BEST OF 2007: The Answer
It’s been another mammoth year for the hard rocking Downpatrick four-piece. Sharing the stage with a host of your idols, selling a ton of records in Japan, playing festivals all over Europe – the list of achievements goes on. Frontman Cormac Neeson relives some of the prime moments…
How’s your 2007 been?
It’s been another crazy year for us. We’ve been all around the world and played a lot of gigs. We sold 15,000 records in the first week in Japan, had a great summer of festival shows, we got to play with Aerosmith, The Who, and of course we were privileged to play with the Rolling Stones a couple of times. By far the biggest shows of our lives.
Just an average year in the life of The Answer then?
Don’t get me wrong, we don’t take these things for granted. It’s the stuff that we’ve been dreaming about for years but when it comes to showtime you can’t let it overawe you. You just have to make sure you play your best, just like you would in front of a couple hundred people in the Spring And Airbrake.
Stupid question – what was your highlight?
Stepping out in front of 80,000 people when we supported The Stones. It was fucking amazing. We’ve got footage of it and there’s a point near the end of our set and I have my head down and I’m like’ Serbia, clap your hands for The Answer’. I look up, and I shit you not, every pair of hands in that audience, right down to the tree’s lining the horizon at the back are clapping. I could have dropped the microphone at that point I was so speechless.
Did you get to meet and hang out with The Stones much?
A Stones gig is a bit of a military operation. We were told we could meet them after we played our set but that it would be an in and out job, shake hands, get your photo taken with them then leave. They have their own backstage area for, like them, and their entourage called The Rattlesnake Inn. We were invited in there and told to work away on the food and drink and The Stones would be in to meet us in their own time. Sure enough, 20 minutes later the emerged on their way to the stage and they stopped to have a bit of craic with us. Mick Jagger says ‘I see we’ve got a few Scottish boys’ here and I said ‘nah Mick we’re Irish’ and he said, ‘only joking mate, I know you’re fucking Irish’ while Ronnie Wood was jumping about shouting ‘I’VE FOUND THE ANSWER’. That kind of experience…it’s dream stuff you know?
Has anything disappointed you this year?
I wouldn’t say so but there are times when you do realise it’s harder work than you imagine. There was one point in the summer when we had four festivals in Europe in four days at opposite ends of the countries which was tiring. You play your set, have a few beers, get up again at 3am (if you go to bed at all), get two connecting flights to get to somewhere in Norway then onto, Holland or something. Halfway through those stints you really feel it.
Did you set out to achieve everything you had in mind?
I don’t set targets. In any band you can only really think a month ahead of yourself. You honestly don’t know what’s happening month to month so you take it as it comes.
Have you made any new musical discoveries this year?
Yeah, we’ve played with a few great bands this year. Rose Hill Drive (though their album came out in 2006) they play good Southern rock. Black Stone Cherry are similar but blend in a bit more metal. They’re decent people too which is important for me. Back home I love The Delawares, Swanee River and Boathouse.
What was your favourite live moment this year?
Not to harp on about it but standing watching The Stones, I was infinitely impressed by Mick Jagger’s energy at the age of 63, and indeed the whole band’s attitude to music. You can really tell they want to be there and still live playing.
How do you think you’ll view 2007 in ten years time?
It depends what happens next year and the year after that I suppose!
So what’s on the agenda for next year?
Well, we’re actually writing the next album – that’s the priority. We’re taking a break from playing for a while to concentrate on writing some good songs. We’re writing up until mid-January with an eye on going into the studio sometime in February. We’ve got our own wee home studio set-up and it’s great. We can turn our phones off so the record company can’t bother us. We’ll also be releasing ‘Rise’ in America around then and going over to support it with quite an extensive tour. We’ll spend a few months over there to try and make a dent. When we get back then it’s straight into promotion of the new album everywhere else and try to sell 200 or 300,000 copies if we can. We just want to step everything up a gear with venue sizes and album sales.
Additional Reading:
+Discuss this article in the forum
+Read AUs verdict of the debut album by The Answer here
+Read the feature from issue 38 right here
I Heart AU | Design by goodonpaper.org | AU is supported by Lottery funding
