Amazingly for a band's first article, this one's a bit of an anthology. Riser are a young, twenty-something alt-rock band, based in Birmingham, formed during the summer months of 1999. These days they're a lean, tight-knit trio, specialising in a rather tasty brand of US college rock-influenced power pop. When the first part of this interview took place however, back in late Autumn 1999, they were an even younger four piece - comprising Rich on vocals/guitar, guitarist Mike B, bassist Mike H and drummer Toby - just starting out. By this stage, they had not yet come up with the Riser name, and were languishing under the appalling moniker of The Lunatic Express.



A few weeks prior to the interview they'd recorded their first demo. Whilst, by the band's own admission, the demo was far from fantastic, it definitely showed promise amongst the four tracks - Point Of View, One Right Word, Silently and Comatose. With a small buzz beginning to spread, I was dispatched by the local uni newspaper to interview the lads. Hastily arranged the night before, the interview was set for Saturday afternoon, down at the band's local, The Gunbarrels in the Selly Oak suburb of the city. However, this location proved useless, as the noise of fans watching the footie on the pub's big screen TV and Stereophonics being blasted out of the jukebox meant that my dictaphone picked up nothing.

After a few more pints (well, it would've been wrong to waste our visit to the pub), we went over to the nearby guild building and did the interview down in the basement. The band were buzzing about the very idea of doing their first interview, which meant that their concentration of the task in hand was limited. This concentration was shortened further by the presence of a life-size cardboard cut-out of page-three model Jordan in the room. Ah, well. Who said interviewing was easy?



RIGHT, HOW DID THE BAND GET TOGETHER?



R: Actually, three of us met in our halls of residence at uni. Toby joined later

Toby: Yeah, I'm the outsider.



THE DRUMMER WENT AS WELL, DIDN'T HE?

R: Woody, yeah. He was a “character.”

MB: Excellent flamenco timing (laughter). Very good at flamenco.

T: Great. Our first interview, this is all getting written down, and all you're going to do is in-jokes.



And in jokes we get, as this opens the floodgates for a loads of really poor 'drummer jokes' which, bizarrely turns into a free for all discussion on the signature hairstyle of the 80s spandex-rock hero; the Mullet.



MB: Only Richard has the potential to grow one. He seems quite adept at growing his hair into a mullet.

R: [Deadpan] I've always thought that mullets were very important in rock bands, especially for the frontman.



MOVING AWAY FROM THE BILLY RAY CYRUS SCHOOL OF ROCK HAIR, HOW DID YOU MEET UP WITH TOBY?



R: I knew Toby from my course.

MB: Lies. We walked past him in a gutter and just picked him up.

T: [Ignoring MB] we were going to form another band, which never happened, and then we formed this band.

R: Yeah, originally we were going to be like a punk three-piece.

T: Who was the third?

R: [Points at MH] Him.

T: Oh, I never knew that.

MH: You never knew that?

R: Then we got the other Mike and became stadium rock! No, we were going to just be a three-piece, then I got drunk at a guild club night and invited him to join (laughs). No regrets.



SO WHAT WOULD YOU SAY THE BAND'S INFLUENCES ARE?



MB: Richard's are Lemonheads...Green Day, The Beatles and, er, Pink Floyd.

R: Jeff Buckley?

T: Oh yeah, I like a bit of Jeff Buckley.

R: On the demo, I think Point Of View sounds kinda like the Foo’s, with that sort of straight-ahead US college rock sound, but One Right Word is more ‘Lemonheadsy’.



WHAT DO YOU WANT THIS BAND TO BECOME?



MB: I want to be Jimi Hendrix.

T: I don't really know.

MH: I'll take rich and/or famous. But rich mainly. I'm not bothered about the fame. It'd be great if I could eventually get paid for what I enjoy doing.

R: I just want to impress people every time we get onstage.



IS THERE ONE BAND YOU WOULD LIKE TO EMULATE?



R: Yes, Westlife.

MB: Why imitate? Innovate [no laughter this time, just groans].



ER, RIGHT. TELL US ABOUT THE NEW MATERIAL YOU'VE BEEN WORKING ON?



R: It’s ace.



DO YOU FEEL THE MUSIC HAS ANY DISTINCT MESSAGE?



R: No. Well not until you play it backwards & at half speed…

MB: [to rich] All your songs are about how much you hate women.



SO, WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELVES IN THE FUTURE?



MB: Rich'll probably be dead of a drugs overdose. I'll follow the Def Leppard example, and become rock's first one-handed guitarist, y'know, playing with my foot...

T: He won't have lost his arm in an accident. It'll just be him being lazy.

MB: ...and Mike will be the first bass player to use his head to play his bass.

R: And I'll be the first dead singer...

MH: ...who can still sing.



Thus, the interview rattles to a somewhat surreal conclusion. It is followed by an even more ludicrous conversation, as Mike B tries to convince us that the name 'Mike Hunt' is nowhere near as bad as the name 'Duane Pipe'. The rest of the band seem singularly unconvinced. Disagreements like this were obviously the sign of things to come.



Fast forward eleven months, and it's a different story. Mike B has departed from the band, who in turn have ditched The Lunatic Express in favour of the more sensible Riser. The band have managed to get a track on an indie label compilation CD, and the future is looking grand. Obviously, its time to get frontman Rich on the phone to find out what's going on...



SO, MIKE'S OUT THEN



R: Yeah. I'm not sure if he knows he's out, 'cos we haven't spoken in a while, but I'm in no hurry to get in touch with him again.



WHAT WAS THE REASON BEHIND HIS LEAVING?



R: Well, there was always a bit of tension, but the final straw came just before Easter. We'd

got a gig at the Flapper & Firkin in Birmingham, and it had been lined up months in advance. Then with about a week to go, Mike just turned around and said, 'Sorry, I can't do the gig next week', claiming to have personal problems. Well, we were left high and dry, and ended up having to do the gig as a three piece, with me covering all the guitar parts. The irony was, it was one of our best ever gigs, and it went so well, we just decided to continue, without Mike, as a three piece, like we'd originally intended.



SO APART FROM LINE-UP CHANGES, WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO THIS YEAR?



R: Well, we got another demo done. It's much, much better than the first. It's got better songs on it, and it's better recorded, and it just gives a far better impression of what we're like as a band. It's also had some decent industry interest. A couple of record companies approached us. One offered us a development deal, which was great, but, financially, it wasn't really an option. Then I came back from uni, and there was a letter on my doormat from 25 Records, and the first line went something like, "I listened to your demo and thought it was brilliant", which was fantastic. The end result is that we've now got one song off the demo being included on the forthcoming 25 Records compilation CD.



THERE'S ALSO THE SMALL MATTER OF A NAME CHANGE.



R: Yeah, well Lunatic Express was a fucking awful name. It came from the title of some book Mike saw in a second-hand bookshop, but it's dreadful. Riser was just a name that I'd always thought would make a good band name. So I decided to use it. Simple. Mind you, anything's better than Lunatic Express...



SO WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?



R: Well, so far, it's just been nice to get a bit of industry recognition, but now we've got to follow that up. We're hoping to go back into the studio before Christmas, to do a bit more recording, and then we'll take it from there. I want us to try and get a bit more of a profile on the Birmingham scene, y'know, build up a reputation. I'm really pleased with the new songs we've written, though. We may also get a new guitarist, but trust me; I'm in no rush...



Words - Rik Moore