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Within a month of forming, Wigan indie
band The Nuns got off to a good start when they won an Under-18s Battle
of The Bands at Club Nirvana back in 2005. In the relatively short time
that’s followed, Tom ‘Dook’ Dootson (vocals/lead guitar), James
Edmondson (rhythm guitar), Scott Lyon (bass) and Liam ‘Lim’ McIntyre
(drums) have come a long way.
With a string of gigs under their belts, two EPs and interest from
Parlaphone Records (home to fellow Wiganer Richard Ashcroft), the lads
have not only picked up a healthy following, but also a bit of a
reputation for being ‘arrogant’. The LINC sat down with the band to find
out why.
 How’s life in The Nunnery?
Lim: It’s decent yeah. We’re getting along well and we’re making
progress.
Where did the name come from?
Scott: I know the story but everyone says I’m wrong! We were all at
Jim’s and we were trying to think up names. I was speaking to our old
drummer about The Red Hot Chilli Peppers song ‘Funky Monks’. So I
suggested we call ourselves The Monks, then someone said The Priest and
then I went The Nuns. We sat on it for a bit then looked to see if the
website was available and it was so we went for it.
Have you had any interest from any Christian rock labels because of your
name?
Tom: No and I hope we don’t get any.
You started impressively by winning a Club Nirvana under-18s Battle of
the Bands within a month of forming. Did you get a good feeling about
this band right from the off?
James: Yeah it felt cool but it’s completely changed since then.
Scott: We went through a really flat period immediately after that when
we struggled to write anything. Then Dook came in with a song that we
really liked so we worked on it and that led to us banging out four
tunes really quickly. Since then it’s kept growing and growing and we
feel we’ve managed to find our own style now.
James : We’ve definitely got a lot heavier. If you compare the first
three or four tracks we did on The Box Sessions to our new EP Chemicals,
you can really hear the difference.
Tom – “The early material was a lot more pop-based. The new tracks have
got melody but the old ones are a lot more poppy and they sounded like
what was big at the time.”
You’ve all had experience playing in different bands. Do you feel
settled in The Nuns and this is the band you want to go forward with?
All: Yeah definitely.
Lim: I love it. I’m glad they let me join!
You’ve done two recordings, played a few HMV showcase gigs and you’ve
got six dates booked in for December alone. You’ve certainly got a good
work ethic. Are you consciously pushing yourselves?
Scott: We’re just trying to get as many gigs as we can at the moment.
Lim: I love doing the promotion work as well.
James: I don’t - I hate it. We are very happy that Lim enjoys it.
Do you work outside of the band?
Scott : We’re all doing music tech at university.
Lim: Apart from James. He’s doing art.”
Is it true you’ve had some interest from a major record label?
Tom : Parlaphone contacted us but a few of our gigs were rescheduled so
it hasn’t come to anything yet. But they’re meant to be coming to one of
our gigs in December.
You don’t seem too excited about that. Are you?
Scott : We are but we first had contact with them in March and it’s not
happened yet so we’ve probably lost a little bit of enthusiasm about it.
They were meant to be coming down to one of the HMV showcase gigs but
the organiser is totally useless, any other promoter in Manchester will
tell you that. The gig got put back and put back so Parlaphone didn’t
come down in the end.
Tom – It’s probably a good thing because one of the other bands wanted
to kill us that gig anyway!
Did you know each other before you got together as a group?
Tom: Not really. I knew everyone but we really just got to know each
other properly through being in the band.
James: I met Tom through our old drummer. We got together and had a
jamming session. But he [the drummer] left to go to university in
Edinburgh and that’s when we got Lim involved.
Lim – Tom used to go out with my sister.
Tom – I did.
Do you socialise together?
Tom: Yeah definitely. We all go out together around Wigan on a Friday
night, although we do it a bit less now some of us are at university.”
Which groups made you want to be in a band?
Lim: I grew up on punk, funk and ska. Bands like NOFX, The Aquabats and
stupid stuff like that. Those influences have come more in the music
I’ve recorded myself as Lim and The Flatulents and the stuff I did with
Branded a Fool. But those projects have sort of disappeared for now
because I’ve been dead busy with these men.
Scott: The Stray Cats were the biggest group for me when I was growing
up. It was all bass and double bass. I was into loads of mod stuff as
well like The Who and Paul Weller. I really like Sabbath and Motorhead
and groups like that, then I got into funk and I started learning loads
of it on the bass.”
Tom: James, The Lightning Seeds and loads of other bands. It was Guns
‘n’ Roses that got me started though.
James: A bit of everything really. It was mainly skate punk stuff but in
the past few years I’ve got into a bit of everything, hip-hop, indie,
ska, absolutely everything.”
