The Hoosiers: How We Wrote Worried About Ray

0:00Irwin Sparkes: You're telling yourselves that you're good and you deserve to be playing Wembley. But the truth was, we weren't and we didn't.

0:05Ben: And we just knew it. We just knew as one piece of three minutes of music, we'd got it really, really right.

0:14Al Sharland: Welcome back to What's The Trick? I am your host, Ben Hanlon, and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people and try and understand their creative process. we've spoken to authors comedians musicians writers and today we've got a band the hugers who were massive in the early ish 2000s which i'm going to tell you about in particular we spoke to erwin and alan and a bit of backstory about them as a band so first of all they met at university and they actually both went off to america on football scholarships they went to indiana which is where eventually the name the hugers came from whilst they're out there they started working on music and they loved music and eventually they both got injured and came back to the UK and said come on let's give this music thing a go it's what we really love and they worked really hard for virtually a decade fast forward 2007 their album Trick to Life went to number one it was massive it was multi-platinum it got them Brit nominations there were two massive singles off the album you may remember them it was Worried About Ray and Goodbye Mr A so I wanted to speak to them because I used to love their music anyway that was definitely my genre in the early 2000s and they've had a really long career they've been going 20 years and I always think that's really interesting of how a band can keep going and keep changing and keep a career going in the music industry so we talk about that other backstory we recorded this remotely I was in the Midlands they were both tuning in separately and we dive into this conversation where we're going to start it is a big turning point in their career was when they met Toby Smith who was the keyboard player for Jamiroquai and Jamiroquai had just been massive and he took them under his wing and he mentored them and you're going to hear about that so that's where we start so enjoy this one it's another episode of what's the trick with the hugers we found Toby Smith or he found us

2:07Ben: through a mutual friend and he was in Jamiroquai and he sort of took us as pretty average band but recognised something in us some some shoots of songs and some and a wicked voice and and sort of honed us into the machines of pop rock that we are now he was our spotty man and we were the super

2:29Irwin Sparkes: and he blew his magic pop dust upon us and then and with that but he is sorry he is i mean he's

2:37Ben: he's a huge part of our story and how we've become i mean our development as writers i guess um toby because he's super super smart guy very clever guy so when he approaches you what kind

2:49Al Sharland: of things did he say to you of and what did he see in you do you think and how did he nurture that

2:55Irwin Sparkes: yeah he was i think the the value of him having been where we wanted to go it was as if he had a roadmap whereas as you can see though preceding this there's a decade of just floundering and i would say we were lost creatively in every sense as well we were trying this that the other and what toby we brought was a laser focus to what we were doing and it was that sense of development that we'd never had before so we might have had been able to write melodies but he really helped to helped us to kind of dig deep in into the identity of the band and that was something that needed a lot of work and it's very telling that we started working with him and it was like what

3:41Ben: a year and a half later probably we got signed yeah yeah it's it's it's having that sort of like expertise somebody's been there done it and and also not just that he was he was very very willing in the most brutal ways to tell us what we weren't doing well so we got a lot of um

4:02Al Sharland: how do you yeah how do you take that i mean obviously i guess coming from a football background you're used to a coach giving you feedback essentially but when someone essentially you put yourself out there and they've gone that's not good enough or that needs changing how did you deal with that ben i think you've you've nailed it actually though

4:22Irwin Sparkes: just to say ben is is that the one thing because effectively we'd look back with the benefit of hind legs and and think wow we've just uh you know we've stumbled from one sort of you know a failed scholarship it could be and then the band never really taking off and then i could look at it and go the one virtue we maybe got from football was it was a little bit of resilience realising that we you know repetitive failures on the football field never living up to those expectations alchinsplints my asthma my general lack of playing ability you know it was all found out and it was quite a brutal time so to come back it's sort of maybe we were then able to actually receive some harsh truths about music as well whereas up to that point you just blow and smoke up each other's ass and everyone's you know you're telling yourselves that you're good and you deserve to be playing Wembley but the truth was we weren't and we didn't so there was a bit of an honesty in

5:20Al Sharland: the early days of you know where you want to go we're not there so let's take whatever the feedback comes our way and learn from it type of thing yeah absolutely and it and it was as brutal as it was

5:32Ben: and honestly it was like he's played with Toby had played with the best players so he was he he was really honest about how average my drumming was he was like you just need to be better at a point he was like look if you don't sort this out you you have to you have to leave you're not good enough to be in your own band I mean it was yeah it was brutal really brutal but he actually phoned

5:54Irwin Sparkes: me up for that didn't he you know after seeing us for a couple of gigs was like yeah yeah I think think we can work with it but I think the drum is gonna have to go he's like oh you can't come out he's written all the songs people like he was like oh well maybe we'll get him on keyboard

