The Big Gang Theory

The trenchant cocktail of Tony Wright, Rory Friers, Johnny Adger and Chris Wee has been described a hundred different ways since ASIWYFA first elbowed their way onto the Irish live circuit five years ago – a quick Google throws up declarations of “hernia-inducing”, “mind-melting” and “godlike”.

For my money, the Belfast boys are dauntless, cocksure and very, very gracious. They’re the kind of guys who’ll sneak out of hospital to play a gig (Wright has done this), but who’ll also tweet what pub they’re in, in case any of their followers are nearby and fancy a pint.
If there’s one word you’re not going to associate with instrumental renegades And So I Watch You From Afar, it’s fear.
“We were scared,” Wright admits, catching me off guard in the first 30 seconds of our interview. “Well not so much scared, but we definitely wanted to make a more challenging album. We didn’t want to make the first album again.
“There’s a few tracks on the first record that, when we listen to it now, our shoulders all go up and we go ‘Oh, that’s so bad!’, comparing it to the live version. Obviously, the live shows are our bread and butter and whenever you go into the recording studio you always want to try and recreate that as much as you can. But I really think we’ve done it this time.”
The post-rockers had been writing songs for sophomore LP Gangs since early 2009, but with five weeks to go before recording, something was amiss in camp ASIWYFA.
“We were having a lot of discussions/slash arguments about what should go on the record,” Wright recalls. “By the end of it, we realised that the reason we were having conflicting ideas was because the four of us weren’t entirely happy with the set of songs that we had, so we just scrapped them all and started again.”
The eight-track, 44-minute wonder that is Gangs was eventually recorded on spare weekdays during the Summer of 2010, with the band rocking festivals like Electric Picnic, Pukkelpop and Sonisphere at the weekends.
“The great thing about doing all those songs before was that we had a huge chunk of material that we could dip into. Like, ‘That part from that song we demoed would really work here…’ We made the new songs kind of like Frankenstein’s monster!”
The brutal new tracks certainly seem to be doing it for Zane Lowe, who all but ejaculated live on air (time to up your game, Síle Seoige) on his first play of ‘Search:Party:Animal’.
“That was amazing,” Wright says. “It was actually the first time in my life I’ve ever just stumbled across us on the radio. I was cooking myself some dinner and I flicked through the channels and heard us and then at the end of it, Zane lost his mind!”
Something tells me the Beeb’s wild child is going to have to rethink his Hottest Record In The World Today item.
“Or rename it The Hottest Record In The World Today Apart From ‘Search:Party:Animal’” Wright laughs. “Actually, that’s a terrible thing to say!”
As well as delivering our required dose of breakneck riffs and killer percussion, Gangs has an undeniably celebratory quality to it – are we to take it that we have four blissfully happy Northies on our hands?
“Everything on there is reflective of who we became over the past couple of years, going from having part-time jobs and playing the odd gig to having no money but playing gigs almost every night of the year.”
It’s been well-documented that ASIWYFA play a shitload of shows, and we’ve got the stats to prove it – they blasted through a whopping 170 tour dates in 2009, and around 160 in 2010, including inaugural trips to America and Russia.
“There are bands that do more gigs than us,” Wright laughs, “but the majority of them have nice big sleeper buses. We aim to play a show every day of the year before the end of our career.”
Surely there are times when they feel like one more show could burn them out?
“No!” Wright says, as if the idea is totally ludicrous. “There’s definitely a couple of times when you think, ‘I don’t know if I have the energy for this,’ but you go in and do it anyway. We’re so, so privileged to be able to do this and to be able to travel around the world and meet new people. It’s a complete gift that we could never, ever grumble about. You get tired, but at the end of the day there’s that old cliché that brings you through. It’s all about the music.”
I suggest that “tired” might be a bit of an understatement for musicians who spazz out as violently as these four lads do on stage.
“It’s not a prerequisite of being in the band that you have to jump around like you’re on some kind of speed ball,” Wright laughs, “but it definitely helps! It’s literally the most exercise any of us get. We’ll release a fitness DVD in years to come.”
Hot damn, that’s going to be one loud work-out.
“It’s going to be loud, and probably very offensive… and probably largely unpopular. But it’ll have Chris Wee and Johnny Adger in leotards!”
Sold.
Not ones to throw their weight around (except for physically, of course), ASIWYFA have filled many a support slot in their time, but none bigger than when they joined rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures on their European tour.
“I was kind of amazed at how we were all fine around them,” Wright remembers. “We weren’t walking around with our jaws scraping off the floor. Josh Homme was just a rock star. Lovely, lovely guy but every inch the rock star, and there’s a lot of him ‘cause he’s massive! It was inspiring to watch them every night, three masters up on stage. They were really great, and really positive to us and invited us into their dressing-room to drink beers with them.
“Rory chatted most to John Paul Jones, and I chatted with Dave Grohl quite a lot. I exchanged lots of tour stories with him, and needless to say, his were much better. He could pull out the Nirvana card! Zombie Safari Park, my old band, didn’t have the same pull!”
I’m going to go ahead and assume that their van is a pretty demented place to be (Wright confirms, “We’re four Irish guys abroad, so yeah, we’re doing our bit for national stereotypes!”), but however wild things get on tour, it’s clear that there’s massive love in the ASIWYFA family.
“It’s tragic in the sense that we get up on Christmas morning and the first people we tend to text is the rest of the band.
‘We are brothers,” he stresses, “and we made a conscious decision years ago to do this. We’re all just little north coast country bumpkins, so for us getting out and playing across the world, whether it be in the States or Russia or Dundalk and for people who know our stuff, it just blows our minds constantly.”
It seems it’s these unwavering levels of appreciation that gives Gangs such an infinitely joyful sound.
“It goes back to our Clash obsession, ‘The Last Gang In Town’ and all that. We’re constantly together and we look out for each other all the time.” Wright stops just short of choking up. “It’s all very emotional!”
Having just signed to Dublin-based label The Richter Collective, ASIWYFA are keen to champion the DIY mindset.
“It’s kind of a microcosm of how life in itself really should be, you know? A lot of people pushing in the same direction and wanting to do the same things. People say that the music industry’s so fucked and so dead, well the music industry isn’t fucked and dead, the record industry is fucked and dead. The music industry is doing fine, there’s still bands playing everywhere and there’s more outlets for bands and fans of music than there’s ever been.
“I like that everybody is pooling their resources. We come from a country where we’re kind of talked down from a young age by our parents, so we have to help each other out.”
With this platonic passion coursing through his veins, and the power of a wind turbine in his hands, I suggest Wright could be the perfect candidate to start a gang of his own.
“I am in a gang,” he corrects. “It’s called And So I Watch You From Afar.”

Gangs is released on May 2 on Richter Collective, with launches in Belfast’s Mandela Hall (April 29) and Dublin’s Button Factory (30). A documentary filmed during ASIWYFA’s one-day tour of Belfast is also due for release by Bandwidth Films. You can listen to 'BeautifulUniverseMasterChampion' on hotpress.com.