Plenty of time yet, then, as frustrating as it may seem at the minute. Perhaps NME’s interest has been piqued by a slight change in sound. While mclusky’s sonic fury was raw and uncompromising, Jarcrew had strong electronic and dance influences, and it seems Kelson has brought that with him to his new band. Future of the Left songs like ‘Fingers Become Thumbs’ and ‘My Gymnastic Past’ fizz with something approaching disco rhythms, while on several songs Andy puts down the guitar altogether and takes to some rudimentary keyboard playing.
“Well, it’s electro-pop now, isn’t it!” he says, sardonically. “It’s got a little bit of a groove to it. Groove is a misused word, it makes you think of winkle-pickers and body warmers.”
“Like funk.” Jack chimes in.
Andy: “Like funk, a much misused word. I mean, funk makes me think of Jamiroquai, and then I’ve got a rash. But yeah, you could definitely move to it. mclusky was a bit more, for better or for worse, straightforward, in a rhythmic sense at least, whereas this operates on literally another one level. Possibly.”
One too many for one fan Falkous mentioned in one of his always-entertaining MySpace blogs, a chap in a Big Black t-shirt who walked out of a gig in Sheffield last year when the keyboard appeared.
“He just looked in absolute disgust,” Andy recalls. “You know, I’m absolutely happy to wave goodbye to people like that and celebrate the continued ghettoisation of their musical taste. I mean, the irony of course being that Big Black used a drum machine.”
So it’s goodbye to dogmatic fans of noise-rock and hello to the dancers. And, it seems, girls. When asked if Future of the Left’s crowds differ to those mclusky and Jarcrew used to attract, Jack’s answer is instantaneous.
“Yeah, more women.”
Andy adds, “It gives the room a slightly different energy. Less testosterone. The first time mclusky did Australia, I’d say the crowds were 90% male.”
Jack: “Disgruntled girlfriends at the back holding records and T-shirts.”
Andy: “Towards the end of mclusky, that was changing a lot, but this is a little bit different again.
“I’m not sure if me being in the band has got anything to do with the girls coming!” says the admittedly handsome Kelson.
Whatever has brought about the changes, they have to be a good thing. On ‘Reviewing The Reviewers’, the secret track at the end of 2002’s ‘mclusky do Dallas’, Andy hollered, “obscurity is not a fucking badge!” It’s clear that the sentiment still holds true. For Future of the Left to survive and for Andy, Kelson and Jack to continue making a living out of playing music, they can’t limit themselves to psychotic fanboys. During conversation, the idea comes up that when you follow a band from small beginnings, you eventually start to rub shoulders at gigs with the kind of people you might expect to see at B&Q on a Saturday afternoon.
“Unfortunately,” says Andy, “the reality of being in a band is that they’re the people you need to come along if you want to make any proper go of it. Because as much as people who love music are the core of your audience, they’re also generally speaking not the people who buy music.”
Therein lies the rub for Future of the Left and many like them. It’s a sad notion that a band can’t rely on their own fanbase to buy enough of their records to sustain them; that they need to reach out to the kind of casual fans that Andy clearly has little time for, but it’s a fact of life all the same. It’s difficult to imagine that Future of the Left hold much appeal to DIY Man. He may have a similarly tame idea of a pleasant night in, but the onstage mayhem might just be a little too much for him. Let’s hope not. It could be that the future rests on his ample shoulders.
Future Of The Left play the Belsonic Festival, Belfast on Thursday August 14.
www.futureoftheleft.com
Photos by Loreana Rushe
This article first appeared in AU 46, June 2008.
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