6:10Al Sharland: well let's talk about that because that is anyone listening to this will have a hobby or a skill or a job and having someone be as brutal as that is not good enough so let's get a little bit specific I wouldn't have to go too geeky but what in particular did Heath say that you didn't have and then how did you respond to that or haven't you

6:32Ben: it doesn't have to No, it's a really good point. And I'm so glad I've been through it and come out the other side. And it was grim going through it. The specifics aren't that specific because it was just generally, I just wasn't, I mean, we're not from a technical background. We didn't go to music school. So it was a band's background. So we just played and played and nobody fed back. But there's so many technical elements to, particularly in a pop band, like to play. So specifically playing in time is the first one. so playing to a click was the thing I had to learn which is really really difficult any drummer who's been through that if you played freestyle and then the technicality of it is that you've got a click going through your ear right and it's keeping you exactly in time and I have to learn to play to that which seems like it should be easy quite central for a drummer isn't it

7:19Al Sharland: to play in time

7:20Ben: I know Ben it is I know and I want to sound like central

7:27Irwin Sparkes: I'm loving this Ben

7:29Ben: I can take this oh god i'm gonna straight you said we weren't gonna cry during the interview okay sorry mate no i'm only yeah but no it's fine no no totally and and i'm i am obviously i can take all this criticism it's like from experience and i've been through and i've got through this so i can play to a click now so but but fundamentally when you start in a band and i'll watch pub bands and young bands they're not playing to a click they're playing free time and so they'll speed up and slow down and that book i think we're now intrinsically tuned into this everything you listen to now in modern pop is exactly in time it won't change speed unless it's intentional and it's marginal but you go to if I go to a pub band now and I hear it's it'll make I'll feel it it feels unless it's done intentionally it feels bad and Toby was like it's like you just have to learn that and that took me probably the best part of a year really really laser focus putting in hours and hours to to get where I needed to be so and do you look back at that now and and think

8:27Al Sharland: where we needed that. It's almost like going to a sports coach and then telling you what you don't want to hear but what you need to hear, right?

8:36Ben: If you want to draw every analogy to football, I will. I'm there for that because I think sport is really connected and I love that. But yeah, I think it is having somebody tell you what you're fundamentally missing with the ultimate goal of saying, look, if you haven't got this, there's another 20 bands lined up behind you who will have it. and ultimately that is that that's whether i liked it or not it was i wanted i wanted success more than i i than i could so i could handle that or i took it and put the time in and i'm glad i

9:08Irwin Sparkes: did obviously but he is in fairness to alec because it sounds better coming from me we do refer to him as the human metronome now please as long as i've got a metronome as long as the non-human metronome

9:21Al Sharland: and then let's let's fast forward because obviously like 2000 is where all of that hard work then paid off and got to the number one album and we'll i want to dig into the songs and we'll talk about in a moment but actually i think that time for music so i love my indie music my rock music i'm 40 now so i that was my heyday as well of listening to all of that and there was a lot of bands coming up at that time and be as honest as you want here Why do you think and how do you think you were able to cut through and get the spot at number one album and get in the charts and do all that when there were so many bands that couldn't do that?

9:59Irwin Sparkes: It's a good question because it's something we don't take for granted. We're aware playing a lot of the toilet circuit, as it's lovingly known, around London. We would come across lots of bands who could play us off stage. you know they were technically superior and you know that they had a lot going and and so i'm aware with all of this any success there's a lot of luck behind it as well so we were very fortunate and one of the huge fortunate things we were having a great team of steve morton managing us and and toby producing the album and what that helped then do was get us when we were signed by craig logan at rca he made us a priority his priority signing and that was huge because it meant we had the he allocated more marketing spend like in simple cold terms there's an element of that to this so he was able to splash the cash and so it was our mugs that were on posters and and what maybe you know we had that that extra edge over other artists that that maybe the a &r

11:07Al Sharland: team signed that wouldn't have had that luxury so so that so you had the machine with you in the wind wind in your back in a way i'm gonna throw out all the analogies today but what but these people aren't you know these people they're there to make money they're not stupid right what do you think he saw in you that when he went i'm going all in on these guys what do you think that was

