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Southamptons finest ska exports Howards Alias have been touring the country for the past few weeks with Mustard Plug and Captain Everything. Their debut album, "The Chameleon Script", released on Good Clean Fun was described by Fracture as "Bad Religion snorting trumpets and trombones with Less Than Jake on a street corner by an old churchyard". I caught up with them on the Tunbridge Wells Forum leg of their tour and put a few questions to guitarist and lead singer Matt.
tp - Who does what in the band and what are your influences?
HA - There's me (Matt) on guitar and vocals, Rob on trumpet and vocals, Jev on drums and we've got Steve playing bass. We don't have a trombone player at the moment though. We listen to rock, punk, ska, whatever really. I'm personally not really into ska-punk, more traditional ska like the Skatalites and that sort of thing. And I like heavy metal stuff like Slayer!
tp - How did you get signed to Good Clean Fun and has this made a difference with releases and tours?
HA - Well the two guys who run Good Clean Fun saw us in Cardiff when we were supporting Link80 on their tour last January and they made the offer to sign us last year. We've been able to release our first album with them. As for tours, we sorted that out by finding a booking agency who organise support acts for tours, we don't really do that through the label.
tp - Ska and punk seem to be getting more and more popular recently, what makes the Howards Alias sound different from that of other bands out there?
HA - Well some people have said that we sound different but really we just try and be ourselves and play what we want to play. I suppose we'd like to strive to have our own sound but in the end it's just about enjoying what we do.
tp - Talking of other UK bands, who has impressed you recently?
HA - Captain Everything, definately, we've been on tour with them for a fortnight or more now and they are just amazing. Also Capdown and Lightyear are great bands, we've played with them at a few south coast shows but we haven't got to see Capdown recently coz they've been overseas. Five Knuckle are also pretty good too.
tp - You guys must've had a hard time at the end of last year what with losing your trombone and bass players, is it all sorted now?
HA - Yeah, I've known Murphy (our old bass player) since we were kids and we'd know for a little while that he couldn't stay, but he offered to stay on until we got someone else. Our new bass player is Steve, I've known him since we were kids too and he used to be our merch guy, but he could play bass pretty well anyway so he offered to do it. It's like he's always been part of the band. Nick, our trombone player, left towards the end of last year but we haven't found a new trombone player yet although we've tried out a few.
tp - How's the tour been going with Mustard Plug and Captain Everything?
HA - It was fucking awesome! We've really enjoyed it and we've learnt a lot more about touring and ourselves. Captain Everything are amazing, they are such a tight outfit too. Touring can be pretty hard because we can only go home to Southampton if we've played a gig in the area, but on this tour we've been going up North a lot so we've had to spend nights in the van and on peoples floors. We've got a new van now, the one we bought from 4Ft Fingers lasted us well though!
tp - And finally... have you got any thankyous or shout-outs you want us to put in?
HA - Yeah, thanks to Matt and Tom at Good Clean Fun, and Neil Armstrong at Hidden Talent Booking. And all the UK bands that are out there touring - you have my respect, it's hard work!
Jamie
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