The Basement began life lauded with praise, plaudits and promise, both from Ireland and their adopted home in the UK. Then they disappeared off the scene. For a whole three years.
Signed to hip label of the moment Deltasonic (home of The Zutons and The Coral) one would assume that, on the cusp of success, calling it a day would have been the last thing on their minds. One would assume correctly: the foursome had in fact spent the entire time working on their debut album.
“We didn’t take ages in order to chase this idea of the perfect record, because there’s no such thing,” explains frontman John Mullin, speaking from his home in Liverpool. “It was because of my insanity, and the record company being equally insane.”
So what did they do while in hibernation?
“We spent the whole time playing, writing and recording about 40 different songs,” he replies. “By the time we finished, we’d recorded two albums that we ditched because we didn’t think they were good representations. Then we recorded the new one, with which we were far happier. And that’s regardless of what it might do for our career.”
The new record is called Illicit Hugs And Playground Thugs – the name is based loosely on a Dylan lyric. Clearly, Dylan is an influence on their sound, too.
“There’s no getting away from the fact you can hear Dylan in the music,” John admits. “When you’re in your teens and getting into music, he’s the first act to blow your mind away. I thought he was the bee’s knees. I wouldn’t apologise for sounding like him. Even Hunter S Thompson wrote like Ernest Hemmingway when he started out.”
But The Basement are more than a retro band. Some of their songs have a very contemporary indie-pop feel.
“There’s no point in making records that sound like they were made 40 years ago,” says John. “We’re young and stupid so we wanted to make a record that was young and stupid, just incorporating the fact that we listen to Bob Dylan.”
Their move to Liverpool from Omagh many moons ago was intended to help bring their career to the next level. While John remains noncommittal about coming back to Ireland, he hasn’t forgotten his roots.
“It does my head in when people call us a ‘Scouse/Irish band’,” he despairs. “There’s not one bit of Scouse about us. We may live here, but we’re Irish, so it kills me when they call us Scouse. I can’t deal with it at all.”
Unfortunately, for Mullin, his accent suggests Liverpool has had a bigger influence on him that he might let on. Beneath the Omagh brogue, one can detect more than the occasional hint of Scouse.
“I read this article where marketers and advertisers put a list together of what accents sell the best, and supposedly the Irish one sells the best. How contrived is that? We’ll make a spoken word album next, just so it’ll do really well!”