► Edition 3 Extras: Bernard Thresher Interview

Interview with Bernard Thresher from The Lancashire Hotpots

You’ve just released the album ‘Pot Sounds’. How would you go about summing up the record?

It’s good! It’s much like the first one to be honest. We’re just four angry blokes who probably drink a little by too much, talking about stuff they see around and that. We’ve got songs about chavs on this one; there’s another one about booze – that’s called ‘The Beer Olympics; and ‘Indie Disco’ has a go at the little indie kids. Just general nonsense; just what you expect from the Lancashire Hotpots.

So it’s more great observational comedy?

Let’s hope so, eh!

So how did the idea for the ‘Lancashire Hotpots’ come about?

Dickie, the incidental percussionist, the chap who waggles the banana on stage (!?), was sat on the toilet one day and just as he got that little moment of clarity the idea of creating ‘The Lancashire Hotpots’ came into his head.

I believe you all had a background in dance music DJing… what made you do such a sudden change in direction?

It’s just very hard. We turn up to a gig now with an acoustic guitar, a bass, and set of drums. We probably only use 8- or 9- lines. When we were in ‘Emmett’, which was the dance band before that, we turned up with about nineteen synths and all sorts of crazy stuff, 2am in some warehouse trying to get 16- to 24- lines of audio into a desk and then you end up playing to people who don’t know their own name. It’s much easier to turn up now and do ‘The Lancashire Hotpots’ and people actually listen to what you’re doing.

Is the ‘Bang Bang Thumpy Dance Megamix’ (available to listen at www.myspace.com/thelancashirehotpots) a throwback to those times?

It is indeed. That’s our homage to times gone before. That’s the bit where we get to let our hair down in the gig.

Which bands inspired you?

Dickie has been the man that’s sort of breast-fed us the Houghton Weavers and the Oldham Tinkers and things like that when he came up with the idea. We’ve just sort of flown by the seat of our pants, really. We’ve played E, A and D or G, C and D in any order that we can, sort of a jangly tune and put some words to it, and that’s all we’ve done really. We seem to have hit on something that people quite like, it’s nice.

You’ve developed a cult following quite quickly; what do you think has made you so successful?

I don’t know. If you make people laugh, people get on board, don’t they! We haven’t really tried, to be honest. This is why we find it a bit odd because we just recorded some stuff, put in our MySpace, and then people started buying it, and that’s all we’ve kept doing. We don’t really understand what’s happening. People pay for tickets to come and see us live. We turn up, drink loads of booze and act daft, and people still pay and leave happy, most of the times. We can’t grumble!

You seem to have got a winning formula…

That’s it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

What’s your favourite song over your two albums?

Well I think for me at the minute, off ‘Pot Sounds’, ‘Indie Disco’ is probably my favourite but it changes every day. I’ve got different favourites. ‘The Girl from Bargain Booze’, which is the last track on ‘Pot Sounds’, seems to be the early favourite with the fans who’ve bought it so far, off the forum. They seem to think that’s going to be the anthem of 2009!

A few of your songs are pastiches on famous tracks such as Rawhide and Camptown Races. How do you decide which tracks to adapt?

Some of us, we get an idea together and it’ll naturally have another theme to it, be it a country theme or a general folky theme, and then if we can parody something close enough that we can get away with it we’ll have a go with it, but we don’t go out initially to mimic a track. We’ll write it and the track will pop in and go ‘Hang on a minute!’, that’s a bit like that, then we’ll try and parody it as close as we can. They’re quite funny aren’t they!

Yeah, the chav song on the second album is very good…

Oh I do like a bit of chav!

Absolutely… don’t we all…

So you’re playing live soon…

Well we’ve been playing since April. We’ve started touring with Paddy McGuiness not so long ago and we’ve obviously coupled them in with a lot of our old dates, and it’s been bloody marvellous. I can’t believe it! People keep coming, it’s great!

How did your tour with Paddy McGuiness come about? Is he a fan of yours?

Well he is now! Whether he was before or not I don’t know. It was of those his people spoke to our people… and we’ve done in total about twenty dates with him around and about and we’re getting to places where all the people who we may not have had chance to play to before because we’re professional northerners and he’s a professional northerner but it seems to be going down quite well.

What sort of things happen at a Lancashire Hotpots live gig?

We always like to say it’s a cavalcade of comedy characters plus booze plus music and, hopefully, laughter. Well that’s it… we just get up there, play the songs and try and play them as well as we can, if we can see after the copious amounts of lager we try and get through. That’s a bit of a bonus, because we all have full-time jobs, working Monday to Friday, when we get on the road at weekends and it’s time for us to enjoy ourselves as well, so hopefully that comes across, that we’re having a good time.

So you have as much fun as the audience?

Let’s hope so. You’ve got to, haven’t you? If you’re not enjoying it I think that comes across and I think wouldn’t enjoy coming to watch you if you just stood there and looked miserable.

How are your songs going down in the south?

Well, everybody loves a chippy tea, don’t they? Nobody wants to cook on a Friday night so I think everybody gets the jokes, about meeting girls on the Internet, all those jokes aren’t particularly northern so they all cross and so it’s nice. We played Wolverhampton last weekend and that went down great.

Is it the modern themes? Do you get a lot of younger people to the gigs?

There’s a good cross-section. What we find is we get both nieces and nans, right across the boundaries from the young to the old, especially when we play up north. The older generation, 60+, think we’re a folk band and they come out because they enjoy the music and the young kids come out because we’re having a go at the emos. We seem to have a mass-appeal which is really, really quite beneficial.

You’re doing some dates in Yorkshire… do you think there’ll be any rivalry with the Lancashire aspect?

We get a bit of stick at the start when we go on; there’s usually a bit of ‘Yorkshire! Yorkshire!’ but we win them over by the end. When they start laughing we get rid of those Yorkshire / Lancashire divides and we all just try and have a lovely time together.

Have you penned any songs or got any themes for a third album?

Oh jeepers, we’ve only just finished doing this one and getting this one out. We’ll see how things go on. We try and pick on hot topics so we’ll get this one out and start playing some of these songs live and we’ll see what comes up. You never know there might be a third one, it depends if people still want ‘The Lancashire Hotpots’ to make new stuff. We’ll see how long it takes before the joke runs out.

I for one would definitely love a third album.

Excellent. Good news!

So will we be seeing more from the hotpots are will you be off back to dance music?

We’re all extremely happy with the way things are going at the moment. Until people say they don’t want ‘The Lancashire Hotpots’ any more we’ll keep doing it. That’s for sure. Guaranteed.

And finally, do you think Jamie Oliver would get on better with his Ministry of Food if he just extolled the virtues of a chippy tea?

Now that’s one campaign I’d get behind for sure! What’s the man thinking? He could have a nation in the palm of his hand if he just said: “Come on. Put down the pots and pans. Get yourself a couple of pounds and let’s have a chippy tea, come on!”

I’ll look forward to that programme!

Get me on board… I’ll back it. I’ll do the TV as well.

We’ll get onto Channel 4 now!

It’s a deal!

Thanks for that!

I’m going to have a game of darts and eat some bubble and squeak, I’ll see you in a bit!