My Interview with the band 'The Blackhand'

Say your name and the instrument you play.Ben:  I’m Ben, and I play the kazoo. [Laughs] No i play the guitar.
Nathan:  I’m Nathan and I play the bass.
Gilly:  Yeah I’m Gilly and what are those things called?
Nathan:  Glockenspiel?
Gilly:  No the aborigine things.
Ben:  Oh a Didgeridoo?
Gilly:  [Laughs] Yeah a Didgeridoo, No I play the drums. We have Benji but he is fencing.
Nathan:  He is our vocalist.

Who would you say has musically inspired your band?Gilly:  You. [Laughs]
Nathan:  It’s quite like a few different things like, because we’re all interested in different genres. I listen to like Grungy kind of rock metal.
Ben:  Belgian hardcore trance. Also Alice in chains is a big influence.
Gilly:  Yeah we’ve got a girl called Alice locked up in the garage she just sits there and plays the piano [Laughs].
Nathan:  Yeah she basically writes all of our songs.
Ben:  Nirvana are maybe a more well known similar genre, Gilly is inspired by the blackhand.
How did you all decide to get together and form a band?
Ben:  I was bullied into it.
Nathan:  Yeah peer pressure, well it started with me and Ben and we used to sit in a shed and write music, then we decided to get a drummer in and make it serious.
Ben:  Yeah this shed was so small when we used to go there like February- March times, We would all be covered in blankets and we could not move. We had to like tell each other were we was going to.
Gilly: It was quite an awesome shed.
Nathan:  Yeah, because they have knocked the old shed down.
Ben:  Yeah it has like a fridge and stuff in it now its more like a summer house [Laughs]
Nathan:   Yeah, it’s come along way since we where there.
Gilly:  So have we! [Laughs]
Nathan:  So yeah, we got Gilly in like a few months later because we wanted to get some sort off rock music done.

How did you all decide on the name the blackhand?Ben:  We just thought of it on a train one day, Because i was reading the paper and i seen something about the Black hand because it was a terrorist group in World War 1, It seemed like a cool name so that’s what we went with.
Gilly:  Yeah, We went though things like Hitler’s erection but we thought that, that wouldn’t go down that well at Barmitzfers.

What would be your dream gig?Gilly:  Download.
Ben:  Wembley stadium, Supporting Metallica.
Gilly:  No. Download.
Ben:  No, Wembley stadium headlining our own gig actually.
Nathan:  That would be the best gig ever.
Gilly:  As long as Metallica are not involved.
Ben:  I am being serious i would like to play in a coffee shop acoustic.
Nathan:  We got offered that at Matthew Street but it never came through.

What is the theme of your new music video?
Gilly:  The new one? Well were toying with ideas.
Nathan:  The one were doing soon?
Gilly:  Yeah
Ben:  All we know is that its going to be out in January, at the moment were toying with ideas.
Gilly:  And were taking a lot of backstage footage, or whatever to kind of throw in the middle.
We have so far got a video of Ben breaking a boxing machine in the middle of Sheffield.
Ben:  I broke it..

What was the theme of your last music video?
Gilly:  Just a house party.
Ben:  Just a good time house party, Yeah on Warren drive it was in the kitchen.
Gilly:  Yepp.

How old were you when you decided you wanted to be in a band?
Ben:  I was like 12; I was in a band in year 5. Yeah I was in and out of bands in year 5 so 12 for me, 11-12.
Nathan:  I started with bands when I was about 12-13 and, it was kind of one of those things were we all get together, and were like oh, were a band now... Evan though no one could play an instrument.
Ben:  You could play Bass
Nathan:  Yeah I played guitar for a bit, then I went to bass. I was a drummer for a bit, but i couldn’t really play the drums.
If you could choose any song at the moment to cover, what would you choose?
Ben:  ‘Rooster’ by Alice and chains, that’s what we want to cover.
Gilly:  I’d agree with that ‘Rooster’ by Alice and chains, I’ve never heard it but I’ll go with it.
Nathan:  We are debating to do ‘Only girl in the world’ by Rhianna.
Gilly:  That’s a really catchy song.
Nathan:  I would personally like to do Lady Gaga.
Ben:  What’s that other Rhianna song?
Nathan:  We tried ‘Disturbia’ by Rhianna
Ben:  Or ‘Bad romance’.
Gilly:  For the launch we should do a collection of shit covers.
Nathan:  I really like that KT Tunstall song as well the one i wanted to do myself was the one that goes ‘Woo hoo’
Gilly:  [Laughs]. All KT Tunstall songs do that!
Nathan:  I cant really explain it kind of just goes ‘ dun di dun di dun di dun, woo hoo’
Ben:  I don’t know all KT Tunstall songs.
Gilly:  All I know is KT Tunstall’s first song that was on T.V.
Ben:  Is it map of the world? ‘Oh her face is a map of the world is a map of the world’.
Nathan:  No I’m pretty sure its a older one.

Does your group suffer from any bad habits?Gilly:  Time [Laughs]
Nathan:  We cant keep up to schedules
Gilly:  Time keeping, We are all awful!
Ben:  Why did everyone look at me then on time? I’m always on time.
Gilly: Its normally one of you two. [Points at Ben and Nathan]
Ben:  Yeah it’s normally me.
Gilly:  I don’t have to travel far; I just have to go upstairs. But we very, very nearly missed out train to Sheffield on the weekend.
Ben:  Yeah we had to run through Lime Street with all the gear, Its was quite interesting.
Gilly:  We had the slowest taxi driver ever.
Nathan:  Oh yeah, Gilly can’t play patterns.
Gilly:  Yeah I usually mess up one bit, just one bit of a song literally all it is, is counting.

How would you see yourselves in 10 years?
Ben:  Making a good living from this.
Nathan:  Sat on this couch right here.
Ben:  On this couch.
Gilly:  Actually no. We are getting new couches from Christmas so probley not this couch but a couch.