Us And Them: Vega4

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An Englishman, Irishman, New Zealander and a Canadian make their way into the nation’s capital. This is the not the start of a bad joke, but the beginning part of a story in which one of the indie planet’s hottest new bands spend years upon years constructing what could potentially be one of the most poppy, ambitious and life-inspired records this year. Most will have to wait until October to find out how so, but Gigwise were lucky enough to catch up with Vega4 front man Johnny McDaid in the very city the story began, finding out about Jacknife Lee-inspired egg throwing contests, nephews becoming Myspace stars and what exactly stimulated such a distinctive band name…

"One of us was reading a book one day, and it had the name ‘Vega’ and we sought of liked that idea, and the ‘4’ is to represent the four countries we’re from," states Johnny, clearing up that mind-boggling mystery. With an album out in a few months time and much single-work to precede it, Irishman Johnny, Canadian drummer Bryan McLellan, New Zealand guitarist Bruce Gainsford and English bassist Simon Walker certainly have a busy few months ahead. But other than their "unique" band name and multi-cultural band members, there is more, which stands Vega4 out from the crowd even further within the alternative music realm. "We have this thing called homework where the idea is to get each other say five to ten tracks a week from other artists, so we’re pulling in about fifteen to thirty new tracks each wee," says Johnny. One would think after nearly two decades of schooling, homework would be done and dusted never to return ever again, however if the concept of swapping an array of compact discs is involved, that sounds like a very cool bit of homework to us.

One week in which homework didn’t have a deadline was the week of South By South West, aka SXSW, the music festival to beat all music festivals that takes place every spring across the pond in Austin, Texas. Johnny excitingly reveals "It was amazing fun for us. We played the opening slot in two very big days, and they were great because Snow Patrol were headlining both, as well as The Magic Numbers, The Subways and Nine Black Alps." Not a bad line-up by any means, especially when you finish early with more than enough time to catch these very acts. "We went and hired some rickshaws so we went to a lot of parties there, saw some great bands, and it was just great to walk around and see all these different things."

Debut single ‘You And Me’ is without a doubt one of the highlight singles of this year, choc-full of fast Strokes guitars and a Killers-esque chorus, once it enters your head it seems like there’s no possible exit door. But that’s a good thing, and something Johnny and his band intended to do. "It’s quite playful and flippant, and we did it down at Garret’s house (the residence of super-duper producer Jacknife Lee) and when we finished it we kind of looked at each and thought ‘wow, that’s pretty special’." An exciting, uplifting single to kick off with, Vega4 appear to have both the suitable amount of charm and talent to go the distance, and an unfortunate lack of live dates in the past has made them itching to get on stages across the globe. "We haven’t toured very much recently because we’ve been making the record. It took us so long as we were in the rehearsal studio for two years while in a record deal we had to get out of, and there was a big legal case there, which took a year and half. So we’re dying to get out there and I think we’ll be doing our own tour in September which we’re so excited about."

There is no question that the way people listen to music today has changed dramatically in the past few years, and the iPod generation label that has been plastered on the current Western way is something Johnny feels very excited about. "I spent most of my money last year on iTunes. If at 3am in the morning I want to hear a record or one song I can go on and have it in thirty seconds, which is incredible. So what’s happening to music at the moment is so exciting." Staying on a similar subject, the wonderful world of Myspace has had a strange but extremely positive effect on Vega4. "We had a video on our Myspace page of my little nephew dancing, and it’s actually been featured on the home page this week, and I think it’s had like three hundred thousand downloads. It went insane, it was just him dancing to ‘You And Me’ on my sister’s camera phone." As Myspace continues to grow, Vega4 are more than happy to be known by some as ‘the ones with the song behind the little kid’.

Imagine having U2, Snow Patrol, Editors and Bloc Party as ‘people I’ve worked with’ on your CV as a record producer. This CV in fact belongs to Jacknife Lee, who can now happily add Vega4 to his star-studded list, and Johnny holds his band’s album producer in very high regard. "Nothing we’ve achieved would exist without Jacknife. He was kind of the ringmaster for it, and he forced us to redefine what it is we do." However the powerful persuasion of Snow Patrol’s third album was the original reason in Johnny’s decision to meet with Jacknife. "At first I didn’t know much about Garrett, but I was listening to 'Final Straw' and every time I heard it, new little production elements were coming in and out. So I was really interested to see what he was like as a producer, so I called him and we went for a meeting, and sat and listened to music all day." Not a bad meeting by any means, and so as the story continued, off went Jacknife and Vega4 into the studio to work on ‘You And Others’, hitting shelves in late October. "There’s a lot of organic stuff on the record, a lot of breathing, pulses, and table noises, and people walking down the street. That’s what Garrett is really interested in, that whole sonic landscape that exists around us," adds Johnny.

Still, a studio full of broken eggshells and yoke doesn’t sound like the ideal place to make a record, but as we’re about to learn it’s the weirdest things that help inspire the biggest records. "He would do odd things like throw food all the time. I remember one time I was doing the vocal for ‘Tearing Me Apart’, and I just couldn’t do it. I was thinking about every word too much. He said to me ‘do you want to throw some eggs?' So we went out to this field at 4am in the morning with twelve eggs and just started throwing them as far as we could. Then I came back in there, sang it top to bottom and it just worked. That’s the ability the man has."

If all goes to plan, ‘You And Others’ could be lining up next to ‘Final Straw’, ‘The Back Room’ and ‘How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb’ in years to come. But in Vega4’s eyes, it’s already there.