INTERVIEW WITH A1 - II

Who : A1 band
About : Anglo Norwegian boy band from UK
Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A1_(band)

How it happened : Interview with A1
Interview Date: 27 September, 2001
Place: Le Meredian Hotel, Bahrain
Pic: Below.. Me with A1(plus a very unwanted hotel personnel of the hotel I interviewed those guys)

Nikhil Taneja(NT) : Recently, you won an award for the Best Album of The Year at the Disney Awards in London. How does it feel ?
Ben : That was great. When we win any awards, say awards for albums and stuff like that, are probably the ones that are most special. We have gone through the best haircut and silly things like that, so getting something for your music is actually really good. Umm…It’s actually quite interesting that it became best album of this year, when it was actually released last year. But that didn’t bother us, ‘cause we still got the Disney award. And it’s actually very special for us, because….I don’t know if you know, but we actually write the majority of our material…we wrote 10 songs for the first album, 11 songs for the second album. We have actually written sixty songs for the third album, but we have to try and cut down to 10 songs or 12 songs or whatever. So, well, we felt really really good and I don’t know if you or anybody else voted for us. But if you voted for us and you were in England at that time, thank you very much !

NT : According to you, how are you different from other bands ?
Mark : Well, I guess, you know, that the main difference that we mentioned in the last question as that we do a lot ourselves and I think, as far as pop bands go, we are the only band of our kind that , you know, does play everything live, does a lot of the producing, does a lot of the writing. Officially, in today’s age of pop music, not enough bands do play live, not enough bands do sing live, and that’s where we stand apart from other bands, and it’s very important to us. And I guess, that’s the main difference. You know, we are still essentially a pop band, we are not anything else…we are just a good pop band, that loves to take part in the other side of things. That’s the main focus for us. I guess, if you look at the past lot of pop bands, I think that makes us quite different.

NT : What is your inspiration for the songs you write ?
Christian : I think, a lot of times, we come up with things just somehow. We can be walking, and get a certain melody in our head. And every time we get a certain melody in our head, you know, when you get time next, you can put your ideas together and try to shape them into a song. I think, you take what you experience and you take what you see around you. It could be a movie that inspires you, or a story and a little bit of fiction and a little bit of fact from your own life and then you put it together and try to shape them into a song. You know, like any movie or any movie, that you have to put a little bit spice in the story, a little bit a truth in the story to make it look real.

NT : What response did you get after doing a cover version of A-Ha’s popular 80’s song ?
Mark : It’s quite funny, when a lot of our generation of fans, a lot of the kids have actually come up to us and said, ‘We just heard this song on the radio and it was a cover of your song, ‘Take On Me’. So we were like, ‘That’s the original !’. So obviously, what we set out to do, we achieve, because we thought that it was such a great song and a lot of kids in today’s generation haven’t really experienced that…which is the same case for a lot of great songs of the past. We don’t really have a habit of doing covers…it’s the only cover we’ve done as a single. But we just really thought that it would lift our careers from a certain point to another level, which is what we really wanted to do. And, you know, because it is nothing like a cover version for people to recognize it, because people can grasp the song instantly, since they have already heard it a few times. So, I think cover songs serve their purpose, and it did well for us, and after that, we got ourselves our first no.1, and after that, we went back to writing songs ourselves. So it did very well for us, and apparently, A-Ha really liked the version we did, something even I was surprised about, ‘cause a lot of A-Ha fans came up to us and said that they liked the version we did, because, you see, it is a very popular song from the 80s…a very very popular song from the 80s – it is a classic. So, I am glad we could be faithful to the original and not mess it up.

NT : Do any of you ever plan to go solo ?
Christian : I don’t think that would be for quite a while yet. I think we enjoy working together and you know, initially, before we joined the band, I think we all wanted to be solo. That’s what we were really going for. None of us really thought of being a band, especially a boy band. You know, we are into something related to music. When we met each other, though, i.e., when we came up together as a band, we realised quickly that we thought we have a special connection, that we write better songs together than we do single, and perform better than we do single, and so we bring out the best each other and so we have a really really really working collaboration. And we just love the music we make together. We enjoy each other’s company and we are going to stay that way for a long time. But, you know, maybe in the future, when we realise that we are too old to be a boy band ..
Ben : ..Paul’s already too old !
Christian : ..Paul’s already too old, but we thought..
Paul : I am 26, and I think by the time I want to finish, I should be over 30. Actually, I am thinking about getting married and having kids and stuff.
Christian : But, you know, one day in the future, maybe, we might to bring out our solo albums, ‘cause we do write a lot of songs individually.

