Red Alert

Chris McCormack, guitarist with 3 Colours Red, is sitting in a flat in Camden. What s the vibe in London about the millennium bug? I ask him over the phone.
It s going to be a mental New Year s Eve party, says Chris in a strong Geordie accent, but apart from that I don t really think about the millennium. I don t really think about computers in general, or anything. He pauses. Actually that was the shittiest quote I ve ever said.
I promise not to use his soundbite out of context. We move from the millennium to the music, co-written by Chris and lead singer Pete Vuckovic, who together with Keith Baxter and ex-Senseless Thing Ben Harding, make up the effervescent and hard-hitting 3 Colours Red.
Their press release describes their music as snot-streaked volleys of punk, pop, rock and metal. I ask Chris to define snot-streaked .
Define what?
Snot-streaked.
Snot-street?
No, snot-streaked!
I ve never read the press release, he muses. I don t know who fucking wrote it. I don t read things like that, but I should, really, if they re writing shit like that. He laughs heartily to himself.
With the band s second album, Revolt, hot off the press, it s no wonder he s on a high. The new album s a barrage of multi-styled tracks, ranging from amazingly fast, loud, guitar-led thrash to tender ballads with melancholy lyrics. It is a lot different to their 1997 debut, Pure.
We didn t want to make the same album twice, McCormack says chattily. We didn t want to keep recreating the same piece of work, or we d end up being like Status Quo or The Ramones. I mean I love The Ramones, I m not slagging The Ramones off, but God, you do get bored with them after a while.
Because they haven t evolved?
That s it! he shouts enthusiastically. It s 1999, you ve gotta change, you ve gotta move on, you ve gotta try and be creative, invent something different to what you ve already done. Otherwise everything becomes stale and the band become bored and they split up. Especially, he asserts, if they re as musical as we are. We all have a good knowledge of music, we all live for music. We re not just picking up our instruments and thinking right, okay, I ve learnt my three chords and now I want to join a punk band. We did that ten years ago, when we were 12 and 14. But now it s like we ve learnt what we re supposed to be doing, and we re actually a really good band.
And what are you supposed to be doing?
Trying to open it up, to change the perception of what we re supposed to be. That s always the key thing. As soon as somebody thinks you re one thing, then do something else. As long as you ve got good songs, you can do anything you want.
The best thing about this band, he continues, is that we re not afraid to use anything like a piano or a violin or a saxophone, or anything as long as a song needs it and suits it. That s why you ll always get a refreshing song from us.
Pete s a lot more mellow than me, he observes, describing his co-songwriter. He s more chilled, he smokes a lot more spliff. He likes people like Nick Drake and Captain Beefheart. He also likes a lot of fast stuff, like I do, like Metallica and Slayer. But I came more from the punk side of it, The Pistols and The Clash and The Buzzcocks. I learned about music through that. His roots are AC/DC and mine are The Pistols. He went more metal and I went more pop.
Chris obviously knows his stuff. I ask whether he ever took music lessons.
Nah, he dismisses. Never Mind The Bollocks was my lessons.
Before 3 Colours Red were even signed, Chris had the honour of being asked to play guitar on ex-Pistol Glen Matlock s last solo album.
It was a big thrill, he raves, because Matlock wrote Anarchy in the UK and Pretty Vacant and God Save the Queen , which are my favourite songs, ever. So when somebody s written them songs and you re playing guitar and helping them with arrangements, it s like, wow!
A natural optimist, Chris urges chaotic autonomy for anyone out there who wants to play music.
Yeah, he says, even if you can t play guitar just get one and try to come up with something, and if you come up with three good bits, try and write a song with it and then . . . and then . . . hopefully you ll have a hit!
He bellows with laughter.
It s not quite as easy as that, but basically that s how I started. That s how you ve gotta start, just fuck around with it. Even if it s on one string and you can t really play that well, if you ve got an ear for music you ll still be able to do it.
With that, Chris concludes his energetic tirade, and I sign off, eager to catch the band live. n
3 Colours Red s new album Revolt is out now on Creation and they play the Temple Bar Music Centre on Thursday 18th of February.