How many tour dates have you done so far?
On this tour? This is going to be our sixth show. We hadn't done a proper tour as a band. We've done about seven gigs now, but they were all kinda isolated. We did one last year in Spain, at the Benicassim festival, and then a couple in Dublin and Belfast with The Stereophonics and the rest were in the UK.
What has been the reception the fans have given you since you took over from Hillary?
Fantastic, really, really good. I think that it's only natural that fans compare us because Hillary was such an important part of the band and I was a bit nervous about it to be honest, but everyone was so nice.
I think the whole thing was that they weren't looking for someone to fill her shoes. They weren't looking for a female bass player. They auditioned about ten different guys and then they came across me just by chance and I auditioned for them.
I think anyone who has played in a band with a woman before knows how difficult we can be. We have our moods and our dalliances but we just clicked. It wasn't as if they were looking for another chic to replace Hillary.
How's the summer shaping up for you?
We are doing the Wireless festival and then some European ones - one called Rock for People and a few others. They don't tell me about anything!
This will be your third album, when do you have it scheduled for release?
End of the summer. Either last week of August or first week of September, we're throwing a bunch of stuff around but we haven't stuck on anything yet, it's so hard cos you have all these songs and you want to find the perfect phrase to sum them all up and then sum the band up and you don't want to come across sounding pretentious or silly.
At what stage is the album at in terms of completion?
The album's done. The artwork is almost done and then the name. Mark had a big idea about everything and then we kinda went through it with him and then got the final approval.
The first single is 'She's gone' which is just a 7 inch and download it's not a proper single single, and then the first single is 'Coming Home' which is out on July the 4th. Which is creeping up.
There wasn't much promotion behind 'I to Sky', are you trying to push this album a bit more?
I think so. We already are doing loads of interviews and photoshoots. I think if anybody wants to talk to us then we'll talk to them.
This is kind of our welcome back warm up tour, because we haven't played in so long so we just wanted to do small gigs for the fans. We'll be touring I guess around the album, it's all being booked at the mo, but probably August/September.
How high do you realistically want the album to chart?
Well I hope everybody likes it. Well everybody we've heard back from thinks that the tracks are great and I think they have radio appeal. You're gonna hear 8 or 9 off the new album tonight, but all the old favourites as well.
Did you have much say in the writing of the new songs?
Mark comes up with the songs and then Gus and I (That's Fergal) write our own parts. We come up with the arrangements and stuff together.
What is your initial impression of Glasgow and King Tuts?
I've never been to King Tuts before. This is my first time in Scotland. We were out last night, had some amazing food, went to the Barfly. I'm excited about the show tonight.
We've got to meet a lot of fans on this one. We've had a few pints with them. There was a girl who travelled from Japan today - and she's coming to all the gigs in the UK.
I did it all as well. I followed Fugazi around for a whole summer. Do you remember them?
And then I followed 'Jane's addiction' all around New York and Michigan. I was a bit of a groupie I think.
Have you had any bust-ups or arguments since you've been on tour?
No. Somehow! We fight when we're out drinking because we're full of white wine but we haven't had any working fights. The way that we did the album was that we demoed all the tracks and then we took them into the studio and recorded them, so it was easy.
What's it like being on a tour bus with two guys?
Smelly. It's like 7 guys. It's fun though.
So would you say touring with JJ72 is Rock N' Roll?
I'd like to say yes but nooo, it's been a bit tame. Our tour manager used to do the Libertines and he's delighted with us. We've have our drinking nights out but I think we're pretty tame.
Met any big bands on your travels?
We shared a van with 'Death in Vegas', Beck kinda walked by.
We had a great band supporting us in Ireland called Chuzzle, they were brilliant but they couldn't come over to the UK.
Has Mark let you know what the band name means yet?
Nope, top secret. I think its either something amazing or nothing at all, there's so many rumours going round. Janis Joplin's weight was one of them. It's a cool name though, I like it.
JJ72 return with new single 'She's Gone' which is now available to purchase as a download from www.JJ72.com. The next single 'Coming Home' will be released on the 4th of July.
article by: Scott Johnson
published: 13/06/2005 07:25
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.