jj72

Rapildy making a name for themselves are Ireland's JJ72, avoiding the attempts to label them as Manic Nouveau and crashing into the charts with the track Oxygen. Ink got a chance to talk to them before they head for the city to play the Lomax, and - across a telephone - singer Mark answered our darkest questions:

First gig you went to?

Shit, I can't remember… there were a glut of them. It might have been the Bluetones. Most of the interesting bands play the Olympia.

First record you bought?

Thriller by Michael Jackson. Do I still like him? Yeah, I heard one of his tracks on the radio - Man in the Mirror - and it sounded class. He's a fucking freak, but still cool.

Whats the most embarrassing record in your collection?

There's nothing too bad - nothing I'd be embarrassed of, but someone else looking through my collection may go "whats an A-Ha record doing here?" But I still like them. That guy Morten's had an amazing voice. Still does, actually.

Worst Hairstyle you had?

Probably a few. Sometimes I tend to cut my own hair. When I was about 15, it was long and not too bad. Then one night I freaked out and cut it. Its fair to say it was jagged.

If you had a gun, who should be worried?

Oh, my god. A lot of people, but no-one in particular. Oh, I know, some guy in a band we played with in Belfast hated me simply because I was in the band. I hate people like that - people who you go out your way to be nice to but are still just pricks, basically.

Whats your favourite fantasy?

As a kid, it was for it to snow all the time, funnily enough. Or be on Top of the Pops. I started watching Top of the Pops at such an early age, there are just so many moments I made me go "I want to be on that stage…" - Pet Shop Boys doing Always on My Mind, Find Young Cannibals, bands like that…

Whats your worst fashion disaster?

(long pause) um…

You could just tell us you're always impeccably turned out…

But I'm not. But my fashion disasters are always momentary. And of their time. For example, I did wear a terrible pair of flares about four years ago. But I was sixteen. Everyone makes mistakes when they're sixteen.

Which cartoon character do you identify with most, and why?

Mr. Burns. I don't know why. He's a top character, maybe that’s it. Or am I the control freak of the band? Yeah, it could be that.

Are you looking forward to playing Liverpool?

I am., simply because Liverpool IS Dublin. There's some buzz in the air, something so Irish about the feel. Playing Liverpool is brilliant, we've played there a couple of times, and it’s the only place we go to on tour where we want to go and walk round before the gig. It's not aesthetically one hundred percent perfect, but theres just something about walking round the city.

Whats the biggest misconception about JJ72?

That we're unhappy, that its all angst. We get on stage, we're rock and roll, and on our records we're proper musicians, but people just expect us to be miserable. People miss the humour in what we're doing. Even getting on stage with a guitar is basically ridiculous… But everyone thinks we're just about teenage angst.

What do you make of the whole Napster thing?

I don’t know much about it. My problem is that I don’t think far enough ahead. I’d like to get a lot of people to hear the music; but it'd also be nice to make some money. If it means a lot of people hear us, that has to be good. I just hope we get some money in the long run…

What song sums up the essence of JJ72?

October Swimmer. Because the lyrics are so ridiculous. They just sum up the way the band is. We're going to cut through everything - we're going to get on Top of the Pops.

That said, it was time for Mark to get nagged at by some other Joe Schmoe regional journo. Less than two weeks later, however, the band did appear on TOTP. Such is the power of an interview with Ink. We're still working on the snow.