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New Generation Superstars: Rock´n´Roll heroes from Sherwood Forest

Another band that struck us at Mama Trash Fest this year was the British Act New Generation Superstars, who really kicked some asses at their show at Nosturi Club. We met the guys before the show backstage – although according to them, backstage is not quite the place where the party is happening. If you want to find out more, and where the REAL party goes on, just continue reading...


Hey guys, how are you doing? Did you have a good Party yesterday; you already arrived two days ago here, right?
Davey: Yeah, we have been drinking
AJ: Got here on Thursday, landed on the airport, got straight into the taxi, straight to the hotel, through the bags through the door, straight up to Gloria!

So you had quite nice party then?
Davey: Yeah we got drunk
AJ: Yeah you know it´s very easy – everybody here is so friendly, that makes it easy

So you enjoy being back in Finland then?
All: Yeah
Davey: We love Finland its great!
AJ: It´s our third time here, in less then two years so…

Yeah you are quite a lot here. Can you tell us something about NGS-Band History how did you meet each other and start the band?
AJ: I guess the fairest way to go is - we´ve all been friends for a long time, we have all at some point played in other bands with each other, and it got to the point where we just thought “let´s form a band” and basically that´s what happens when you form a band; for several years on it´s just looking that way, and this is where we are now, we´re all friends and it´s going on pretty well.
Davey: We get to play in front of lot of people who wanna listen to us
Tony: Well, they paid for it so I guess they wanna listen to us

And how long have you been playing together?
Chris: Four and a half years, is that right?
All: Yes!

You have been to Finland already many times, what do you enjoy most here?
Davey: The People
AJ: The People, are just fantastic. They love rock’n’roll.

Is it different to England?
All: Yeah
Tony: Yeah at some place of UK, they are not friendly, in some places they treat the band as if they are very stupid
Chris: People seem to be almost to cool for it in England, there´s a lot of different scenes, but over here everyone is interested in music and wants to say hello.
Davey: And drink! (laughter)


If you compare the Rock Scene in UK and in Finland what would you say is good what is bad thing on both sides?
AJ: It´s kind of funny mix, last year when Jo put us on the bill, we where worried because, you know, “in Finland there is lot of Black Metal, Goth Metal and we are not like that, we are a Rock’n’Roll band and we gotta go down”, you know. But anyway we have to come over and we have to do it, and afterwards when we finished playing - we do what we always do, through the kits in the room, straight down and say hi to people, and the response was, you know, every one was like: “Oh, we loved it, it was nice, a little bit different to everything else here! And it´s cool, It´s just nice we just fell in love with it.” We played, a Rock’n’Roll Band, it´s blown us away that we are where we are and that the people are into what we do, and it´s just … you can’t believe it!
Davey: We get the same from both countries, to answer your question.
Chris: I think that the scene in Finland for Rock’n’Roll and Alternative Music is more popular than in England, you know, it´s like in the mainstream, isn’t it?

Really? Because everyone would think that England also has a good scene?
Chris: No, it´s popular in England but…
Tony: This sort of festival would never survive in England...
AJ: Scandinavia is definitely the Rock’n’Roll Capital of the World, absolutely, definitely
Tony: You´d have to have some major major bands on festivals in England…
Chris: ...because bands always come over to play in England, I think people are a bit spoiled of the choice in England, there is always so much music, every City has lots of venues and there is always another band coming for every day, so people get not just to a show they really have to wanna go. That I like in Finland people always come out to the clubs...

I saw you last year at Trash Fest and you really had a great response here, after you finished almost no-one was staying in front of the stage any more because they wanted to say hi to you outside.
Chris: It was our first time and we where the first band on that Friday Night.
Davey: People just made us feel welcome!


You play most of your shows here and in Sweden with the Swedish Band Violent Divine, how come?
AJ: The one’s we where supposed to play to in Sweden got cancelled, which is a bit of shame. The Swedes are very lovely people again, but if they don’t know the band, but it´s like the UK as well, it´s like how we gonna sell tickets and who´s gonna come to the show and maybe nobody will come - but we gonna rock and move on with the show and its like:”Uhh mhhh mhh!”And we where supposed to do some shows with a band from San Francisco called Vain, and the venues booked the shows on them, they were a big band in late 80s, early 90s, so we work with them, but we´re definitely coming back here. When we finish playing we go back to UK and then we do a UK Tour with Violent Divine from Sweden and Vanity Ink from Finland so hopefully later in the year we gonna play some shows in Sweden with Violent Divine and then we’ll be back in Finland to play some shows with Vanity Ink.

