Who’s who?
Chris plays guitar and sings, Lee plays guitar and sings, Andy plays drums and
Olly plays bass
Brief history of the band? We started off in the summer of 2000 and played our first show in February
2001. Deck Cheese offered us a deal late 2001 and our first record came out in
May 2002. We’ve spent the past 3 years playing and touring as much as we
possibly could while holding down full time jobs, and our album came out last
July.
Who are your influences? KC & the Sunshine Band, Whigfield, this is a silly question so it gets a
silly answer!
Best gig you’ve played and best band you’ve played with? I think, as a band, we’d all agree that playing the Leeds Festival last year
was a particular highlight. Everybody went kinda crazy and they had to stop our
set to reinforce the barriers at the front. They must have thought we were some
sort of sappy acoustic indie band or something! Deconstruction 2002 was pretty
cool too, but we’ve played some of our best shows to about 6 people in places
like the Cellar in Oxford. The Portland show in Cambridge last month was great
fun too! For me personally, getting to play with Face To Face was something I
won’t forget in a hurry!
Who would you most like to play with? I’d really like to play a tiny venue with Alkaline Trio. That’d be awesome.
Probably never happen though….
Why are you called Fletcher? I used to work at a print shop and there were 2 of us called Lee, so because
I wear black-rimmed glasses they called me Fletcher after Ronnie Barker’s
character in Porridge. Somewhere along the line someone thought that’d be a good
name for a band…
How do you describe your music? Melodic punk rock seems vague enough to me…although a particular favourite
is “workmanlike chug” although we probably did sound like that from the bar down
the road the reviewer was sat in while we were actually playing! My personal
favourite though is “a second rate Face To Face”..I love that one! hahahaha
What’s the funniest thing to happen on tour? Banjo (Olly) getting thrown down a flight of stairs wrapped in a duvet in
Cardiff instantly springs to mind, although touring with Vanilla Pod means that
anything can, and probably will, happen!
How did you get on deck cheese? We begged.
Who do you think are the best bands in the UK scene? Vanilla Pod, Right Turn Clyde, Bombjacks, Route 215, Captain Everything!
What are the best and worst parts of touring? I think I have a slightly unnatural enjoyment of touring! I wish we were in
a position to tour more, but we’re not…everyone has
rent/bills/mortgages/whatever to pay and the only way we can do that is to work
full time. We’ll keep doing as much as we can though!
Where do you see yourselves in 5 years time?
No idea.
Any advice to give to bands just starting out?
Give up now. ‘It’s a shit business!’ hahahaha
Strange / gross fact about each of you?
I think that’s probably best left alone…
