Irish Debut in Cyprus

Posted on 16th Apr 06 by Contributor | 0

Artist: Spinto Band
Author: Jason Golden

The Spinto Band have been jamming and recording music together since they were just innocent little kids. They have written" recorded and produced six albums" all made on their home recording setup. Due to much critical acclaim the band have recently signed to Bar/None records "home to Architecture in Helsinki" and their label debut "Nice and Nicely Done" is due out here in May.

Formed in Wilmington" Delaware The Spinto Band have steadily built up their reputation and fan base stateside and are currently touring around Europe winning over the people everywhere they play. With the buzz around the band growing daily" things are looking great for this bunch of youngsters. Comparisons to such quality bands as Pavement and Yo La Tango are appropriate but this is a band with their own rocking sound.

Spinto Band made there first visit to these shores this weekend and I for one have been eagerly waiting to see these indie"pop starlets in the flesh. Cyprus Avenue was the venue for the bands first Irish gig and what a gig it was. The band play with a youthful exuberance which is highly contagious and the crowd just lapped it up. I haven't seen another band this year play to such great quality"" I had been wondering how on earth they were going to play certain songs like "Crack the Whip" or "Japan Is an Island" to the standards I'm used to listening to on CD. They played flawlessly and yet not clinically. Everything just sounded amazingly fresh" The band begin the set with "So Kind" Stacy"" a perfect three minutes of pop which immediately has the crowd bobbing along. Nick Krill and Thomas Hughes share the lead vocals with the rest of the band frequently adding backing vocals and harmonies to the bands uplifting pop"rock tunes. By the time they get to "Crack the Whip" "three songs in" I begin to realise just how good this band is" You just can"t help but dance along" these guys are infectious. Onstage the whole band jumps around" dance and basically just have a lot of fun. The highlights of the set had to be "Oh Mandy"" "Brown Boxes" and "Japan Is an Island". "Oh Mandy" is a feel good summery gem of a song which is laden with mandolins and harmonies. "Brown Boxes" is a funky foot stomper complete with kazoo playing. My personal favourite was the bands performance of "Japan is an Island". I think this song shows the bands quirky nature perfectly" clever lyrics" Atari bleeps" harmonies" what a song.

By the end of the show the crowd are well and truly won over and the band are forced to do an encore with shouts of "go on the Spinto" raising the roof. The band show their appreciation by performing a second and third encore before leaving the stage. Everybody leaves with a smile on their face having witnessed a quality gig" maybe the best gig I"ve seen this year. Actually" definitely the best gig I"ve seen this year. Not since Fred has Cork witnessed such a fun" happy"go"lucky band. Go on the Spinto.

Interview

So Spinto band is not really well known here in Ireland. Can ya tell me a little about how the band started"
Nick: Well the band started off as friends really" well it was more that our parents were friends with each other. That's how we all met. We all had been acquiring instruments down the years" as presents or hand me downs from our parents. We had a bunch of games or hobbies and the band just became one of them. It just sort of took off from there" just recording in a basement studio that we sort of set up.

Ya is it true that ye have released seven albums now"
Thomas: Ya a bunch from when we were in school" we just print up ourselves and burn. It was just making albums of our own for friends and family" so the first six were not really on a large scale. On the weekends" we just brought everyone over and we would be recording songs. It would be like" "Hey" does anyone want to record a song"" and the kids would just go down there and maybe two hours later we would have something and we would put it on one of our natty little tapes. That was just something we did. We even made games out of it. One person would go down there and record the second track and another person would record the third track" until we've had eight tracks and that would be a song. We'd do stuff like that. The early albums were basically us having fun and finding our feet.

But the latest one has been given an official release" How has that gone down"
Thomas: Ya" ya it"s all going really well" it"s been pretty of fun. Its going to come out over here" I think at the end of May and it"s been out in the States since last year. The album seems be going down well all"round. Maybe it"s because of the Bar/None backing. I don't really know how it works" but there's a lot more press and a lot more people writing things about us on the internet.

So this is the first album with bar/none records" how different has been"
Nick: It"s great you know" I guess there is just more workers and it all makes for smoother operations for the band. Like when we need to print up discs we no longer need to spend a day in front of the computer burning discs. Since it has been released in so many different places our touring schedule has gone crazy.

Ya I see that ye are touring Europe for the next few months"
Thomas: Ya that"s pretty fun. Then we go back and tour the states. Things are busy.

What"s it like on the road" I mean six lads out on the road together how do ye keep entertained" do ye ever fight"
Nick: Ya well sometimes. Really we just bicker" ya know petty squabbles. There are a lot of late nights. We just got some videos for the van to keep us occupied" we got Alien vs. Predator and a Ricky Gervais stand up show Animals. He"s cool. So we"ve been keeping ourselves entertained" doing a lot of sudoku. Have you tried killer sudoku" its killer for a reason.

Does everyone in the band bring their own thing to the bands sound or are ye all into the same kind of music"
Jon: I think we all bring differences to the band but we"re all happy with the way the songs turn out.

What have ye got planed for the next few months"
Nick: Well we"re touring a lot here. We"re pretty much in Europe until the end of May and then we go back home and tour the states in June.

Is this the first time in Europe"
Nick: Well we played a gig in Stockholm before and a few in England and Scotland but this is our first time doing a full tour here. It"s our first time in Ireland.

What has the reception been over here compared to back home"
Thomas: Pretty good" its fun. We"re at the stage where we"re gaining fans and trying to win people over. But in the states we have built up a bit of a fan base so it"s interesting to do that over here now.