11:29Ben: i'll i'll go i'll go more more um not selfish but more self-promoting on this i think it was just I think we had, the magic we had, I think, and still have is, it's more the colour and the upbeatness of what we were doing versus, and you're talking about a time when it was a lot, I guess there was a lot of what they called sort of indie landfill. And I think you could, it was hard to separate one band from another a lot. At the time, there was a lot of shoegazing, a lot of like, a lot of guitars, a lot of guitar sounds and having that sort of more, it was more driven by the sort of keys and the piano sound i think it just i don't everything is timing right and i think our timing came at the right point and i think it just broke through a little bit more and sonically um and lyrically um and i think yeah yeah there's lots i'd i'd celebrate armies i'm really proud of what we do but but yes it's timing bit of luck the machine um yeah i always think of um i always remember think when mumford and sons broke through and and I remember hearing them on the radio and going well they sound so fresh and new and ultimately you boil it down they were just there was that's been done a hundred times in the folk scene like a thumping thing and a bit you know acoustic guitars but because of what we'd been listening to for the six years before which is all EDM electronic they just sounded so fresh but their timing was so impeccable that they just sounded like they were from another planet and I think we had that that behind us as well and it's interesting what you said a minute ago i think

13:05Al Sharland: you said oh and technically you're not the best performers or players or you know if you break it down individually and i'll be honest with you i'm exactly the same i'm a magician right i am technically not as good as probably 80 percent of magicians right if you were to talk about shuffling cards and moving with my hands however there's the thing that i can do that's given me a career that a lot of them is is the way i make the audience feel essentially and it's kind of the way you boiled it down is yeah okay they might play you off the stage in a pub but audiences liked the feeling the lightness that you guys were bringing i suppose it's quite similar right you

13:41Irwin Sparkes: were giving them a different part of it is i suppose feeling like there's a plan or that they're safe in your hands or unsafe if that's what you're going for but that there's that kind of intention and that you're and you kind of do you know you pick them up for that hour now and you transport them somewhere else and they're kind of along for the ride now. And it's not about, you're right, the technicalities of it, that stuff is sort of immaterial. Even the mistakes we find that we do make and sometimes own up to makes an audience actually take a step towards you. And so all those flaws, all those tiny micro failures are actually huge, huge wins for us.

14:19Irwin Sparkes: And it's just as well because we make so many.

14:22Al Sharland: So let's dive in to the nitty-gritty. this is the bit I love is let's talk about a Hoosiers song uh we can be specific if you want to talk probably either we could talk about Goodbye Mr. Ray or Worried About Goodbye Mr. A or Worried About Ray one of those maybe specifically because but how does a Hoosiers song start do you start with melody do you start with a beat is it a lyric how does a song start to form

14:46Ben: for you Ben this is my favorite thing of all time to talk so when we when we're supposed to come on this podcast is probably the thing that got my juices flowing most is this creative process because because we've probably i know for me i certainly started in this sort of linear and for me it was always chords melody lyrics then we'd arrange it so yeah that was the four-step process for me but that and i and i spent probably the first 10 years of writing working on that process and always that process because i thought that was the right way i would write on piano um and i'd find chords because i didn't know all the chords so i'd just be like it would be quite a random process and i'd use my ear to go oh no really like that progression and then usually the melody and lyrics would come simultaneously if it was a good process and then i'd take that i'd take that half finished idea to irwin and we'd sort of then bring it up to to its entirety as a song and usually i'd have a concept or at least a hook line of a lyric um by that point that would be that would be the process that i thought was that was the first half of my writing

15:52Al Sharland: that would be how i would do it but it's changed by the sounds of it or not well yeah because it

15:59Ben: but yeah because it had to you start you start running out of ideas and you start running you start hitting walls and then to become more creative and to like so so i did the math of this this morning because i'm a geek but you do that's one line right one two three four in that order so now i was writing with other people to try and write songs for other people because i've got a deal to do that as a publishing deal um to do co-writes and and after a while i thought well we need we need to approach this in different ways so some people came to us and like well i've got lyrics so then that you're turning that on its head and you're starting with lyrics and i was like okay can you even do that and my first instance i was like can you start with lyrics and you could also go then well i'll start with melody first and for me that's as not being particularly musical in that sense that was even harder because you go well i've got melody and i've got fine chords that fit the melody that was like and so i worked with other people who knew how to do that better and then once you start doing that you've opened up in my linear one two three four that was one option if you then change those around you've got 24 options in the maths of it because you start with the different the different options just infinitely and then you can embrace that and on and on and it's just i think that was for me the biggest finding is to go and actually my process that i honed that worked once or twice and by good fortune won't continue to work all the time so you have to mix it up so that that for me was a huge part of the and that erwin over to you

17:24Irwin Sparkes: similar similar thoughts deers come i feel relatively easily there are general there are moments of drought but I find that whatever you're doing in life it's it's worth having things like the phone just with the voice notes and just keeping those little lyric ideas so I'm constantly amassing those so I'm like eternal phrase you hear someone say something at the bus stop and you just you know so that you do have this this sort of wealth of material that kind of grows over time and I find and this is where Al's also been really helpful to have someone to work with because it's the ideas can come easily but the good ones that's that's the thing i can have i can write you know for an album 30 songs but al will tell me you know there are three that i want

