Hot Press meets The 1975

Twelve months ago, the Wilmslow band had two EPs to their name and a healthy following around Manchester. An extraordinary run of singles confi rmed just how special they were: as catchy as the common cold, capable of intimate, arty, forward-thinking pop music.

Then, last September, they released their self-titled debut long-player. It went straight to number one in the UK, up against the Nine Inch Nails’ comeback record.

More impressive yet, they’re winning fans in the United States, a feat beyond some of the most lauded UK acts of the ‘80s and ‘90s.

“It’s blown our minds man,” says chatty lead singer Matt Healy. “We’ve went from a band making records in our bedroom to a band that have become one of the most established in the UK. In Japan and America we’re greeted by hundreds of people at every airport. We’re in a parallel universe. It’s very surreal to say the least.”

Healy has theory to why his band is making such an intense connection with listeners worldwide. “Even though it is a very glamorous sounding pop album, it comes from the humblest place,” he says. “We made it because we loved those songs. The fact that it’s being embraced so massively is amazing.”

He continues: “The Internet has homogenised and globalised teenagers. A huge community globally is getting in touch and discovering our music.”

“People from the UK are connecting with kids in Japan and the Philippines and Australia. It’s fucking insane how hardcore all these kids are. If you're 15 the ideas that we talk about are quite internationally translatable and universal. In our music there aren’t many cultural references – just references to being young, the things everyone goes through.”

While Matt and the lads are thrilled with their gold records and number one album, they were never interested in success for its own sake.

“People ask you what’s it like to have a number one album, or what’s it like to get this or that,” he says. “Accolades are all very fl attering but are nothing compared to the feeling of playing a show, of making a genuine connection with people in front of you.”

Warming to the topic, he adds: “I get excited about our music bleeding into other people’s reality. The idea of our songs being on while someone is having an argument, or the idea that somebody can’t listen to one of our songs because it reminds them so much of something...that stirs me at an emotional level. I can’t get me head around how many fucking albums we’ve sold. I know what a thousand people looks like. I can’t picture what fi ve or six hundred thousand people looks like. To think that number of people have bought our album is amazing.”

All that said, at one level Healy thinks the band was always destined for success.

“The first show we ever did was to 200 teenagers going absolutely insane,” Healy recalls. “It wasn’t a shit gig where you die on your arse. We absolutely smashed it. We thought, ‘Fucking hell, we could be rock stars if we want.’ We never lost that feeling. We realized what our identity and purpose was and that we were going to be a big band. It has eventually happened.” Matt, Adam (guitar), Ross (bass) and George met in Wilmslow High School and have remained inseparable ever since.

“I was 14 and had just got kicked out of private school and moved to Wilmslow.” Healy reveals. “I didn’t give a fuck about anything else. I’d just hang around in the music department. Adam came over to me and suggested starting a band to enter a competition that the local Council was putting on. They rented out the Festival Hall for the occasion. Bear in mind that this was a very middle class, very boring town outside Manchester.”

“The idea of an anarchic scene never existed until all these kids started coming down unmonitored to the Hall. Everyone played music. It turned into our punk scene. It was sex, drugs and rock n’ roll – not bad for a bunch of 17 year olds in a bingo hall.”

Healy is the son of former Coronation Street actress Denise Welch (you may remember her as barmaid Natalie Barnes) and Tim Healy, best known for Auf Wiederson, Pet.

“My Dad was obsessed with Otis Redding and The Rolling Stones,” Healy recalls. “Hearing an Otis live album started my obsession with instruments. I desperately wanted to know how he created these amazing sounds.” However, Healy was enormously traumatised by the divorce of his parents. The hurt was magnifi ed by constant coverage in the tabloids.

Then, when the band were set to launch, his mother went on Celebrity Big Brother. Matt became incredibly anxious to the point of thinking that there was no way on earth anybody would take him, or his band, in any way seriously.

“Maybe what is happening now validates the whole experience. I did have a dark time,” he says. “What I have discovered is that when you’re an artist you fi nd it easy to move on. You take something and replicate it in a song. You deal with it. It exists and, then, there’s no longer an elephant in the room.

“It was a dark time in my life – but in the life of a middle class boy who had a pretty good existence. I don’t feel too sorry for myself. These things make you who you are.”

Amongst the gloriously eclectic mesh of inspirations that inform The 1975, a certain band up for the forthcoming Choice Music Prize are a primary influence.

“I’m beyond a big fan of My Bloody Valentine. Actually, I fucking adore them,” Matt says. “They changed my life. What My Bloody Valentine made me realize is the idea of a faded splendor, of something beautiful and distorted. That for me is the perfect duality.”

Actually, Healy can’t wait to return to Ireland. “I’m from strong Irish descent so I’ve always loved going,” he says. “It has a certain mystique to it for me that I love. Also, I’m completely obsessed with the Irish accent on a girl. An Irish girl could come over and call me a plonker. I will chase her for the rest of the evening.”

Ladies, form an orderly queue...

The 1975 play the Ulster Hall, Belfast on February 17, Dolan’s, Limerick (18), The Savoy, Cork (19), Seapoint Ballroom, Galway (20) and Olympia Theatre, Dublin (21).