The Boys From Brazil

It’s a devalued currency now, but if cool is what you’re after there are certain sources that still act as repositories for the real, platinum grade deal – Harry Dean Stanton, for example, or Marianne Faithfull. Chris Morris? Edwyn Collins? Surely the most consistently rewarding seam of all, though, is to be found in the team sheet of the Brazilian football squad and their age-long propensity to christen themselves with the most wonderful names: Falcao, Rivilino, Zico, Socrates.

Don DeLillo once said that modern pharmaceuticals sounded like the gods of science fiction. He’d obviously never been to the Maracana.
You would imagine, then, that there could be no better way for a band to signpost a change of attitude and step up in class than by ditching their previous (dopey) moniker in order to adopt the name of a gold-plated World Cup winner? Well, Ninebar International certainly did when deciding to re-launch as Roque Junior. Then, unfortunately, they saw the man himself play.
“It’s just another example of our rotten luck,” says frontman Phil Woolsey. “We find a Brazilian footballer with a great name, decide to use it ourselves, register the web domain and then look on horrified as he joins Leeds and turns out to be shit.”
“It could have been worse,” adds keyboardist David O’Reilly. “There were rumours that he was going to join Rangers or Celtic. That would have been a total nightmare.”
“Or it could have introduced us to a whole new audience,” offers Richard Dale.
“Aye, an audience that would beat our shit in.”
You may have come across these three, along with co-songwriter Tom McShane, at some point during the three years they spent peddling upbeat melodic rock both in dingy back bars and on more prestigious stages supporting the likes of Gomez. If you haven’t, though, don’t beat yourself up. This is a mob of erstwhile, and self-confessed, chancers and underachievers. It’s all their own fault.
“During the grunge years people used to refer to the likes of Kurt Cobain as slackers. That was really unfair,” says Phil. “Them boys tended to be dead ambitious and driven. Like Kurt Cobain had to sit in the back of a minibus all the way through Europe with Tad – who was about 50 stone – smelling his socks and shit. You have to be really dedicated to put up with that. We genuinely are slackers. We’re complete lazy fuckers. But we can’t keep on like that because you just end up wasting your talent. It’s a new band, new attitude. I’ve even given up blow for the first time since I was a kid.”
“New attitude is definitely right,” David agrees. “We never used to fight each other before this, now we do nothing but row. We fought over the name, we fought over the cover, these two pricks (Phil and Tom) fought over royalties. It’s a good thing. We’re taking it seriously now.”
The first fruits of this new outlook are certainly promising. Debut EP The Beaten Path/Smile Shaped Mouth scuffs up the dreamy bliss pop of The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev while adding a little ragamuffin melodicism.
“It’s definitely the best thing we’ve ever done,” says Phil. “In any form.”
You’ll get a chance to find out for yourself once the newly empowered outfit take to the road for some late autumn dates. Including a very special one in Phil’s ever-inspiring hometown.
“Over the last year you’ve had loads of people from Portugal moving to Portadown to work at the Moy Park factory, and the locals have been going buck mad. There was a family due to move in next door to me and the neighbours set up a vigilante squad and chased these people with fucking shotguns and sticks. I’m the devil-worshipping rock and roller going ‘Come on, this isn’t right,’ while all these Christians are going on about how they’re robbing, AIDS-infested, Catholic bastards. So, we’re going to play a gig for them in Portadown. We were going to put the posters up in Portuguese, but were told by one of the Portuguese guys not to, because the locals would go mad and someone would end up getting a dig in the head. So, I’m going to try to learn some Portuguese to try and introduce the songs. Hopefully, multi cultural Portadown will come out in force.”
Wearing gold shirts, maybe. That would be cool.

www.roquejunior.com