18:11Al Sharland: to hear again you know that's helpful so let's stick with those lyrics so this is i always think because as a non-musician i'm always in awe of songwriting and how that process works lyrics you know think everything's been said you know we've been saying everything for 1500 years and yet still every new song has new lyrics new turns of phrases new and i know that for me is as a magician is the baffling thing is so for you is is it because this is how a lot of comedians work is they walk around life and when something pricks their attention they jot it down and then they come back to it so for you are you keeping an eye is that on a theme like a relationship theme or a scenario or is it an actual word or a lyric that springs to mind for you

18:56Ben: for me it could be anything and i think you've you've nailed this as well is it and noting these things down is it's fun it's when you when you hear something that that that sounds different and i think that's what one of the things i think i like about our band is that we're always challenging each other it's like no that has to be say that again but say it more interest in a more interesting manner and we've all the themes have been covered everything's been covered mental health love sex it's all been covered it's just saying it in a slightly unique way and so when you when you challenge each other and we do that well to go yeah that's all right but it's pretty much been said a billion times just to say it's slightly different and or or say it in a way that pricks my ears up or that catches me then that's what i think that's when there's a kernel of something magic going on and i think we're we're allowed or we've allowed ourselves by the band that we've created to to to go into a more magical realm so like goodbye mr raised as you know people haven't written that before because he's just a character let's let's jump into that thing so

19:57Al Sharland: goodbye mr a uh obviously it was a massive song but can you sum up how did that song come about how did the idea start and then how did you quickly turn that into the song so on this one

20:08Ben: this was one of the one where i got lucky and i started with chord sequences and i what i would do is i would write i would be i think in those days i would be looking for chord sequences so I would like I had a chord book of all the great songs so I would sometimes take influence from them and there would be a chord change or just one chord change it would be Bowie usually because he did so many of them there'd be a chord change and that would be a start of a pattern I'm not saying in this instance it was that but and then and then I had a chord sequence and then and then the melody and the lyric came quite quickly although we changed it a few times I think since then um but it's but that was i think i wrote that concept in 2001 and we didn't really write it properly and finish it until 2006 when we were when we were doing the album so we had the sort of the the concept and the the sort of that sweet goodbye mr a melody but yeah then i think we wrote it in one version didn't we oh and it was like a much more trudgy slower downbeat version

21:07Irwin Sparkes: of it toby said it was a funeral dirge at the time you know it was very minor key and much slower more um yeah it would would not be the song that you would recognize that today um but then the

21:20Al Sharland: meaning really and so let's look at i know the obviously because this is what another a listener probably heard as well worried about ray so how did that one come about so we know we had the

21:32Irwin Sparkes: the lyrics I remember going in we were sharing a house at university and so you play it on that little crappy piano and it was like you had that idea and it's like what's what's it about and it's just even there the metaphor and like we were talking about the lyrics and and you had that whole like starting to worry about Ray and but it's it's not really about that and then the lyrics kind of open it up to this more existential idea of like it sounds like a cute little story but actually it's about that worrying about anything that you love will over a long enough timeline have its demise and so it's that kind of yeah that existential quandary of love and loss that haunts all of us and the idea of writing a really neat self-contained pop song was you know thrilling and it felt like the first song we'd ever written that there was no fat on the bone it was all just lean and you were enjoying you weren't waiting for the good bit so you so with that it sounds

22:27Al Sharland: like you said you had one of these moments where everything aligned and you went oh we've got something now i've spoken to a few people before about music and things like that and some people think that they're they every song they write at the moment they absolutely love and they go oh my gosh this is brilliant and then they come back to it a week or two weeks later and then that you know that shining star is not as good yes was did that feel in that moment a little bit different were you like because i've always wondered that as well you know when you see people who've got massive hits did you know that was the hit straight away or did you have to be told it or yeah i mean it sounds like maybe you did i think we i think like i remember the night

23:08Ben: and we were in rehearsal and we probably and we just played it over and over and over again and there's not it's that was the first indication that was like oh yeah we've really just because it just all felt so smooth and we were like oh let's do it one more time and i remember doing in it probably 30 times in a rehearsal you wouldn't usually do that you'd move on to the next song so did we know it was a hit not really I mean that's that's difficult to know I don't it's an interesting term to add isn't it yeah and and we just knew it we just knew as one piece of three minutes of music we'd we'd got it really really right and that was the new standard that we we had to meet but yeah I guess I don't I'm not even totally sure the record like Toby and that weren't particularly like that's the big song they just knew that that was a level that we could reach and we needed to keep going it did feel like the best song we'd written at the time