A preview in the local press ahead of your last gig at Nirvana described
you as an indie band. Are you happy with that label?
Lim: Yeah we saw that. It described us as half bad, half good but
entirely spoiled! It was a bit difficult to understand what the writer
was trying to say.
Tom – You have quite a powerful voice on stage and your lyrics are quite
full of angst. You seem very passionate about what you’re doing and
saying.
Tom: I do but I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve got a powerful voice.
James: You do. There’s definitely a bit of anger in those lyrics.
Tom: A lot of the time I’ll just make up the lyrics on stage. I write
them and I never remember them so I just make them up there and then.
James: We have a song on the demo without lyrics because when we do it
onstage Dook just sings about whatever is doing his head in at the
time.”
Tom – Have you been writing lyrics for a while?
Tom: I’ve written lyrics for years. Ever since I was a kid.
What do you think of the other bands on the local music scene?
Lim: Wigan has a good music scene.
Tom: Filthy Romance are probably my favourite Wigan band.
Lim: I like Charlie Sez. They’re really cool like Moron Culture.
James: I’m not really into Filthy Romance.
Lim: I’ve never heard Filthy Romance. Are they good?
Tom: Yeah they’re better than you!
What do you about the current state of music nationally?
Lim: The type of music we play is becoming very mainstream at the
moment.
Scott: But without wanting to sound egotistical, we have an edge that a
lot of bands don’t have at the moment. We’re not nicey-nice like
everything is today. The Kooks and bands like that are just so nice. You
just want them to be a bit p***** off and shouting at someone for a bit.
Tom: In real life things don’t always come together. You shouldn’t sing
about things having a happy ending when they don’t.
Scott: There’s no true rock stars anymore.
Tom: You look at the 70s when they had things Ozzy biting a bat’s head
off. [today] We’ve got The Kooks kissing a girl on the front row. It’s
not comparable is it?
You guys have a bit of a rock ‘n’ roll reputation. Is it something you
are consciously creating?
James: When we look at other bands our age we do notice our attitude is
very different. We’re still putting everything into this band and we’re
not compromising anything. A lot of musicians go to university and
whatever and move on from their bands but we’re still working as hard as
ever.
Tom – “We do get into trouble occasionally but we’re not fighters. We
try to be nice to people. We don’t go out of our way to cause trouble
but we’re not liked by a lot of people in Wigan because we stand up for
ourselves.
Lim: We wouldn’t trash a hotel room or anything like that. I’d sooner
sleep in one.
Tom: I’ve heard murmurs that people think we’re arrogant locally.
Scott: We are building up a bit of a reputation.
Any particular reason?
Scott: Things like Dook insulting the bouncers twice onstage at one of
the HMV showcase gigs probably. After the first time they threatened to
get onstage and kill him so he went it did it again.
Tom: But I’ve never been offensive to anyone who didn’t offend me first.
I was like that with those bouncers because they wouldn’t let half our
fans in.
Scott: They were underage though.
Tom: I don’t care. It was a live venue for live music so they should
have got in.
Scott: And what about that time you stood on the stage at the Nirvana
under-18s Battle of the Bands and screamed at The Insurgents?
Tom – “We’ll leave that one.”
Are you bothered what people think?
Scott: It doesn’t bother us at all.
Tom: It does bother me that people think we’re arrogant because we’re
nice to everyone. We don’t walk about in day-to-day life trying to be
arrogant.
James: If people like your music they’ll come over and speak to you
anyway. People who think for themselves won’t judge you by your image.
Do you fight amongst yourselves?
James: No, not at all because we’re all very honest when it comes to
saying what we think. If someone writes something we don’t like we’ll
tell them.
Lim: A song has to sound right to everyone before we’ll go with it.
Scott: Mind you Dook, you didn’t like ‘Tourettes’.
Tom: I didn’t because it didn’t seem like it could ever have a real
meaning to it but I managed to find one.
What’s the plan for the future?
Scott : We’ve got a load of gigs on at the moment so we’ve not had a lot
of time to practise.
Tom: I’ve written a load of songs in my room recently but I don’t think
they’re going to be suitable. I’ve been listening to too much soft indie
music, like Bright Eyes and Shins.
Lim: We’ll get back into the studio soon but we’re really focusing on
gigging at the moment.
Where do you want to be in a year’s time?
Lim: I just want to be gigging every single day of my life!
James: It would be great to be able to live off the money from gigs.
Scott: Even if we were just earning £200 a week, we’d love to be gigging
every night. Tom: Driving round going to different towns, gigging and
having people singing along would be great.
James: In the short-term we want to build up a following across the
North-West. It’s a slow process and it takes time but we’re up for it.
Recommended Link:
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www.myspace.com/thenuns
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