Interview - Brinkman

Brinkman were absolutely lovely, three cheerful, funny guys who were completely at ease with each other and with me in the room. They even left me a MySpace comment saying it was the best interview of the day. Aww. I often wonder what happened to the band because I've not heard a peep about them since; probably cast aside after the music industry, particularly the major labels, suffered financial woe. And that makes me sad.

Words - Suzy Sims
Previously published on Native.tv http://www.native.tv in August 2007
(c) Niche News & Publishing Ltd

BRINKMAN

This feels a bit like a job interview, or maybe an episode of The Apprentice. All three members of Brinkman are sat facing me across a large boardroom table at their record label’s HQ. “You’re fired!” they joke.

On the left is Neil Kerly, wisecracking drummer. Curly-haired singer Paul Cook is in the middle, and on the right is bearded bassist Tom Brown. Neil and Paul met in their mid-teens and bonded over a boxset from The Jam – little knowing they’d be supporting Paul Weller in the future - decided to form a band and have been working their way up since then. Tom is a relatively new recruit, having answered their ad in NME a couple of years ago. Their first gig was at Lennon’s Nightclub in Southampton, though they don’t remember too much as a late start meant one or two of them might have been drinking beforehand. Brinkman's music is cheerful indie pop and has been likened to the Kinks and the Beatles as well as securing them a touring spot with Travis. ‘Kirsten Dunst’, released on Label Fandango, picked up a bit of a cult following and the actress herself was ‘extremely flattered’ by the ode.

“It was a year ago literally last weekend that we signed to EMI,” remembers Neil. “It’s been a fruitful journey, let’s say.” Actually they’re signed to offshoot His Master's Voice, the famous label which was previously resurrected for Morrissey in the early 90s.

“We stormed in here and said: ‘We’ll only sign to you pencilpushers if we can have our own label.’ We didn’t even know it was His Master's Voice, we just wanted a dog on a gramophone,” says Paul.

“Stroke of luck really, wasn’t it?” Neil deadpans.

“They started going on about Morrissey, and we were just ‘Who is this Morrissey fellow? Just give us the dog on a gramophone.’ And that was it really,” says Paul. He pauses. “There’s more to it than that, obviously.”

So, likes and dislikes. I found a Brinkman press release from a few years ago and it said they like underdogs and mild cussing but don’t like avocado bathrooms –“Who does?” interrupts Neil. Paul throws his head back and laughs. Well I’ll keep that in the list of dislikes. But do you have anything else to add?

“You know when you’re sitting on the bus or public transport and people go through their ringtones? I really dislike that,” says Neil.

“Or playing actual songs. You get crap quality,” says Tom.

“I can’t make my mind up about anything. I like everything and I dislike everything,” says Paul.

“You like a Chicken Kiev on a Thursday,” prompts Neil.

“I like a Chicken Kiev, and I dislike the Enemy. I quite like Tom, and I dislike…”

“Me!” laughs Neil. “Brilliant.”

Now Brinkman all live and work in London - Tom moved from Bournemouth to join - but what’s the best thing about the city? Tom cites the multiculturalism before starting an argument with Neil over whether the answer is actually Crystal Palace or Tottenham Hotspur. “This is why (Paul) has to sit in the middle.”

“The red buses are the best thing about London for me,” says Tom.

“The clean air,” says Paul. The air you can chew on? Neil cracks up. “Black bogeys!”

If you could invent anything, what would it be? “Ahhh brilliant!” yells Neil. “An iron with a radio on it. Wouldn’t you buy that?” I don’t really iron. “If you ironed. Or a flashdrive so you could put your MP3s into it.”

“I don’t understand what you just said there,” says Tom. “What’s a flashdrive?”

“A memory stick. Put some songs on it. Put it in your iron. Listen to them while you iron.”

“While you iron? Why not turn the radio on?” Neil ignores Tom and professes his idea ‘brilliant’.