23:59Irwin Sparkes: and so we thought great we we'd done it and it was one that like you said ben i came back to weeks later months later and i would we had a little demo and i would keep listening to it and it it was the first one i wasn't getting tired of because i think it just felt like each segment each movement worked there was a fluidity to it and ultimately that uh yeah we brought that to toby thinking this is it we're gonna get you know the next step and he said great we just need five more of these and i remember we were close to two years on that occasion because it's like oh

24:32Al Sharland: that only took us 11 years hello it's ben this is a short commercial break but regular listeners will know that it's not a commercial break because i've got no sponsors so it's just me talking for about 30 seconds so first of all these are the hushes really nice guys and they've got as they've said new album coming out compassion it's coming out 15th of may you can pre-order that obviously if you've got spotify or anything like that you can go and give that a listen as well when it comes out and also they're on tour this year from may to about october they're doing festivals they're doing all sorts of go and have a look at where they are they're at the hushes.com you can go and see all of their dates.

25:11Al Sharland: And I think mainly as well, maybe if you're enjoying their chat and you've appreciated this episode, drop them a follow on Instagram, thehugesuk. They're also on other social media and maybe even drop a message or a comment to let them know that you've listened. That'd be great. So as we have no sponsors, I might as well just promote myself selfishly for 10 seconds. You might be wondering what I do outside of this podcast. I perform a lot of corporate events and I do keynote speaking where I talk about human connection and creativity. Within the last week, I've done that for about 400 people in customer service, which is really good.

25:43Al Sharland: So teaching them how to think like performers and connect in different ways. And also I do a lot of evening corporate entertainment where I'll do my show or I'll host awards. I do a lot with awards where I'll do magic and then present awards. All of that stuff, it's all on my website, benhanning.com, to give that a little look there. And also a massive thank you for all the messages I've had in the last week or two. Every week, we've got regular listeners that message me about the upcoming episodes and they've said, what they thought. So thank you for any of you guys who keep messaging me. I do appreciate it.

26:13Al Sharland: And newbies, for you new listeners, welcome. A couple of plugs of old episodes. You've got a music one. Jack Savretti was last week, really good. And then you've had Owen Cutts, a music producer. We have gone a bit, we've gone two music episodes in a week. It's just the way that the guests fall. But honestly, thank you for everyone who is subscribing. It means a lot. Hitting those five stars. And most importantly, you've heard me say this, I'm doing this all on my own and I'm trying to grow this thing one listener at a time. So if you know anyone that might like this podcast, just get out your WhatsApp and go, hey, share it with them, share it on your WhatsApp groups.

26:48Al Sharland: That'd be fantastic if you do. And you are able to share this on your following as well on Instagram, on stories, all of that really helps. And we just keep spreading the word and it's working by the way. It is really good. We are growing every week and we're building a little community here. So for everyone that's done that, thank you and please keep going. And as I always say, drop me a DM on Instagram and I'll reply. So let us know how you're getting on. Let me know what you think of this episode, especially if you're new. Come say hi to me and enjoy the rest of this episode. I'm going to stop yabbiting and let's hear some more of the hugers on What's the Trick.

27:23Al Sharland: Things have changed and the industry moves on, etc. But you've carried on as a band. And I think a lot of people listen to this will have, especially in the creative side, those moments in life where things go big and then you know they have to pivot how and we don't we don't have to do it but how have you as a band dealt with that where we've gone right with we're not had another number one album or we're not going to do that thing how do we deal with it mentally keep going and keep finding a way of making a career out of it i suppose if that makes

27:54Irwin Sparkes: sense yeah with great difficulty we found um and it wasn't a path that we necessarily chose to tread but if i can get my words i chose to tread but we uh we did find we were putting in so much effort on that second record and it's an interesting one for for how that that effort changed the creative process for us i think that that first record we didn't really know what to expect we it was still in its essence quite a pure process of just writing and honing ideas and and then that second album we knew right we wanted to keep what we'd found we wanted to keep that momentum um but then this word that would get banded around from our our team and everyone at the label which was a a new kind of a whole new body that hadn't really existed for the first record we were left to create that really on our own in the studio um second album every song we'd suggest it's like yeah is it a hit that was the question that came back I never asked that during the first album.

29:02Al Sharland: So, yeah, at the beginning, it's you're left to your own devices, like you say, and then all of a sudden you've got all of these outside influences doubting you.

