BBMak – Interview

BBMak are pretty. Pretty good, I mean. Yes, they are good looking guys, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t talented. Take away the looks and you still have talented artists and songwriters, and they can sing too.

I caught up with the band long before the hype. A five-song sampler fell into my hands and I was blown away by the great mix of music. When I found out super-producer Rob Cavallo was handling the production of the band himself, I knew these guys must have it. And when the full-length album finally made its way to me, I wasn’t disappointed.

Here is a transcript of a chat I had with the group after they finished their album and made their way to the gray city of New York.

Christian:

Are you enjoying New York?

Yeah. I love New York.

Have you been to the city before?

Yeah. I think this is our fourth time.

Cool. So I have to get the generic questions out of the way, like how did you guys get together?

We met about four years ago. We were doing it sort of as a hobby, music that is, and we wanted to get it together and do it more seriously. So we formed BBMak and started writing.

Were you doing stuff before BBMak?

Yeah. I had been in bands since I was fourteen. It was just jamming, nothing serious. I was just doing it mostly as a hobby.

I read you guys all play instruments.

Yeah, we all play instruments. Mark plays a few Irish instruments, like small pipes, penny whistle, keyboards, and we all play guitars and a bit of the drums.

What got you into music and who did you grow up listening to?

The Beatles for me. They were amazing.

Is it important that people know you also write songs?

Yeah. On the album, we wrote seven tracks. The album is reflective of our personalities because we actually write the music. We got involved in every aspect of the album.

Overseas, do you guys get categorized as a boy band?

No, not really. Some people see a photo of us and think, ‘Oh, great. Another signing and dancing boy band.’ The fact that we play instruments onstage and we don’t dance, write, produce, and sing whenever we can, I think that since we are different from most of the pop today that we don’t get categorized.

Does it make you nervous that you might get categorized in the States?

Not at all, because I mean, honestly, we can only let people decide for themselves. We aren’t worried about that all.

How did you get signed?

We didn’t have a manager or anything. After we started writing songs for like a year, we went down to London and busked on the guitar outside the record companies doors until we got their attention. It sounds really cheesy, but we didn’t have a manger or contacts so we didn’t know what else to do, so we busked. A few times we got met by security, but we put on a show in Liverpool and invited everyone to see us. And the next day our phone was ringing and we got a deal.

What were the early shows like?

Just the three of us and one guitar, just an acoustic guitar and us singing.

Did any of those early songs last to the record?

We did rewrite a lot, but two songs from that actual gig are on this album.

How do you write?

We write together. We also co-write with people. But honestly, it is different every time, but we do write together most of the time.

Do you have a tape recorder with you all of the time?

Yeah, exactly. I never leave home without it.

How are the music scenes different from the US and the UK?

In the UK at the moment there is a lot of out-in-out pop, which isn’t really my cup of tea. To me the most exciting music scene at the moment is in the US. There are so many bands like Limp Bizkit, the Goo Goo Dolls, and all these bands that do well in England we love. I think there is too much cheesy pop in Europe.

I know you said that you don’t care for pop and that your music reflects you, but how would you describe your music since it seems you are sort of contradicting?

Well, we do write pop songs with strong melodies and good hooks, and working with Rob Cavallo, who has worked with bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, Green Day, and Alanis, it may be pop, but it is credible pop. The fact that we don’t dance and that we actually sing and write makes us a lot more appealing to a wider audience. I think it is pop, but it is mature pop and it’s very guitar driven.

Was hooking up with Disney in America and their power and reputation important in your signing with them?

In a way, but it was their pure enthusiasm for the project that attracted us. And Rob Cavallo was very important to us.

Mark:

You guys have been busy and the album isn’t even out for a month.

Yeah, we’ve been really busy. We’ve been to Japan, and since January 3rd we’ve been to Los Angeles, Japan, and Orlando for a Disney special.

How long were you in the studio?

We’ve been working under a lot of pressure actually. We had to finish like seven tracks in ten days, from scratch. It was so many hours, but we’ve got something really good to show for it.

Is this album the one that will be released only in the States?

Yeah, for the time being, but we do have a different album that was released in Japan. This one has seven new tracks which we wrote or co-wrote, and five tracks that we didn’t write.

Were you writing in the studio or did you bring stuff in?

It was in between recording that we wrote “Love On The Outside”, and we wrote a couple of songs when we got together four years ago that got on the American album as well. Those were a few songs that got Hollywood Records interested so we recorded those, and we got a few songs pitched to us and they were really good. We were quite lucky really.

Who was your musical influence growing up?

I really loved Stevie Wonder. He’s always been a big influence. I loved the Jackson Five. I love soul and harmonies. I love Maxwell and Destiny’s Child. I love music and it doesn’t really matter who the band is if it is a good song, mainly soul for me.

Do you carry a cassette player with you?

I do try to have a Dictaphone with me. Sometimes ideas come to me when I’m in bed and I try to write it down really quick. Sometimes I have to call my answering machine and put it on there. Any way that I can get it so I don’t forget is good.

Ste:

Getting to enjoy New York?

Yeah, it’s great.

Must be a tough transition from LA to NY.

Yeah. The weather there is so nice. It just brings me back down to earth. Being from England, I’m used to this sort of weather.

Did you get to enjoy your time out in LA or was it all work and no play?

Yeah, a lot of work.

So you had to rush a lot to get the album finished?

Yeah. We had two weeks to record seven songs. We had three weeks to audition bands and film our special.

Was Rob Cavallo in the studio all of the time working with you guys?

Yeah.

How was working with him?

He is a great producer. He is so down to earth, you know? If you have any ideas, he just wanted us to tell him, and if they are good he will use them. He is such a nice guy.

He’s worked on some great albums.

I know. He just won a Grammy for Producer Of The Year.

Have you guys been at home since January?

Well, we came to America in January and then to Japan for ten days and then back to LA to finish the album, then to Orlando and then to New York.

So you haven’t been home for months. Are you missing home?

Yeah. I miss me family, but I love me job.

Are you going home soon?

Today, actually. We fly back later today and we get four days off. It’ll be nice.

I wanted to get into understanding how you view writing. Is writing something that just comes to you or do you have to work on it?

Sometimes it comes to me, but sometimes we sit down and say, ‘Let’s write about this.’ Like Mark was saying before about “Living On The Outside”, we wrote the chorus on the plane from Japan, and we wrote the verses in Vancouver when we were there snowboarding, and the rest we finished in LA. Every song comes differently. There are no rules to writing songs. When you feel it, you should do it.

Who did you grow up listening to?

The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, and there are so many.

How did you get into pop instead of say an Oasis thing?

It was weird really. The band I was in before I met these guys, I was doing covers of Guns ‘N’ Roses. When I met the other guys, the music chilled out and became catchy. It just happened.

+ charlie craine