Interview with Andrew Fleming from The Unsung Heroes

Garry: Does anyone in the band play a different instrument?
Andrew: Not in our live performances,  although Paul plays piano quite well. He recently acquired an old school one for free and he's spent quite a lot of his spare time on it. Don't think we'll be bringing it along to gigs anytime soon, but we are thinking of using it on our debut album, "The English Kind". I bought a ukulele which has been quite fun to use, but that won't be making an appearance on the album!

Garry: How long has the band been together?
Andrew: This current line up has only been together a short while although The Unsung Heroes was formed in late 2009 as a three-piece line-up, with me now as the only original member. Paul joined quite early on, actually, after our first live performance in 2010. Adrian became a fellow member during 2011, and Jimmy is the most recent member, joining in January 2012 to fill the position of bass player. We were signed to 208 Records a couple of months later.

Garry: How long have you all been friends?
Andrew: Three of us are related: Jimmy is my brother, and Paul is our cousin. Adrian brought himself into our lives through Paul's cousin, who Adrian worked with at the time.

Garry: Where did the band name come from and who thought of It?
Andrew: I thought of it before the band's inception. The reasoning behind it was to create a name to which members could themselves become an entity to such as, a "beatle", "libertine", or in our case an "unsung hero". The music basically evolved from that concept. We're all proud of what we do whether people can relate to this or not.

Garry: What are your ambitions?
Andrew: We are currently working on our debut album and are probably going to part-release this as an EP, featuring some of the tracks. Music is a self-rewarding art form as as long as we can sustain what we are doing now and it continues to move in the right direction. I'm sure any personal goals and milestones we each have will be achieved along with that, but as a band we just want to function and attract a wider audience.

Garry: Who would you most like to do a collaboration with, dead or alive?
Andrew: 
Dead: Probably Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd before he visited the "dark side of the moon" and never returned, and Ian Curtis would also make an interesting collaboration personally.
Alive: I've always admired Julian Casablancas but would like to work with Noel Gallagher who revived my interest in guitar music in my early teens. I initially got into the guitar through listening to the Beatles, but Oasis sparked a more keen interest in actually wanting to get a band together and get gigs. The same is for Paul and Jimmy. We learnt how to play at around the same time and have all played in various bands together. Adrian has such a wide scope of musical taste, it would be hard to pinpoint a single act for him and since he's sunning himself in Lanzarote at the moment, I'll go with drumming for the Rolling Stones.


Interview by Garry Urwin 15/06/2012

• www.myspace.com/theunsungheroes

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