29:13Ben: Because in order to get that wonderful thing, which is the record deal, you have to deliver a hit, right? So they'll sign you based on a hit. Second album, you're then going to have to recreate that hit. and this is all you've heard this all before but we wrote those hits over 10 years and and fortunately got to those points over 10 years now we've got now we've got like less than 10 weeks to write more hits and the pressure was just insane and and and the reaction to those pressures are really you're also coming to terms of the record company's pressure then the record company are going making suggestions like well why don't you go and co-write a song and to me that was like what that's like okay I've got I've got to mentally come to terms with that idea that we might have another creative come into the process which I hated I found that I found I took that really personally and I struggled with that which I wish I'd got over that quicker because we would have been in a better place now but all these things you've got to come to terms with mentally and and physically we were tired and then the time frames were awful and then it was just the pressure was on and and it I think it wasn't just us that felt it I think the whole record the management felt it the band felt it everyone felt it just the atmosphere if you took this snapshot of the atmosphere from album one and then album two that just the culture of that environment was just the wrong place to be writing hit records it just wasn't and it almost feels as

30:43Al Sharland: well i think when you've got nothing to lose in that sense when you're starting out you're like well we'll try anything we'll do these things and it's coming from that place it's almost like you're trying to get up there but once you're and i had this i had my own tv show but once you're there i used to feel i really don't want this to go go away now i don't want it to i've and that what you should be doing is enjoying the thing but all you're worried is going yes is it are we going to be as good as we were last year or whatever and it's and i wish i could go back myself and go just enjoy it a bit more do you know what i mean which is yes and to hold it more

31:18Irwin Sparkes: lightly you know it's bizarre because the whole all our everything we're talking about right is is entertainment and it comes from an audience has fun when they see people on stage having fun and and there's so much fun to be had and yet there's a point when it gets very seductive and people start treating you differently and for us I mean we we know that's sort of hang on I'm I'm no different to who I was before I was on you know some morning tv show where we find ourselves lip-syncing at an unearthly hour or whatever it is but yet they do they treat you a little different and and i kind of like that and i know i shouldn't and then after this point with the second album you know that window of opportunity to get that second album out there and have it be a hit that's closing all the time but you're also we're on tour like you know we're in japan or touring europe or whatever and it's like 18 months back to back solid but we're supposed to have been writing the album in that time but we're actually also enjoying it too but what we realized is like no that was the time to write and at this point because we then came back wrote no one no one kind of wanted guys playing guitars at this point that it was female fronted electronica that the pop music the pop world wanted and that's great i totally get it we talked about it before with mumford or you know i would say there can't be a billy eilish without big voiced adelles gaga's well those people it is it's that context and so that time had gone and we were left to sort of pick up the pieces really and remove the perception of our band from our own sense of deflated self

32:54Al Sharland: worth oh my gosh yeah but it's uh but it's also that must be frustrating that you love making this style of music and that's what you're you've been good at and now you have this push pull from an artist point of view of do i carry on making music that i want to make that i love that's actually done me very well or do i try and follow the trend and if i follow the trend by the time we've even figured that out the trend might have you're almost on a back foot aren't you like there's almost it's very hard to win-win there yeah yeah and it goes against everything we just

33:25Irwin Sparkes: said with that first album right doing our thing and we were just so fortunate that we caught a wave and people wanted to hear that sort of 70s style sort of crossover aor pop thing elr super all those bands i remember the shock of hearing the feeling play at a festival and going ah they're doing okay they've also got similar influences we didn't even know that other bands were doing that so yeah and then second album totally different landscape and as it should

33:54Ben: be it's change is natural but we were also i think we were also of a mind that we wanted to move on as well like our heroes musically or certainly my heroes i think i speak to for owen as well they did change as they went they did take an opportunity one of the things i don't one of the things i dislike about certain acts is if they don't use their well done for not saying cold play alan well done or i could have said ed sheeran but i could there's many that i could say that i don't want to say but we wanted to we wanted to reinvent ourselves to a degree and we were also a little bit like you you come to the end of playing gabon australia like yeah i don't I would do that differently now.

34:35Ben: I would. So we want it to be different as well. We want, like, I was about to say, my heroes of music and, like, the obvious ones are Bowie and the Beatles. The bands who, and there's Madonna, people who reinvent themselves, people who you don't know what you're going to expect. That's, for me, that's the highest accolade I could give to a band is when you go, oh, yeah, they've stayed at the top of the game, but they haven't stayed at the same band. They've just changed each time. so we wanted to do that as well I think there was a part of that but that made we're just making life very difficult for ourselves yeah because it took us over a decade to find our sound

35:12Irwin Sparkes: do our thing and then we're like true it's a good point even we were like we don't make the same album again no we want to push and and also we want the things we didn't have which would have been certainly critical acclaim or have that recognition of our peers as being like no we're we want to push the boundaries of what we're making let's talk about if you could have been

35:32Al Sharland: in the room when any song was being written what song would it have been i'm gonna go with that

35:38Irwin Sparkes: michael mcdonald and kenny loggins um we bought a full believes as well he's always right up there just a song that like it utterly transports if you're having a bad day it will be better there

