Irwin Sparkes
Sony saw them sell over a million records, hitting number one with unique album 'The Trick To Life', featuring 'Goodbye Mr A' and 'Worried About Ray'.
They followed this up with 'The Illusion Of Safety', but ever since have seemed to be on a bit of a hiatus.
We got the chance to chat to Irwin Sparkes - member o the band - about the group's label move, upcoming third studio album and tour dates.
How was it that you first got involved in the world of music?
Partly lack of options - I realised that there were a couple of things I really wanted to be when I was a kid, like a marine biologist, or a dolphin, or a wrestler, or an American footballer - and all of these are true! But then I ended up being slightly shy of six foot five so I think nature ruled me out of a few of them, and music was - I never thought I was good enough to do it really - but actually I knew a couple of people who were, so I've sort of been riding their coattails ever since!
What challenges have you faced in your career to-date?
I think a huge one that I'm just getting my head round now is that kind of understanding that it's OK to fail, I guess, and there's such a focus on succeeding and making 'it' certainly in the business. You see it on everything - on 'X Factor', to anyone who signs with a major label - there's a certain expectation and I think it's really dangerous because it overrides what you should be doing, which is making something good, and you're there to be creative, ideally from having anything close to artistry in you. You wanna make something good - create - then it becomes more about creating something that sells. Commerce tends to override the art side, and I guess now that we've been through a trial of fire and come out the other side, it's something we're really trying to do - make something good - because who knows how long any of us are on this block of rock for.
What was it that pushed you to part ways with your record label in 2011?
Mainly the security when they escorted us out of the building to be honest, that was awkward!
Partly as well, what happened was there was a lot of politics, which happens for a lot of bands actually - we've seen it happen time and time again - so we do consider ourselves very lucky but there's a time when the chap who signs you decides to allocate a lot of the money to your marketing campaign, ends up leaving for whatever reason and whoever comes in next - you're not his priority - they've got their own agenda, and they want that money to go to somewhere else. So in part we were about two years late with the album. We were not enjoying the pressures of having to write a successful, money-spinning record, so that was a big part of it. By the time the album got released there was no marketing budget assigned to it, so it was only gonna go one way.
You're now on your own record label and are set to release an album next year - how have you found that whole process?
It's been incredibly liberating I'd say, and with that comes an element of fear, because there is that fear of failure as it's something new, and I guess with the fact we have a lot of control we also have a lot more responsibility over it so I think that really puts the band in the driver's seat, and that's where they should be really, because it's your music and you should be able to stand or fall by it. I think there's always so many others factors in labels that often get in the way of people actually hearing the music, so doing it this way - we're asking fans to give us some money in order to promote the album, hugely through Facebook. They're only actually able to hear one track which we're sending them, and that's all via our website at thehoosiers.com and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't tell you that!
What can you tell us about the new album?
It feels like a progression from the first album, so I'd say fans of that won't be disappointed, and we're still really moved by large melodies. The fact that what we've been through - there's a lot more life experience lyrically and the album just feels like it has a more confident swagger, I'd say it comes close to aggressive at points.
Your lead single is 'Somewhere In The Distance', you're going to be integrating fans into the music video - how is that going to work?
At the moment we're requesting anyone to send us their video excerpts - just upload them to Vine, or YouTube, or Twitter with #HOOSSITD - then what that's doing is, we're pulling all of those into our sister website which is called thenewsfromsomewhere.com, and it pulls in everyone's video clips. We're actually gonna compile the video ourselves and that'll incorporate the little bits that we've made as well as using everyone else's footage. It just seems to make sense that this entire campaign is the most collaborative marketing approach and collaborative album we've ever made. Even as we're selling the album, we're offering packages where people can come to the studio and actually play on it as well.
You're going to be touring the UK - what can fans expect from the live shows?
Well I don't want to let the cat out of the bag and say Justin Bieber will be supporting, but he definitely will be, as will The Rolling Stones, they're all confirmed! We're still trying to have some chats. But even if that doesn't happen, I think that fans are gonna be very satisfied, because something that we're very keen on is being able to give people their moneys worth. There's nothing worse than when you do pay up then you just get 12 new songs that you've never heard! So we've been really pleased with the few things we have, how well the new material's gone down and how it stands up with the other songs. It's something we've been looking forward to - having the three albums to choose from - we always like to play the radio songs people will know as well as some more obscure fan favourites - we always like a cheeky cover that sort of elaborates on someone else's song! So we've got something quite unusual in this set, as well as the fact we're all really focused on putting on a good show now that we've done this so long, we're all pretty comfortable in playing it. The last shows we've been doing over the last few months have just been some of the most exciting for us, and you feel it in the audience because no-one really knows what's gonna happen, and it often tends to involve Martin falling over, or several people climbing things, maybe setting fire to someone's trousers!
Is there anything else in the pipeline that you can share some details about?
With the time we've had off, everyone in the band has been involved in different projects as well. I know Al and Sam have been writing musicals, so this will be ongoing, as well as writing songs for other people. I've had a few tracks on the latest Freestylers album which I think has just come out, and have been acting - I curated a play at the beginning of the year that I put on with a writer called Yasmeen Khan, and that was about a boyband member having his life hijacked by a superfan, which was quite a lot of fun. So I think certainly as we do the band as well we're really keen on having a life outside it as well and so we kind of wanna try and keep these other fires burning, so I think they'll be some more in that artistic realm.
Third studio album 'The News From Nowhere' is released March 3 2014.