"Why is it every invention you come up with has to be built into a iron?” asks Paul.

“Isn’t that a great idea?” asks Neil, looking to me for support. Yes. “Thank you.”

“I had an idea last night,” begins Paul. “I’m not sure if it’s really an invention, but you tell me if this exists already, right. Obviously you call 999. Can you text the police?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I’ll tell you for why. Which is also the title of our album. You’re in bed. It’s summer so your window’s open. Someone climbs into your room –“

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” notes Tom.

“– and holds you at gunpoint and says ‘I’m going to rob your house and take everything, you just stay there in bed.’ If you get your phone and make a call, they’re going to hear you. If you’re under the covers and you’ve got your phone, they’re not going to know anything. You’re just going to text the police with robbery happening, your address…”

“What if they nick your phone?” asks Neil wickedly.

“Well, then you’re screwed.”

Neil has been shuffling and reading all the cards when he gets bored. He takes one and passes it to Tom. It’s about their brief TV episodes, which you can view on their website under 'Brinkman TV'.

“They’re quite amusing aren’t they,” says Paul, and someone – probably Neil – snorts. Is it a regular thing or is it a one-off when you get bored? “It was supposed to be a regular thing, but then we got bored!”

“Paul got burgled and he had his video nicked,” jokes Tom.

”He ran out of characters on his text!” says Neil.

“He didn’t have any credit!”

“We’d like to do it more,” says Paul, “but sometimes when you get the camera out and you stick it in someone’s face they just don’t feel like being funny, you know. And essentially that has to revolve around Neil. Neil is the epicentre of Brinkman humour.”

I did enjoy the dancing in the one I watched. “Choreographed, that was. I don’t know if you can tell.”

Earlier this year, Brinkman played a 14-date tour supporting Travis across the UK, which the band say was ‘brilliant,’ citing Travis’ fans relentless enthusiasm and the pleasure in playing to full houses as opposed to a ‘half-full Barfly.’ After these shows came a few with Paul Weller, who was playing warm-up gigs before his Glastonbury performance.

“We’re all big Paul Weller fans so it was quite an honour,” says Neil.

“But we had to pretend that we weren’t massive Paul Weller fans because the worse thing you can do is if he’d come over and introduced himself and we’d been like [gaping mouths].” finishes Tom.

“I was considering saying ‘You’re in my top five songwriters of all time,’ but then I thought about that a bit too much, and what if he hated one of the others,” says Paul. “There was an awkward moment where – I’m quite paranoid, so I don’t know if this is the way it actually happened or not – but when he first came over to me he went ‘Are you in Brinkman?’ and I was like ‘Yeah’ and I went ‘Paul’ as in my name and put my hand out, and he went ‘Paul Weller!’

"I’m not sure if he was just saying his name – it was all to do with the tone of the voice – or whether he was saying ‘No, not Paul. You will address me as Paul Weller, or Mr Weller, or The Guv’nor.’”

“Or The Modfather,” suggests Tom.

“Yeah. I don’t think he’d like that.”

What were the fans like, did you make a lot of new ones? “We did actually. I think equal amounts on both,” says Neil.

“It was quite eerie on the Paul Weller dates seeing how many Paul Weller clones there were in the audience,” says Tom. “There’s Paul Weller! There’s Paul Weller! Everyone dresses up exactly the same.”

“I think maybe the best Travis gig on the whole tour was Birmingham. We’ve played there a couple of times before and it’s just always been raining or cold, but the audience were just incredible. Two of these fans who were down the front for Travis turned up the last night of Paul Weller, with a ‘WE LOVE BRINKMAN’ banner which I took from them during the last song and held up just so everyone knew our name. But it was upside-down, so that helped,” says Paul.

