Inside a very striking metallic bluey/green tour bus behind the Electric Ballroom in Camden, Cormac Neeson from The Answer is sitting at a table with a friendly smile on his face, showing no signs of wear after spending the past two weeks on tour with The Union. With the release of the new album ‘The Revival’ which came out last October, and endless touring since, HTF went down to see just what the future holds for the band that never seems to stop. Cue the HTF entrance…
HTF: I’ve been in Camden for an hour and been offered three different types of drugs, have you experienced the same thing today?
C: Good Work. I’ve been offered plenty and I don’t think I’ve taken any in this moment of the day but I’m standing strong. There are some serious characters in Camden (laughs).
HTF: So the last time we spoke to you guys, you had just finished recording the new album ‘The Revival’ in the desert, and you told us you had a nice ‘Clint Eastwood swagger’ going on. Do you still have that swagger?
C: (Laughs) It depends on how much we’ve had to drink! I think the band in general has a bit of a swagger at the moment because we’re playing really well and we’re putting on a good live show. The material off the new album ‘The Revival’ is going down really well and things are very upbeat. The Answer can’t break now y’know we’re selling lots of tickets and we’re feeling good. We’re actually already thinking about writing album number four after this tour!
HTF: You’re headlining Steelhouse festival in Wales this year, that’s pretty exciting! How does it feel to be the band that once supported AD/DC and Whitesnake to now be the band headlining a festival?
C: Yeah well we’ve headlined a few in the past, not quite the same scale as an AC/DC tour but headliners nonetheless. I mean it’s always nice to be top of the bill because that’s where we want to be, and you kinda have the crowd on your side from the off. You still work hard but it’s not like trying to get blood from a stone y’know whenever you look down you see people singing your songs and getting into it and it makes our jobs much easier. We played a gig down there last October to a lot of good people so we’re looking forward to see some familiar faces.
HTF: Are you planning on playing any other festivals this year?
C: Well we’ve got quite lined up for this summer and more coming in as we speak. We’re doing a few in mainland Europe like Nova Rock in Austria, few in Holland, some in France and headlining one in Ireland. It’s gonna be a full calendar.
HTF: Where is your favourite place to play?
C: Funny just before this tour began we were in Tokyo and we did a lot of press. It was like our fourth time down there and I think that would be top of my list for places to go I love it down there. I just love the way rock audiences take down music and I always come home feeling good about the band.
HTF: So earlier you said you were going to bring out a new album, what decides when’s a good time to put out a new record? Is it something that happens quite spontaneously?
C: You just know yourself when you’re ready. The way we work is we quite like to have our songs ironed out and ready to go before we go to the studio; we don’t leave too much to chance. Some bands to writing on the spot there and then but we like to do that in the pre-production, so once we have 12-14 really good songs then that’s the time to book studio time.
HTF: When writing your songs, what comes first, the lyrics or the music?
C: It varies. I normally have a book of lyrics and I work on them in my own time just ready to go and then Paul comes into the studio with a riff that he’s written and I’ll have a look through the lyrics I’ve done and if not then I’ll start from scratch. Sometimes the music itself will inspire what the lyrics will pan out so there is no real fixed formula to it but it’s always nice to have a few lyrics in reserve.
HTF: I like to think that each member of a band has their own individual influences, what are your individual influences that you bring to the band?
C: Everybody brings their own piece of soul to the band y’know but I’d definitely like to stamp down that bluesy soulful side of things. I think my singing style and musical influence has land itself to that, y’know a bit of raw emotion. I’d definitely like to think I bring those sides of things to the table.
HTF: Did you always want to be in a rock band?
C: I went through phases you know, I was in my first band at 15 and we thought we were gonna take over the world…that didn’t quite happen. But since getting together with these guys when I was 18 they had my back since and I knew we had something special going on. Everybody could play and everybody could write a song, so I knew we had a shot.
HTF: if you weren’t playing music, what job would you like to do?
C: I have no idea; I really don’t know what I could do. I don’t even want to think about it.
HTF: What did you give up for lent?
C: Chocolate
HTF: Have you actually! How is that going?
C: Well I come from a good Catholic background in Northern Ireland y’know (laughs) but it’s going alright yeah. It was my birthday though last week and the boys got me a chocolate birthday cake so I had a sneaky slice on the side.
HTF: Who is your favourite up and coming artist/band at the moment?
C: Well I’m enjoying the band who’s supporting us on this tour ‘Skam’ they’re from Leicester so their playing really well and going down really well with the audience so they’d be top of my list right now.
HTF: What was the highlight of the last 12 months?
C: this tour is up there, this tour has been great. Lots of great audiences and it feels like a proper rock n roll tour going in the right direction. That and I suppose the completion of ‘The Revival’ that we feel is our best album to date y’know so it’s a special album. To have that finished and be able to listen back to it was very gratifying.
HTF: Are you booked to tour with any big names in the future?
C: Well our next focus is to get a bit of writing done for our next album which will lead us into festival season so I think after the end of September we’ll look at more tours because tours kinda shut down when festival season is going on so as far as playing with bands I wouldn’t roll anything out but we’ll just see what the future holds for The Answer.
HTF: What is your favourite movie?
C: Midnight Run with Robert De Nero. You should check it out, it’s a comedy. It’s great.
HTF: Thank you for talking to us! Is there any last words you wish to say to our readers at HTF?
C: Thanks for your support and keep listening to our albums and buying our music and we’ll see you somewhere along the road in the very near future!
Interviewer: Louisa Smith