NT : What are going to start on, when you get back ?
Christian : We are going to get on with the new stuff. Before we came, we were busy working on the new single, and it’s going really well. Our producer, who is being working with U2, Travis…he’s got so many artistes. So, together, when we work with him, we try to create a little bit of a different sound, definitely moving on from what we have been doing in the past. And I think that people won’t really be surprised by the new material that we have got, as it’s still essentially pop, though it’s got a slightly tougher and more interesting edge to it, ‘cause it’s a lot better than the, you know, the plastic pop that goes around. It’s got a bit more depth to it, which, I think, will give it a wider appeal. So, it’s going to be really exciting. So that’s what’s are next focus – finish the third album and start promoting stuff, and get to international stuff – start touring the world again !

NT : What inspired you to write, ‘My Girl’ ?
Ben : Well, it’s actually a very sad story for a kind of a loving song, really ! It was actually where the gir (makes a face as if he were crying) didn’t treat me very well. (Normal again) So I thought I would write a song to describe how I would like to be treated by a girl. So, that’s that basic story. …She was horrible, wasn’t she !!

NT : You guys write your own lyrics, play your own instruments and choreograph your own songs. Any regrets of not being able to do something ?
Mark : We don’t do our own catering, we don’t COOK, and that’s probably best we don’t do that – we don’t want to keep vomiting the whole night !! So we don’t do our own cooking. To be fair, we don’t we do all of our own choreography. Paul offers a lot of info on the current styles, ‘cause he is a wonderful dancer. But we have a lot of great choreographers who work with us. We are actually indirectly managing ourselves !!

NT : How long have you guys know each other now ?
Christian : It’s been 4 years now.
Ben : 4 years !! That’s long !!
Paul : 4 glorious years !
Mark : It’s been great ! We’ve been together for 4 years, and we’ve been releasing singles for 3 years now. It just goes by so quickly. It’d kinda nice being together, because it’s really important to have friendship, and our friendship has been going really well, ‘cause if it didn’t we wouldn’t have stuck it out this long ! I mean, the kind of pressure that you have on yourselves in these kind of bands, it’s good to have friendship, so that you can turn to each other for different things and stuff.

NT : How did you guys come together ?
Ben : That’s a very long and boring story…you really don’t want to know ! That’s really the question we get asked the most, everywhere we go. But basically, the short version is, we were all at Saints Breeze, and bumped into each other. Mark was at the check out, I was behind the meat counter, Paul…what were you doing ?
Paul : Inspecting shirts..
Ben : …Inspecting shirts, and Christian was actually the shop manager, and we all got together and thought, hey why not create a boy band, and that’s what we did.
Mark : Yup, and it was a Saints Breeze on the A1, which is a road in U.K. So we called _­ourselves A1, instead of Saints Breeze…Saints Breeze is kinda like a big supermarket. Actually, I want to give you the right answer, because we always give these joky answers and then, they get printed and that’s what everybody believes. The quick story is, basically, our manager wanted together a pop band, a boy band, so as to speak, but with a slight difference, so that everybody could sing to high standard, write to a standard, play musical instruments, etc. And, so they basically searched throughout the country, they went to music universities, they went to pretty much everywhere, and after three years, we have come forward. … I know Ben’s story is much better !!

NT : Your Japanese record company has given you your own cartoon series over there. Who thought of this concept and how well has it been received ?
Mark : Hunh…our own cartoons !
Ben : Yeah, well, when we were going over to Japan, early last year, they wanted to bring us in a slightly different way. They didn’t want to just bring another band that has arrived on the screen. So they actually created a cartoon, this was ethic in Japan, and partnered by Sony. And they made these cool cartoons, and they put every British caliche in the book, in there – red buses, bowler hats and James Bond. Christian’s from Norway and he loved it, he loved it !! And it was all in this one cartoon. It wasn’t a serial or anything like that, it was just a one-off special just to introduce people to us. We loved it…we thought it was hilarious ! But, uh…well, we would be quite embarrassed if anybody else saw it. But it was great ! We liked it ! And it served its purpose, and when we later went over there, all the CD front covers had red buses over there ! It was good…it was just a way to introduce ourselves to the Japanese audience, you know, because it was a lot of fun. And it worked…it was realty good !!