Long Live...The Ripps

Julian Casablancas. Kurt Cobain. Zack De La Rocha. Chakademus and Pliers? Some names where clearly created with a higher purpose in mind. Although The Ripps hail from Coventry, they have their own interpretation of the double barrel with brothers Patrick and Raul Lagunas. They should be running their own cartel, ruling shanty towns, commanding roaming militia, killing cops and delivering the odd severed head to the dance club floors as a polite reminder of just who's in charge. It could - and might - still happen. Does Coventry have favelas?

So they aren’t drug running gangsters (not even of the wannabe variety) and the South American sprawl has been replaced with the ubiquitous Midlands, but that's not to say they haven’t dispensed with their lation roots, with Gloria Estefan and Ricky Martin are particular favourites. Hip shakers and pop diva's aside, The Ripps draw heavily on the punk aesthetic. Not afraid to speak their mind ("I hate Cristiano Ronaldo’s face, it irrationally annoys me...there are loads of bands we think are shit, too many to mention") their influences are well set with late 70's punk icons like The Ramones, Dead Kennedy's, Clash, Sex Pistols etc. prevalent in the band's mentality, with their name, much like the music, refusing to stand on ceremony.

"It’s a great name isn’t it?! We came up with it whilst brainstorming and it sounded the most late 70s punk name. The two 'p's' in the Ripps is purely an aesthetic thing. R.I.P is kinda depressing and we’re an extremely happy band," explains Patrick, The Ripps particularly effervescent front man. "The Dead Kennedys, The Rezillos, The Buzzcocks, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers were big influences, so a lot of late 70s punk. Before the band Rachel was into Gloria Estefan so we’ve saved her soul."

After a particularly heavy night, ("I can see a bottle of Vodka, a twenty deck of royals and a suspicious stain on the floor - probably from last nights party. It was very messy,") Patrick explains the virtues of keeping it in the band, if not the family. "Rachel's tried to pull both me and Raul..which is kinda weird. We’ve been together for three years now and we've known Rachel from school and the local scene. We’ve spent so much time together we know all of each other’s annoying habits. Raul is totally too laidback, Rachel is a knicker-wriggler and I’m too cool for my own good!"

"This time I dreamt that me, Rach and Raul had an orgy which was a bit weird. Incest is best so they say. I used to have a lot of dreams about zombies where all my family we’re dead and the only survivors were my mates and me. Town would be empty so we could skate anywhere and then we’d go and loot the virgin megastore in the precinct. The weird part was that we had guns. I dunno where we got em? But we went around kicking ass like Arnie in Commando. Even though everyone was dead we had an ace time blowing up zombies Dawn of the Dead style."