Would you say that between your bands there is a special Friendship?
Chris: Yeah we help each other, well I mean its good to make friends in Bands and Help people cause some Bands don’t wanna hang out but we wanna hang out with everyone, they helped us by having a shows over here so we have done the same in England, so it means we can come and tour in Finland so they have the contacts in Finland to do it and we have the contacts in England. I am sure when time goes by there will be more bands we will bring to England and we will go to visit other countries as well

So I am sure as you know each other so well, you have a special story to tell about the touring with Violent Divine?
(laughter)
Davey: well, no further statement...
AJ: … all that stays on our own...
Tony: cause we do wanna do some more shows with them so…
All: Yeah! (laughter)
AJ: The first night here, where we played at Semifinal, we had a great night, and then we went off to Bar Loose and then down to Backstage Bar and - to cut a long story short, it got really late and then the guys went back and me and Gus from Violent Divine we hang out at an after show Party and we were very drunk already, we’ve been drinking all day all night, and so we jumped into this Taxi and we drove and we where laughing and joking and then the buildings are getting smaller .. the roads are getting smaller, and we are going further and further and we where looking at each other like ”Where are we going?” and we ended about 40 Minutes later in the middle of nowhere in this apartment block and this guy´s apartment he was like: ”Now it´s time to get fucked!” and turned on the stereo with Type O Negative - it was shaking the building.
Davey: That’s really scary!
AJ: It got really messy and this guy was going like. ”I like KKL!” and I’m like yeah its pretty fucked up and he was like: ”I’m pretty fucked up!” I was like: ”Gus it’s time to go!” It was pretty cool - what time did we got back to the hotel- like 9.30 in the morning, we never talked about this night!


Do you already have plans for a new record?
Chris: We just released “´Raising the Stakes“, our second album, it came out at the end of last year in UK, so we do a lot of touring over in the UK with Bands we mentioned earlier and a guy called Ricky Warwick, he was in The Almighty and in some other bands from States, but we’ve got a single which is called “Nothing to Lose” which comes out on Monday which coincides with coming here, and then doing the Tour, we got the single out as video on YouTube and you can get it on iTunes and everything like that. Obviously that’s what we are promoting right now, but we keep writing songs all the time and we´ll go into studio at the end of the tour.

So the plans for this year are mainly touring?
Chris: Yeah, mainly touring and I think we will be recording later in that year!
Tony: End of the year...
Chris: But it´s still so fresh with “Raising the Stakes” just coming out and we’re still plodding away, promoting it
Davey: ... working hard!

I know some of your fans here from Finland who are travelling quite far just to see you guys, what do you think about fans like this who spend their last money for seeing you guys live in UK?
Davey: They are fantastic!
Chris: It’s amazing
AJ: That was the sweetest, sweetest nice surprise! I didn’t even know!
Others No, we didn’t know!
AJ: and when we came out on stage, they write these funny signs and these funny pictures and they took them down before we came on stage and then we came out and they where there and I was just like: “Man this is …. (makes a face of total astonishment)!” It still blows me away….
Davey: Crazy Finnish fuckers! (laughter)
AJ: People come to Finland to see us, they come to states to see us - it´s just mindblowing that people like us enough to come that far to see us, so…
Chris: I really appreciate people like that, I know its cliché but it makes the band what they are! You know having people who support you and do things like that -they tell their friends and they tell their friends and when we came back you know people came out to the shows! That was very exciting!


