Plan B: The Irish Connection

“I was born in London, moved to Ireland when I was baby and lived there ‘til I was eight or nine,” Adam, now an OAP of 21 tells us. “My granddad played guitar and trumpet, and gigged on the pub circuit as Wexford Larry and my uncle, who was another big influence on me, played blues. When everyone else was swapping Pokémon cards and bollocks like that, I’d be in the record shop buying Rage Against The Machine, Marilyn Manson and Slipknot – the more fucking extreme the better.”
Rocking up in London at the start of the new millennium, his knowledge of rap and hip hop was at best rudimentary.
“That soon changed though, bro,” he laughs. “I met Ben through his little sister who’s a really good friend of mine. He found out I played guitar, so he brought me into his bedroom and we jammed for a couple of hours. He was showing me his music and shit, and said, ‘One day I’m going to be big and I’m gonna call and ask you to be in my band’. Nine years later, man, the fuckin’ phone rang!”
If this happened a decade ago, both of them must still practically have been sperm.
“A little bit older than that,” Adam laughs. “He was 18, just signed to 679 Records and working on his first album, and I was ten or 11. When you’re living in a place like that and come from a broken home, you need a positive energy to keep you going and for Ben and me it was music. I sunk my teeth into that dream and haven’t let go.”
His next Lennon-meets-McCartney moment came a few years later in Dublin’s Ambassador Theatre.
“I was just starting to take music really seriously, so Ben invited me to a Plan B gig in the Ambassador where Maverick was supporting,” he resumes. “A month later Ben did a competition with MTV, which had studio time with him as its prize. Mav won – or we fixed it for him to win! – so he came over for a week and Ben taught him as much as he could before saying, ‘I think it’s best if you go off and do your own thing because we’re both white boys who rap and play guitar’.
“It was really hard at the time for Mav – he wanted to be thought of as Irish hip hop but because he was spitting in a UK accent he had all these ignorant people going, ‘Fuck off back to Hackney!’ He was to and fro then to England for shows, building it up and building it up. It was only really when he had a hit that Irish people went, ‘Oh, yeah, one of ours!’”
Did Adam know Maverick from home?
“Nah, I only copped it when I saw ‘New Ross’ on his MySpace. I’m from St. Leonard’s, which is round the corner from Wellingtonbridge, and from there it’s about half-an-hour to where Mav lives. From the age of 16 whenever we were home together we’d write songs and record ‘em.”
Something, which despite the insanity of their schedules, they still do.
“Me and him are planning to work with a whole load of Irish rappers like Rob Kelly, Lethal Dialect, Rejjie Snow and these really cool guys from Waterford, Sons Phonetic,” he enthuses. “We’re all going to meet up and see if we can get something going ‘cos they’re as good as the stuff coming out of Britain and the US at the moment. Better in a lot of cases ‘cos they’ve got the hunger.”
Back in Blighty, Adam’s been working overtime on developing the New Machine roster of acts with his partner Craig Merrin.
“It started with us meeting up, getting on the Jack Daniel’s and hitting notes and stuff,” he reminisces fondly. “Gradually the tunes got better and we’ve done stuff for Mav like the ‘I Need’ remix featuring Chipmunk and Benny Banks’, and ‘Lost My Way’, which is supposed to be the new Plan B single. It’s all good, bruv!”
then create a ghetto by putting them all into the one little town. Anyone in Britain who’s racist is missing the point. They’re falling into the trap that the government’s setting. It’s not, like, the Polish community’s fault that they’ve all been stuck in the same place and no-one’s monitoring them. English people suddenly find themselves in the minority and can’t afford to move out, which is what breeds the racism and the hatred. Their gripe should be with the government, not the people who come to Britain looking for a better life for their families.
“The winners in all of this are the BNP and English Defence League cunts who feed off the ineptitude of our mainstream politicians. By far the best recruiter for the far-right at the moment is the Conservative/Liberal coalition.”
Ill Manors is not the only film benefiting this year from Drew’s talents, with Ray Winstone playing Det. Insp. Jack Regan to his Det. Sgt. George Carter in an update of geezertastic ‘70s cop series The Sweeney.
Judging by its “act like a criminal to catch a criminal” tagline, the moral boundaries won’t be so much blurred as eradicated.
“Ray’s fantastic,” he says bromantically. “We struck up a really good relationship, and I’m proud to say he’s one of my mates. That aside, I learned so fucking much from him about acting.”
The two friends will be appearing together again in The Devil’s Dandruff, a film about former gangland coke dealer Jason Cook, which starts shooting next month in London and also stars Gary Oldman and Vinny Jones.
“The one after that’s a rom-com with Jennifer Aniston in it,” he lies.
Also helping Plan B come to terms with being a thespian was – cue lousy, “My name is…” impersonations – Michael Caine who was in 2009’s Harry Brown with him.
“He’s an early example of people from my environment making it in the film world. To have been around since the ‘50s and still mean something to a brat like me is quite something. The only time we ever spoke was when we were working out how to do a scene. We didn’t get to know each other on a personal level, but to be honest that’s the way I wanted it. He’s my idol and I didn’t want to taint the experience.”
Someone who Plan B does go for regular pints with is Michael Stafford, aka Ireland’s very own hip hop/soul interloper Maverick Sabre.
“Me and Mav go way back,” he smiles. “He was 15 and won a MySpace competition to spend time in the studio with me. He was singing out of key and didn’t know about song structure, but had proper raw talent. Key found and song structure learned, I said, ‘Now you’ve got to go off and do it yourself because otherwise you’re always going to be known as ‘Plan B’s prodigy’ or ‘the next Plan B’, which will hinder you’. He and I are both comfortable talking about it now because he’s proved himself in his own right.”

That he most certainly has! While currently sporting a pair of the stonewashed denims beloved of early ‘70s suedeheads – this is a man who knows his pop culture – Drew will soon change into the razor-sharp suit that’s become synonymous with … Strickland Banks. Denby Forest wowed, there’s the small matter of heading to Manchester for a Stone Roses support.
“I’m too tired at the moment for it to register,” he yawns. “My mate’s got a studio two hours from here, so after last night’s gig I went there and worked until 9am this morning.”
Obviously the muse was upon him.
“Uh, no, I had to induce it! They’re mastering on Monday, and the only way I can finish it is to pull another all-nighter in the studio and then head to Heaton Park. Some of the songs aren’t even completely written yet…”
All of which is of only minor concern compared to the news that, in what appears to be a Drake Vs. Chris Brown-style diss, Van Morrison has named his new album Born To Sing: No Plan B. Ben’s not going to let him get away with that, surely?
“Bring it fucking on!” he deadpans. “I doubt Van Morrison has a clue who I am, but there was a time I’d have been up for a row. Now I think the best way of retaliating is being more successful than anyone who’s dissing you. I’m not making art if I’m arguing with you or criticising somebody else. No fucker’s going to cost me a song!”