35:49Ben: you go love that i'm gonna i'm gonna go bowie i think maybe i'll go life on mars i think just just because it's just i just don't you just don't know all the hits keep coming the chord changes keep coming i'm like what how have you done that it's just on another he's just on another literally on another planet life on yes there you go and uh do you know you are you the

36:09Al Sharland: first drummer i've had on um onto the show so uh i think drummers you know because sometimes we don't you see drummers differently than we see drummers so very quickly who are the top three drummers or who would you put there in the top three drummers of all time okay well i mean if

36:29Ben: there's technical and there's creative so i mean you've got like you'd be for you go on okay no i'm gonna do it quickly three i mean gad picaro and then i'm a quite a steely dan fan steely dan i love so they've any drummer they've had but they've got really technical ones but then hodder who started for them is it was just the genius as well but but in growing up i would say phil collins is my favorite because you just just knew he was you could hear his his personality you just know it's a phil collins drumbeat as soon as he's playing and he's and i'm also more in love with songwriting than i'm more of a songwriter than a drummer i think of myself but

37:09Al Sharland: so phil for for that reason i'll go phil and for you so for you you can hear a drumbeat and you can feel like say you feel the personality of that person who's playing yeah you with some players

37:22Ben: I think with more of the technical players who you'll be like, well, they're so technically brilliant. I think it's harder to hear because people aspire to that. There's more of them. But when some players who've got that freedom, and I think Phil was one of those, he just had clear personality in his performing. I think he was one of the greats for that, I think.

37:42Al Sharland: There we go. Thank you very much. Right, we are going to move on to my final Fast Five. I ask five questions to end the show. Are you ready for my Fast Five, chaps? yeah i think so right first question highlander question uh i mean actually you may have been this may have cropped up in the chat but essentially highlander question you can like in the film highlander when they kill another immortal they steal their skills their expertise so you can ski still steal the skill or expertise of any other person on the planet dead or alive whose skills are you coming after erwin i'm going to start with you

38:20Irwin Sparkes: oh you know for some reason macgyver has stuck in my head because i feel like he's the most skilled person ever but if slightly fictional so i'm gonna go with prince yeah just the greatest isn't he prince i mean probably the most talented person roughly to have lived ever yeah to avoid

38:42Ben: saying the same thing and go and feel collins again i will go with a more modern drummer and Anderson Pack because he's just musically brilliant in everything he does and his writing's great as well and he could sing he could do everything I want perfect pitch is the skill I want so but I

38:57Al Sharland: don't want to say Jacob Collier so okay Anderson Pack right next question uh time capsule so you can keep uh yeah we can you can make this decision individually but you can keep one thing you've ever made it could be an album but it could be a song uh to keep it in a time capsule all your other material is gone from the world what are we putting in the time capsule

39:21Irwin Sparkes: then will will you let me have this don't know if it counts right but i'm thinking genuinely i would say the band like what alan i have built over the last no no that no that's that's no you can't do that it's a flat no i want the the tree not the fruit you want no i want you

39:40Ben: just tell me one it's like saying one object from your house i want my whole house no i'm gonna i'm gonna take a full album because why wouldn't you and i'm gonna take the newest album by the hoosiers which is compassion oh look at that very well plugged your pr people will love that when is compassion out thank you ben and that's out on the 15th of may is that right erwin uh it's correct

40:02Irwin Sparkes: but you can pre-order it now and have nothing to listen to until then gosh look at you sellouts

40:08Al Sharland: That's unbelievable. Anyway, go on. We started sold out. Over to you then. What would you keep?

40:17Irwin Sparkes: It has to be something I've made, right? I can't steal it from someone. Now that I've killed Prince. Okay. I thought I've killed Prince. I might as well have Purple Rain. Okay. I'll go for Up To No Good. It's a song of our fourth album, Secret Service. Yeah. Proud of that one.

40:35Al Sharland: Okay. Lovely. It's in there.

40:37Irwin Sparkes: It's the first sexy song we've ever had. We don't usually do sexy.

40:42Al Sharland: Up to no good.

40:43Ben: It's your most Prince-like moment as well, isn't it, probably? Were you wearing the full suit, the full one piece?

40:51Irwin Sparkes: Let's just say I can rock a Cuban if needed.

40:55Al Sharland: Culture Vultures, what is the one book, film, thing you've seen recently that you've loved that you just want to tell other people about? It could be anything.

