in with bands such as AAF, SOAD and the like though. In fact, they’ve previously toured with artists such as Live, Cypress Hill and Bush rather than what you might call ‘metal’ bands.

When I point out Cyclefly have been called ‘nu-metal’ by some journalists, Declan laughs. ‘Yeah, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in my life’ he adds. Declan himself grew up listening to Black Sabbath and Queen rather than more traditional Irish folk music. Asked to describe Cyclefly’s sound, he’s at something of a loss. Influences abound, and numerous people have referred to Placebo, Smashing Pumpkins, Marilyn Manson, Jane’s Addiction and the like, and Declan doesn’t seem bothered, ‘they’re all great bands’ – the point is, they’re just influences, Cyclefly don’t sound like any of them really.

Maybe if Cyclefly do go on and conquer the charts, they’ll found their own genre. Declan says he’d love their music to be something people listen to and enjoy in years’ time. When he was young (and presumably still so now) he says music meant a lot to him, and he’d like to repay that and give something back – he loves knowing the effect his music has on fans and seeing them singing along at shows. Declan’s not so sure about selling 10 million albums though, maybe then the fame would be hard to deal with.

Asked about the current crop of manufactured bands he’s not forthcoming. At first he claims not to really have an opinion on the ‘Pop Idol’ phenomenon, before adding ‘it’s no different from the Teletubbies really’ and that’s a good enough soundbite for me! He’s similarly disparaging of bands like Staind and Creed that seem to sell millions of albums by rehashing the work of past greats (the interview digresses slightly as
our admiration of Alice In Chains comes through here, leading us on to the death of Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell solo album).

A large part of Cyclefly’s seemingly unique sound, Declan believes, is because all the band write songs. Certainly their albums are diverse, and reviews mixed (Declan agrees Cyclefly may be the sort of band you either love or hate, but is pleased most of the reaction has been positive. He also seems to like the fact press reviews of ‘Generation Sap’ all singled out different high and low points).

As far as he’s concerned ‘music is music’; he doesn’t care much for pigeonholing bands by genre labels, but Cyclefly, he guesses, are probably what you’d loosely call ‘alt-rock’. People should be more broad-minded he thinks, and cites the US Family Values tour (which brings together the likes of Linkn Park, Stone Temple Pilots, Staind and Static-X).

Cyclefly’s first album was largely experimental, and reflected where they were at the time (‘Better Than You’ being the first song written, back in 1997 apparently) – rawer and more angsty than their new album. Unfortunately for the band, its promotion got cut off. Although three singles had been released prior to the album (‘Crawl Down’, ‘Supergod’, and ‘Violet High’ – Declan’s probably a mixture of impressed and scared that I can name all the b-sides when he forgets); ‘Better Than You’ which was to be the ‘lead single’ never got released because Cyclefly’s record label (Radioactive, a subsidiary of a larger label) got dropped! Hence the band’s tour was cut short and promotion and sales dropped.

Not perturbed, they’re back now with ‘Crave’ – although it’s been quiet for a few years (just ten gigs last year, including supporting Tool in Dublin). Personally, I found Crave
a much more immediate and (Dare I say it?) commercial album – was this intentional I asked? Well, Declan admits, they obviously want to be popular and sell records; the change of sound he attributes however to improved musicianship and production, as well as the fact that he’s moved on since the old songs were written (some 5 years ago) and is no longer as angry!

So, perhaps it could be chart success for the future. Cyclefly certainly want to carry on making music and entertaining people, and hopefully the sales they deserve will follow. I’m not sure I want to share ‘my’ band with the commercial world, but I can’t begrudge them success.

Although ‘No Stress’ hardly set the world alight, the band hope to be able to release three or even four singles from Crave, with Karma Killer probably most likely. Despite the possible boost of featuring Chester Bennington, however, Declan admits how it performs probably depends on label support pushing it into the charts (which is sadly unlikely). Currently they’re playing it in their live set following a ‘beefed up’ version of ‘Accidental Ornaments’ (as I said in my live review), they’re also hoping to get it remixed for single release, perhaps by Bill Appleberry (who re-wored several tracks on the album) and perhaps bringing out Chester’s part a bit more.

As if that wasn’t enough, apparently they’re beginning the first stages of writing for the new album (after having 25 songs for Crave) oh, and Declan admits an ambition to work with David Bowie!

Sorry again for writing so much, but not only are Cyclefly a great band (certainly one of my favourite British bands) but they’re also nice people. Declan was a really nice bloke, instantly putting me at ease for my first interview. After putting on a great show (which I wrote about separately) I was also taken backstage again by Kriss, where I g
ot to meet the rest of the band and have my photo taken with Declan (Daniel – if you’re out there send me that photo when you get the film developed!). And after it all, Declan stayed for the following rock night in the Zodiac, leaning on the bar all night talking to people.

If you want to know more, check out www.cyclefly.com - the band’s official website that has lyrics, audio samples, and more. It was designed by one of their guitar techs or something and looks quite impressive, although to be honest I found it a bit of a bugbear. If you want to read my other opinions on the band then their opinion numbers are:

Generation Sap (first album): 344458
Crave (second album): 367010
Live (at Zodiac): 368964

(don’t forget to rate this first!)

** Thanks to the people from Oxford Student for arranging this interview. Again my interview will appear in the paper in some form, but I wrote it here first. All quotes are paraphrases of what Declan said (I don’t have a dictophone, and can’t guarantee that they’re word for word) **

Summary: