Godzilla riffs, no self pity: if My Alamo had a manifesto, it might go something like this.
From the boho Birmingham quarter of Mosley, the four-piece consciously absent themselves from the emo scrimmage, drawing inspiration instead from the more nuanced ennui of bands such Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails.
“For me, emo means whining American kids who hate their parents for no good reason, whereas I hope My Alamo aspire to something a little deeper,” explains frontman Zach Beckett. Listen carefully, he says, and, amid the faux-grunge riffola and shrieked vocals, you may detect trace elements of political invective.
“We aspire to big themes,” he says. “Politics, loss, the state of the world. Nothing’s off limits.”
Even the name ‘My Alamo’ has a political undertow, he reveals.
“The Alamo is such a huge national myth for Americans. It embodies what they regard as their heroic struggle in the face of overwhelming odds. They’ve got their Alamo – well, why can’t we have ours? They haven’t got a monopoly on struggle. We’re claiming the Alamo back.”
Nor, as their two single releases to date demonstrate, are they averse to old-fashioned pop values. Smoky-voiced crooner James Morrison – another Mosley graduate – is a mate; in the studio, My Alamo take a strict stand on songwriting: strip the music of its sturm und drang and it should still stand up.
“We’d like to think that you could play our songs on an acoustic guitar. The bands we are inspired by, such as Nirvana and Foo Fighters were, and are, great songwriters in the first instance.”
Lyrically, Beckett says he was inspired by his grandfather, the Dublin poet Brian Coffey, whom he describes as something of an overlooked genius.
“Samuel Beckett thought my grandfather was up there with the greats, he’d wax lyrical about him,” Beckett says proudly (the playwright, it should be pointed out, is no relation). “As a kid I remember the entire family would sit around him in his rocking chair. He used to dress a little eccentrically – he’d wear six or seven different colours. But he was a fantastic storyteller.”