41:07Irwin Sparkes: can you go um okay yeah there is a there is an album actually by uh alexander wolf that i would say which is called everythinglessness okay and it's a new album and i heard this and it's stopped me in my tracks um it's a concept album that charts the story of a sensitive boy growing up in like a southeast london estate and it's it's all about mental health without really talking exactly about that but it just charts a very raw journey and it's a it's rare to hear a concept album it's such a beautiful sort of narrative that feels also effortless and and hugely cinematic as well as like deeply intimate and moving yeah fantastic i'll give that a listen

41:54Ben: if you could sell our music you can sell our music as well as you can sell others though and

41:58Al Sharland: yeah there we go on that out what's that one thing i'll go something i'll go i'll go more

42:06Ben: mainstream and i'll go and i'll put basis on some somebody delivering endlessly and that's vince gilligan who's did all the some so many great things x-files breaking bad and now he's got pluribus and that's i just can't believe how that mark that man has done so many good original things and pluribus is brilliant give us the summary of pluribus for those that haven't seen it so pluribus is basically the world sort of being infected and and a hive mind has taken over but but certain minds haven't been able to be encapsulated and taken over and it's sort of a plight of a woman who's who's left alone in the world i don't want to go beyond that it's just so

42:50Irwin Sparkes: very original sci-fi but i think the the twist but for me what's what makes it really exciting so it's like invasion of the body snatchers but they're the goodies it's like they're they're the happiest you finished it they personify happiness yeah yeah you finished it and have you uh yeah i've not okay that's not too much very good we'll move on magic wand i'm gonna hand you both my

43:17Al Sharland: magic wand with this power you can make something vanish and let's stick to the music industry so anything in music it can be a genre you could say cold play if you want now uh you could be anything you want it can be whatever springs to mind that you would like to make vanish for the better or our enemies and you have a lot of enemies okay yeah we do actually and i was going

43:45Irwin Sparkes: I was going to say like the industry just, and then music just becomes this beautiful thing for everyone to enjoy. There's no gatekeepers. It's all about personal creativity and expression. And then we can all get real jobs and be like doctors and nurses and do that.

44:00Ben: I actually, I had a similar, I had a similar thought on that, which is like going down the sort of social media angle and the gatekeepers and Simon Cowell, because, because it's really, social media right i feel like it's been destructive to to the creative arts i don't think it's helped i think it's i think it's been really negative but i i don't want to say that so i'm going to go with ed sheeran you really built up that was a that was a twist who wrote that

44:28Al Sharland: vince gilligan i'll be honest with you we've done a lot of these episodes no one's gone for an

44:32Ben: actual individual before no one's have they not well let me be that man that's fine own it own

44:39Al Sharland: it right guys honestly this has been a lovely lovely chat and i think it's been really great to hear behind the scenes on how you think creatively and how the hoosiers have created this amazing long career but i'm going to finish it up with one last question and you can repeat something you've just said but essentially what is the trick for you guys do you think if you had to give one piece of advice what is the trick to having a long career in the music industry

45:08Irwin Sparkes: fun play it's it's got to still retain a sense of fun yeah great

45:16Ben: al i mean for me it's just it's perseverance it's what got us where we got to and it's and it's what's kept us out of it it's like it's that determination i think for me beyond yeah and fun is the reason we persevere, I guess. But the skill that I think me and Owen shared is dogged determination.

45:38Al Sharland: Fantastic.

45:39Ben: Not very glamorous, is it?

45:40Al Sharland: No, but you know what? So many times I've done this and essentially graft and real hard work is what a lot of creative... And lack of options. Lack of options. There you go. Leave yourself, mate. I could have done anything.

45:55Irwin Sparkes: Not now, mate. You're done.

45:57Al Sharland: Guys, absolute pleasure. I hope the new album is fantastic on the 15th of May, tour later this year. Thank you very much. That's been What's the Trick?

46:06Irwin Sparkes: Been a pleasure, genuinely.

46:09Al Sharland: So there we go. That is another episode of What's the Trick? They were great, weren't they? And so honest and I loved hearing their behind the scenes. And I think on reflection, the thing that's been resonated with me is, I don't know if I've spoken to someone who's come from an almost professional sport background and then moved into creativity. and that mindset of like they've said you know the resilience and the toughness of just getting better and training but also I think coming from a background where you have a coach and you are told what to do and how to be better they embrace that and that's what really got them their start and I always think that if ever I could think about what's helped me in my career it's finding people who've done it before and leaving my ego at the door and saying okay I'm probably not going to like this but tell me what i need to do to be better so anyway i thought that resonated me i thought it was quite interesting that's been another episode as always thank you for listening if you're new here again welcome please go and have a look at the other ones and what did you think of it let me know on instagram i'm betting the ben handling drop me a message now and tell me we'll have a little chat and plus if you know anyone that would like this podcast please do share it on your whatsapp groups wherever you can just to one or two people and we're going to build this community have a lovely week next episode will drop next friday i've been ben handling This has been What's the Trick?