By Michelle Osborne
They call themselves the “brat pack” of the British pop scene.
Menswear, the band dubbed as an overnight success, is set to launch their debut album Nuisance in North America early next month. Their first single, “I’ll Manage Somehow,” went straight to the top of the charts in the U.K., and is expected to do the same in Canada. The group is a product of a great deal of networking, according to lead singer Johnny Dean.
“After our third performance, we were offered just about every label there is,” says Dean. “What you have to do now is network shamelessly, and you have to know all the right people. You’ve got to get noticed.”
Noticed they were, thanks to 17-year-old guitarist Chris Gentry. “He’s young and he’s shameless, and he could only drink two beers at the time,” says Dean. “He’d talk his way backstage at festivals and go up to record executives and say, ‘Hello, I’m Chris, and I’m in Menswear and we’re brilliant.”
The band is set to tour the U.K. with the Charlatans this fall, before starting up a world tour in 1996. They have already performed all over Europe and at the CMJ concert in New York. All the travelling has left the group with less than 10 days at home in the past six months.
“We’ve had to work hard because of all the hype,” says drummer Matt Everett. “So therefore, people who say we haven’t paid our dues, well, we’re paying them now,” he says. “You do get fed up in the band sometimes,” says bassist Stuart Black. “You kind of get too much of the same van, the same people, two or three weeks in a row. We’re sort of used to it now, though.”
The group’s quick rise to the top has been widely criticized by the British media, but takes it in stride. “We’ve had some good press and some bad,” says Black. “Just the fact that they are talking about us at all is good. If the London people are talking about us, we must be doing something right.”
The advances Menswear has made are surprising for such a young band. Early last year, Black and Gentry met up with the rest of the group, and after careful planning, decided to create their own pop sound. They don’t consider themselves part of the new Brit Pop wave.
“In the U.K., people tend to pigeon hole bands,” says Dean. “We’re going to be far more difficult than that.”
Their sound stems from a number of influences. “Every member of the band has got his own personal influences,” says Black. “Some of us don’t like the influences of the other members, and there are some very different styles of music. But the basic influences that everyone has are the Beatles and Velvet Underground.” Dislikes? “I definitely don’t like Hootie and the Blowfish,” says Everett. “They are the Antichrist.
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