Yeah they bring always some more people along!
AJ: The thing is - it´s not hard to make a little effort, make a little effort and it goes a long way - people appreciate the fact that you got time to go and talk to them
Chris: That’s part of it - not just playing the show, it´s who you gonna meet, hanging out and seeing new people – that´s what the excitement is about. I never understood, you know, when you like a band – when you´re young you wanna wait outside to get an autograph or something...
Davey: You wanna hang out and meet people

That’s cool, cause not many bands are doing that
Chris: The party is always at the front at the bar with everyone from the crowd, it´s not backstage!
AJ: Last year when we where at Gloria, we didn’t know, we just do what we do, play and then we got down, laughing and joking, these guys from other bands where like “wow those guys got all the girls” and we where like:” yeah! Cause we are out there and you are all in here, so if you want the girls you gonna come out and gather.
Davey: We don’t do that!
AJ: Noooo, we don’t! (laughter)
Davey: It’s all coming out!
AJ: We are nice boys!

When you started making music, was there a band you thought like: ” Ah I want to hang out with him/her or so?”
Chris: It´s been a lot when I was younger, I think that´s the case with any bands you´re into when you are younger. I used to go to Rock City in Nottingham where I´m from, that´s a really big venue in England; when I was like 13 years old, me and my brother were waiting in the back, to meet all the bands who came through and we were really into, yeah I think that’s one of the reasons why we are the way we are! Bands who took the time you really remember, even if it’s a band you don’t listen to it now, yeah that’s really exiting.

Which band was it?
Chris: My God, the big guy I remember was Bruce Dickinson? From Iron Maiden meeting him - he was really cool
Tony: I think we got a few Bruce Dickinson stories
Chris: Oh yeah he played us on his radio show as well.
Davey: Rick Warwick from the Almighty – and he played on stage with us...
AJ: Yeah KISS, the legends - I was SHAKING - was it on the Lick it Up tour? I got Eric Carr´s autograph and Gene, and Paul …. who was playing guitar?
Tony: Vinnie Vincent
AJ: yeah I got all their autographs - it´s just, yeah, these guys are the biggest band in the world, and they just have said Hello! (laughter)

So you guys are from Nottingham - if I went there what should I surely check out?
Chris: I say Sherwood Forest but it´s not always cracked up to be.
Davey: It’s a wood!
Chris: Yeah (laughs) it is!
Davey: Lots of trees! (laughter)


Isn’t there a Robin Hood statue?
Davey: Yeah there is a Robin Hood Statue every time you see pictures online they do a dirty pose with Robin Hood, he´s standing there...
AJ: Oldest Pub in the World!
Davey: And there´s a cave... it got caves underneath
Chris: And there´s a furnace which is great
AJ: ..including the toilet and the bar, it is as big as this room (laughter) but it´s a cool place to see, and then we got Rock City, which is a famous Rockclub in town. There is a lot to do there.

How did you guys become member of the Mama Trash Family?
Chris: Our manager Shelley, she did a lot work alongside Jo with The 69 Eyes, so they met by doing things like that and then when she was putting on Trash Fest she said “Hey do you boys wanna come out and play?” So it came from there, really, we played with The 69 Eyes as well back in England you know, I was like you know someone who knows someone, she gave us support and we got on the Mama Trash Artist CD, which is amazing support she has given us. It’s just unbelievable
Davey: We love Mama!
Chris: We are really grateful for all the things she is doing for us!

So you also get a lot of response from US through her?
Chris: Yeah, we do notice, via Myspace and Facebook and people who write you that they saw us on tour, they send us a message and we get back in Touch, so yeah we do get quite good response. With the band Violent Divine we´re in the same Circle as well, you know, all the Mama Trash bands, they seem to share the fans, so we picked up a lot of new fans from there, too
Davey: Mama is the star and we are the Band!

Do you have some final words for the readers?
Davey: Stay fucking mental! (everybody laughs) What do you wanna say...(to AJ)
AJ: I’d love to start at the beginning of my life story …
Chris: Come if you see us at the bar, come say hello!
AJ: I mean if we go down half as good as last year, it would be pretty fantastic. If we can build our fanbase and just be able to come back and back and back because people here are fanatical - not so about us but about music and the reason why we are in a band is because we love music - and it makes sense.
Chris: Just Thank you to everyone, the fans who come out. Thank you.

You wanna say something ,Tony?
Tony: NO (all laugh) I am just the bass player stand at the back anyway! (Everybody laughs even harder)

Thanks guys for your interview
All: Thanks!

www.newgenrocks.com
www.myspace.com/newgenrocks



Author: Sandy Mahrer, photos: NGS, Klaudia Weber
Date: 2010-04-15

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