Over the past year or so, Lupine Promotions have been bringing some of the country’s top signed bands to Wigan, taking their diverse live gigs and much-loved “Northern Lights” club nights from venue to venue and growing from strength to strength, before their immense popularity allowed them to finally settle at Club Nirvana.

Q. When did you first realise that live music in Wigan was somewhat lacking?
Dylan – “I think it was in college, about eight or nine years ago… the only thing in Wigan was the Pier on Wednesday night, there was no live music in Wigan whatsoever. So once I came back from university, the Collective was set up. That served its purpose for local bands, but there was nobody putting signed bands on. So it was about then, really. Wigan was dead, pretty much, though there were massive crowds in Wigan, the Tudor was packed every Friday and Saturday.”

Q. Have you achieved everything you set out to do?
“Not yet. We’re nowhere near achieving it. But we want to aim a lot higher, hopefully secure our own venue and bring in bands more regularly. This isn’t permanent; we were at the Lux regularly, we were doing that every week but when that shut we were struggling a bit. We moved to the Tudor, then the Tavern, then Fever… it’s just, you know, moving around until you find the ideal place.”

Q. Did you start entirely from scratch when you set up this ‘venture’?
“We had no help at all.”

Sean – “It was an accident, really. We’ve known each other since we were at school, we’re both 26 now…

D – “I don’t know if you’ve heard of a band called Witness; they were from Wigan and were pretty big a few years ago, they’d signed to Island. Well, they wanted to play a homecoming gig. I couldn’t find anybody to put it on, so in the end I thought ‘I’ll do it myself’. Sean helped me, and in the end we sold out the Mill at the Pier and thought ‘We may as well do this regularly!’

Q. How do you go about booking acts?
“A mixture of things, really. I’ll see somebody, or have someone recommend a band to me. I mean, I try not to go for all of my tastes. It probably is, though. Sometimes you just have to pester them, send them lots of e-mails. Like Pete Doherty.”

Q. How did that come about? It was all a bit chaotic, wasn’t it?
“It’s definitely our biggest achievement. Just because… we never thought it’d come off.”

S – “We had no guarantee that he’d turn up, and he was cutting it very, very fine, but when he actually got onstage it was a very good feeling.”

D – “The actual gig was awful, though.”

S – “Just to see him in Wigan was good enough.”

D- “We’d been pestering them (The Libertines) for ages, and in the end Pete just rang up the Tuesday before the gig and said “If you get the money to me before ten o’clock tomorrow, then I’ll do the gig.” No contract signed or anything. It was quite good, because I went into the studio (as they were recording their flawed but affecting second album ‘The Libertines’).

Q. What was the atmosphere in the studio like?
“Very weird. You could just tell that something wasn’t right, they weren’t communicating at all. Pete told me not to tell the rest of them in case they kicked off; they didn’t like him playing gigs alone. Although eventually the rest of The Libertines got wind of it and said that the whole band would play, which would have been incredible, but they all fell out the day before so it was just Pete again. It was one of Babyshambles’ first gigs, though.”

Q. Have you ever actually been in a band?
S – “I was in a band at school, but they weren’t very good and didn’t last long. I’m currently in a band that isn’t ready yet, so as well as putting bands on I’m in one as well.”

D – “I’m just rubbish. I’ve got loads of instruments, I keep buying them… accordions, melodicas…

Q. A child’s drum kit?
“Yeah! Bontempi organs… I give up in a couple of weeks, I’ve got no patience at all.”

Q. What do you think of the music scene at the moment?
S – “It’s pretty good at the moment, with the Suzukis being signed and stuff, Deltasonic (home of the Coral and the Zutons) are very interested in Wigan now. It’s good that people are looking here now. Moco have been on the verge for a while now too.”

Q. And what do you think of the other part of Wigan? You know, King Street.
D - “An absolute disgrace.”

S – “I’ve heard they’re going to build a roof over the place, but I think they should just brick it up. Trap them all inside.”

D – “I don’t know what people see in it at all, it’s just chain pubs, a carbon copy of every other town or city… eurgh! That’s what the majority of society’s like though, just going along with other people.”

S – “It’s very dangerous for people with long hair.”

Q. So what is the future for Lupine Promotions? The Lux closed, as we all know.
D – “It’ll take a while. We’re holding a mini-festival, a whole day at 51^st State (Nirvana), at the end of July. We’ll hopefully have Yeti, Maximo Park and Nine Black Alps. We had a lot of bands booked for the Lux, but when we changed the venue, they all pulled out. The Lux had built up a reputation, probably bigger than it actually was, that it was an amazing place… then they got there and thought ‘oh, it’s not that good’.

Q. You mean Selfish ***t?
(long laugh)

S – “I thought that was one of our best nights, actually, just because things didn’t go right. If you’re still talking about it the day after, and if everyone was asked to leave a venue halfway through the gig… well, something went right. Nice man. Not selfish at all.”

Recommended Links
www.lupinepromotions.com – Lupine Promotions Official Website

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