As for their own gigs, Brinkman have just finished a residency at Water Rats in London. “It was supposed to be four nights in a row for a month and then the Paul Weller dates came up and other things so it got spread out all to nearly three months. It’s been good to have our own slot even if it was stretched out you get the chance to muck about and do different songs,” explains Tom. One of their shows saw support from The Disciplines, whose lead singer plays keyboards with REM and the previous night had been at the O2 Arena.

Are you playing any festivals this year? “We’re doing V Festival, which is our first festival, so naturally we’re very excited about that,” says Neil. “I think we’re mid-long in the day. Or thereabouts. Which is good ‘cause we can do our bit and then go and watch some other bands. If we haven’t got to rush off to Stafford that is.”

Who else is playing that you want to catch? “The Foo Fighters are playing on our day,” says Tom. “I haven’t seen them before and I think they’re one of those bands you’ve got to tick off, especially now they’re getting into one of those supergroups.”

“I want to hear the Foo Fighters do that Gillette advert one,” says Paul. “Love that one.” There’s giggling.

Have you got any festival tips or advice? “Wet Wipes, wellies…” begins Neil.

“The Three Ws!” exclaims Paul.

“Well that’s two. To be honest I haven’t done that many festivals.”

“Wet Wipes, wellies and waterproofs,” says Tom. “Nice!” says Neil.

“And wodka,” says Paul. “I’ve never been invited to a festival so I don’t know.” I don’t generally think they invite you, I think you’re meant to buy tickets. “Oh is that the way it works! I’ve never been,” he laughs.

‘Change It’ is the band’s most recent single. I ask what it’s about. “Do you want the long or short answer?” asks Paul. Neil requests the short one.

“It’s about when you get like a wrong perception of someone in the papers. It’s essentially about Pete Doherty, I suppose," says Paul. "I was quite a fan of him when he was in the Libertines. Everyone knew he was a bit of a tearaway but then when he started Babyshambles and the press really rounded on him and made him this figure, I couldn’t help but start believing some of that myself and start changing my opinion of him which was wrong.

“When me and Tom lived in Ealing last year I went out and I wasn’t feeling that confident about what I was wearing. The wind was really bad and I was wearing this flat cap and I was feeling quite conscious of it. I heard someone beep their horn and I looked across - it was Pete Doherty driving this old Jag and he just went [gives thumbs up] as if to okay what I was wearing. And I just sort of dumbly went [gives double thumbs up with daft puzzled face] back at him. And from then on I thought ‘Oh what a lovely guy.’ So I felt bad about potentially changing my opinion of him.”

“Going back to that one…” says Neil, and waves the Likes and Dislikes card. Pete Doherty is now added to the list of likes.

“And I dislike myself for maybe not liking him.”

“Oh this has all gone wrong!” says Neil.

They’ve been told they were ‘too nice’ during the making of the 'Change It' promo video. “I think the next video, if it’s like that, I’m just going to be a right git,” says Paul. “I heard a certain frontman – who I won’t mention – every few seconds of film he goes and checks. They run it by him and he has to go ‘No, do that again.’ So the director is redundant. I mean, you’ve got to have a certain amount of faith in the director.”

They produced the video to previous single ‘I Wish’ themselves, with a budget of £36.70, most of that probably going on the tea in the Thermos. “Neil wrote and directed it, me and Tom starred in it. Along with Neil. So that was great, really fun actually. We argued a little bit, but I think that’s natural when you’re in a band.”

“No it’s not,” says Tom.

Brinkman’s album was finished a couple of months ago. “Just got to wait for the right time to drop it,” says Neil.“Like it’s hot,” says Tom.Sadly hot is what it's not at the moment. It's time to step into the pouring rain and leave Brinkman to their boardroom chats about trance remixes, dogs on gramophones and Neil's guilty love of Wilson Phillips' 'Hold On' ("It’s a shockingly bad song, but a great song with it"). Perhaps they went to practice 'Return Of The Mack', which was recently given an airing on Dermot O'Leary's radio show...

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Brinkman release 'Change It' through His Master's Voice on 30th July. You can catch them at V Festival.

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