Scouse about that?

Just because it’s a cliché, it doesn’t necessarily make it untrue. The good people of Liverpool justifiably bristle at invocations of the Cosmic Scouser archetype – that dope and acid-addled Scally, fixated on old school Adidas trackie tops and vinyl copies of Pet Sounds, Forever Changes and Revolver . Still, given that city’s penchant for, shall we say ‘idiosyncratic’ pop music, its persistence is understandable. After all: can you imagine a soccer club from any other place entertaining their fans before a Champions League final with ‘Roadrunner’, ‘Teenage Kicks’ and ‘Get Off My Cloud’?

“I know,” says Patrick Damoglu Smyth. “Any other club would have had ‘Show Me The Way to Amarillo’”.
“Liverpool is just a really musical place,” confirms Brian Fergus ‘Nipsy’ Russell. “Everyone you meet – taxi drivers, binmen, shopkeepers – they’re all musical experts. I was in town a few months ago and got talking to a cop. I told him I was in a band and he asked me when our next gig was cos he played a bit of guitar. You can’t get away from it. You just can’t.”
If the brilliantly skiffle-flavoured bent of their music (forehead touching harmonies, speed-freak Fabs in Hamburg melodies) suggests that Merseyside was an inevitable stop-off point for Pat and Nipsy, a glance at the stamps on their passports shows that the boys have followed a singularly quixotic and rambling path since meeting on the first day of Secondary School, 12 years ago in Banbridge.
In the time since, they have also plugged in their amps in Dublin, Greece, London, L.A and, latterly, Belfast, busking on corners and bikers bars, hustling battle-of-the-band nights for spare change.
If you’re hoping to pin Pat and Nipsy’s sound down to a specific locale – good luck. They’ve been around the block so often, you’ll only get dizzy.
“We pick up stuff from everywhere we’ve been,” says Pat. “We spent a summer in Italy, listening to this weird ska/folk music – almost punk Romany. Then we spent some time in Greece and picked a few things up there. Spent time in L.A which is actually the worst place in the world for buskers because no-one walks anywhere and they kind of look on you like you’re a bum – but the people we met were great. There was a big underground political theatre scene, really inspirational performers. And they’re committed to what they want to do. They don’t see themselves as amateurs – once they decide to give something a go, they go at it full pelt.”
Like their fat-free name (which, in one swoop, went from the worst band-name I’d ever heard, to unquestionably the best), Pat and Nipsy’s sound is a brilliant amalgam of straight-faced simplicity and knowing cheek – a thrilling, 100% proof shot of adrenalised garage rock; ribald, chimney-corner folk; and head-bobbing teddy boy roll.
On stage, the pair have (until the recent addition of a drummer called Carlos) worked up a storm with two guitars and zero frills.
“We travel pretty lightly,” smiles Nipsy. “We went to Greece with a bag each and our guitars and I think we take the same approach with our music. You don’t need those extra pedals; you don’t need that extra solo. Don’t worry about it.”
“When we play live,” adds Pat, “we rarely get a sound check – we just turn up and start. We played last night and the soundman kept trying to put reverb on the vocals and I was telling him not to bother – he looked at me like I’d two heads. He came round, though, when he saw what we were trying to do.”
Seeing how they initially bonded over a shared love for Nirvana, The Beatles and Supergrass, it’s hardly a surprise to discover that the average Pat and Nipsy song rarely out-stays its welcome. “We start to get nervous,” reveals Pat, “if we’re writing a new one and it hits the 2 minute 30 mark.”
“We love brilliant three minute pop songs,” Nipsy continues. “You listen to most songs on the radio day and it’s like you’re being pinned against a brick wall. We’re not interested in that.”
They have, thankfully, much more cosmic concerns.