My Turn To Kill - Part 1.
BY KELDA MANLEY.
‘One thing for the record, bring cake, not just for the lead singer’ grins My Turn To Kill drummer Shaun. Having discovered a fan is bringing frontman Steve a cake this evening the North Wales band are in uproar.
Jazzy: ‘I’m not liking this lack of cake thing.’
Shaun: ‘He gets the cake, we get the sandwiches.’
Steve: ‘Fine. I was going to share my cake with you all but you know...’
Shaun: ‘He did ask how come he’s not getting any cake. You should have said “yeah you are getting cake.”
Jazzy: ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. What kind of cake is it?’
Steve: ‘I don’t know.’
Jazzy: ‘Is there jam in it? I don’t like jam.’
Mike: ‘She was meant to be bringing chocolate fudge cake.’
Steve: ‘No she’s not. She said she couldn’t make it.’
Jazzy: ‘Will security let her bring a cake in?’
Steve: I don’t know. If they don’t...’
Shaun: ‘Could be a cake bomb. You never know.’
From L-R: Mike, Steve, Lee, Jazzy & Shaun
You learn quite early on in a conversation with My Turn To Kill that they like to talk. You also discover they love their food. The arrival of a plate of sandwiches mid-way through our interview is greeted with huge excitement. ‘We’ve had a lot of sandwiches on this tour and crisps. You need to put that on there’ smiles Shaun pointing at the Record Journals dictaphone.
Steve: ‘I think it already is: I think you said it.’
Mike: ‘Didn’t they give us something like 64 packets of crisps?’
Shaun: ‘200 mars bars. We were wired with sugar and cholesterol every show. Great.’
Steve: ‘Brilliant.’
Shaun: ‘The Scottish breakfast in Wetherspoons was good.’
Mike: ‘Potato cakes wasn’t it?’
Jazzy: ‘I like it how Wetherspoons has a regional menu.’
Shaun: ‘In Wales you get like the Welsh dragon breath sausages or something. Sausage and chips with some dragon in it. Either that or chilli.’
While the band could, quite clearly, continue discussing food for the foreseeable future they do realise they’re heading off track. As well as eating, they do regularly take to the stage thrilling crowds with their powerful tunes and thumping choruses. Coming to the end of their tour the fivesome have clearly had fun. ‘[It’s been] very good’ smiles Shaun. ‘Scotland was a lot of fun.’ ‘Too much fun’ laughs Mike.
Jazzy: ‘Everyone should go to Edinburgh. It’s probably the nicest city I’ve ever been to in the UK. I couldn’t believe it, “Why have I never been here before.” Lot of stuff to do there.’
Shaun: ‘But we didn’t take the horror walk thing. You know that vampire girl?’
Mike: ‘She was hot.’
Shaun: ‘The one that was dressed like a vampire by the Cathedral, she was taking people on those tours.’
Steve: ‘Ohh yeah.’
Shaun: ‘We should have gone for that. I found out that Edinburgh was built on top of a city where people used to live down there and there used to be loads of tunnels and they never saw daylight.’
Mike: ‘I’m sure she (The Record Journal) wants to hear this...’
Steve: ‘Not only have you come for an interview, you’ve got the history of Edinburgh right here.’
Jazzy: ‘That’s right, history lesson one, two, three. Coming at you... BOOM.’
Lee: ‘Please don’t put this recording on.’
After the joys of Scotland the band found returning to less eventful venues difficult. ‘[Southampton] was like an eight hour drive’ explains Steve ‘and really there was hardly any room on the stage and just quite stiff.’ Shaun nods agreement with the frontman, ‘the last time we played there, both times was in Joiners and it was like packed both times. I think that was what probably put us on a bit of a downer but the kids who came this time really, really wanted to see us. Singing along to all the songs. That’s the important thing.’
The band have had their fair share of great and poor gigs.
Steve: ‘We supported Enter Shikari in Llandudno that was amazing.’
Mike: ‘That was immense that.’
Lee: ‘Note to self: never play Club147 in Llandudno.’
Shaun: ‘It was awful.’
Steve: ‘Really, really bad. Less said about that the better.’
Jazzy: ‘They wouldn’t let us sell our t-shirts and stuff because we weren’t allowed to sell it on their license. We had flyers for [for the Wrexham Central show] scattered about just to let people know because it’s a pretty big show and they wouldn’t let us show them either as it is advertising another venue.’
Steve: ‘Which they didn’t like.’
Shaun: ‘They didn’t like anything we did. They basically just wanted us to get in, play and get out and buy their beer. Just buy their beer.’
Steve: ‘Which Mike did plenty of.’
Jazzy: ‘He’s single-handedly keeping this economy going.’
Steve: ‘Mike defeats the credit crunch by buying more beer.’
Shaun: ‘No more economic meltdown.’
Despite their joking My Turn To Kill are disappointed with the North Wales music scene and intend on doing something about it. ‘[We’re going to be] really concentrating on [the North Wales coast] explains Shaun. ‘We really want to start building a lot more of a scene because there are so many kids out there who are starved of being able to watch live music. Most of the venues along the coast are 18+ venues so we’re going to try and get a lot of our own shows booked, get our own sound guys there and just do everything ourselves. Just work our way around the 18 + thing.’
‘It’s a pain for some people as well that the only decent venue is here and Venue Cymru’ continues Steve. ‘There’s nothing in between or scattered around anywhere in pretty much the whole of North Wales.’
Shaun: ‘We are really pissed off that people along the coast are starved. There are plenty there that like music but don’t get to see it unless someone is playing Venue Cymru or Central Station.’
Lee: ‘We played a show a while back in Bangor, there’s loads of kids who’d come out to watch the show...’
Shaun: ‘And they had to be turned away by security. It would have been rammed, it was full anyway but if all those kids had been there it would have been something really special for Bangor.’
Steve: ‘And because they weren’t allowed in we didn’t get our fire machines going... our pyros...’
Lee: ‘You might want to stop.’
Shaun: ‘We played another show in Bangor as well with the Misfits and there was a hell of a lot of people turned away even though they had tickets. You know their money was taken but they just couldn’t get in. All you need is [to] ID everyone at the bar, get a license so kids can come in and enjoy it.’
Steve: ‘The first time Funeral played [in Bangor] I snuck in. [I] managed to avoid one of the bouncers I knew because I was only 17 at the time and he knew me.’
Mike: ‘[You’ve] got proof. Get him arrested.’
Steve: ‘That was years ago. I think it’s a bit too late now.’
Lee: ‘You’re going to hell.’
Steve: ‘I’m going to hell. I already knew that anyway before I snuck into the gig. After the Enter Shikari show we played Llandudno shortly after that and quite a lot of kids came to that. We actually asked the promoter that night if underage kids could get in and they said it wouldn’t be a problem...’
Shaun: ‘Wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t look as young as they were.’
Steve: ‘That’s just ridiculous. Fair play to them anyway they turned up and they didn’t get in but they sat outside.’
Shaun: ‘[They] sat outside and listened to us from the outside.’
Steve: ‘So we went outside and gave them some free t-shirts.’
Lee: ‘They brought us chocolate. That’s close to cake.’
Shaun: ‘Close to cake. Not quite cake though.’
Please click HERE for Part 2 of the interview.
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