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“I think it’s because I’m a legend” declares Brian Henderson, The Dykeenies vociferous singer without hesitation leaning forward onto the table on Camden’s Hawley Arms rooftop- a well know haunt for the local Rock n’ Roll movers and shakers. He then grabs the dictaphone albeit upside down and starts lashing out reasons why he’s a ‘legend’, “I think it’s probably because I bust a mean move. A few people have tried to copy my moves over the years, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Michael Jackson but I told him to stop it because he’s a freak” he goes on much to the snickering amusement of the rest of the band but Steven cuts in. “That works well but a lot more people are finding out about it [The Dykeenies], you probably found out about it yourself,” he gestures towards Gigwise with his cigarette “word spread like a bad rash!”.
The talk begins to sound like those (in)famous first Razorlight interviews - full on, enthusiastic and earnest if gobby self belief so Gigwise asks what it that The Dykeenies have got that is makes them so different and so damn great compared to all the other bands cruising the scene but before the question even finishes on our lips Brian’s in again. “I know I said this before but I’m a legend…I’ve actually got it, like a vibe. We’ve also got three brothers [Brain, Alan- one of the two guitar players and bassist Andy), and the best songs that you’ll ever hear in your life” and the rest of the sentence about their other guitarist Steven Ramsay and drummer John Kerr is half mumbled and half laughed between the band.
Whilst this is all superficially fine and dandy it takes a little more digging to get a straight answer out of these lads. “We mix electronic keyboards with a lot of vocals and good melodies which a lot of bands seen to be missing these days. There is an awful lot of arty bands that are all about hype not riffs” Alan says as Andy continues “Our songs have meaning rather than being just about basic things”. Clearly this swagger is not entirely misplaced as they reveal that even the notorious London crowds react pretty well to their shows, shows which have had them hitting the ground running - take their first one in England’s fine capital, they played to a sold out Astoria with the Fratellis and as Brian says even if half the crowd didn’t like it the rest of them did, “It wasn’t like our first gig was at the Barfly and there was ten folks there, we already had two hundred odd folk coming to see us”.
Having said this though The Dykeenies have only played one headline show in London at the 100 Club so far and their own show on this current tour is on the 16th July at Islington Bar Academy which their frontman once more promises will be amazing because, yes you guessed it, he’s a ‘legend’. Their recent Liverpool gig was also their first headline one there too and was apparently the best night of the tour so far, and the titled of worst night is won hands down by Oldham. “I never want to go back to Oldham in my whole life!” shouts Andy loud and clear just to make sure everyone in the pub can hear. “Tell the people of Oldham that it’s not 1994 anymore!” John agrees.
After a some more rambling and gulping of drinks Gigwise brings it back to the question of their music and is told by Andy that the band’s epic sound derives from the variety of influences they were all brought up on- “We got brought up on a massive variation of music so there isn’t an influence that we could pin and say we wanted to sound like that”. Alan goes on to say “Everyone in the band was fuelled by bands that had big singles and we just love music, it doesn’t really matter who the band is if it’s a good song it’s a good song” as Brian having been unusually quite for the past few minute pipes up again- “We’re trying to get a balance between them. We don’t want to go Mika!”.
Alternative ‘pop’ seems to be The Dykeenies thing rather than the ‘art songs’ they disdainfully label as being the cool and standard sound but having said that their own influences stretch from Nat King Cole to Oasis to Blur- all popular and cool in their own time (hopefully Girls Aloud and the Spice Girls are thrown in there for a joke).”Good music deserves to be listened to” Brian continues “and bands like The Enemy are brilliant bands, but I can’t stand the singer, he makes me want to eat babies! But I think their songs are just amazing…who would you rather have bands like The Enemy on the radio or fucking Westlife? I know which I’d choose!”
As the conversation descends into entertaining bickering about which of the now bands are the best (Kate Nash is generally agreed on as being one of the best live acts as are The Maccabees, The Feeling is loved by one and The View by another - the rest reckon they’re like watching The Libertines) and Brian still banging on about being a legend Gigwise departs. At worst they are arrogant, at best they’re confident chancers with great conviction in their music even if it is ‘pop’ and for that reason it’s going to be worth keeping an eye on their single ‘Clean Up Your Eyes’ (out this week on Lavolta Records) to see if they really are the next big thing.
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