When Walk on the B-side meet Men's Adventures...

Last Tuesday we have met Men's Adventures at The Old Blue Last in Shoreditch for a lively gig! We really travel through Mens Adventure's music style, and as Alfie, the singer of the band said: "the kind of music that we play is quite different from the other bands, (...) we sometimes wonder what the other bands think of us!". And it is true! We were pretty amazed by the singer Alfie, who has a really unique voice! They really share their passion with the audience and that is exactly what you are looking for when you go to a gig!

 At their live at Old Blue Last, from left to the right: Pascal (Bass), Alfie (Vocals), 

Jimmy (Guitar / Vocals), Chris (Guitar)

More about them here in our interview:

Walk on the B-side: Usually you are more than two, why there is only two of you for the interview?

Alfie: There are 5 of us live, but me and Jimmy started the band and writing tunes together probably about a year ago now. We just recruited 3 more to play live with, they are probably getting drunk as we speak (laughs). But yeah Jimmy and I wrote the songs. Jimmy writes all the music and some of the words, but I mainly write the words.

Why did you call the band Men's Adventures?

Alfie: I guess because of the stories we are inspired by, I mean I don't know if you are familiar with Men's Adventure magazines but I have been collecting them for quite a while. It is a lot of short stories.

What is it about?

Alfie: It is about men having adventures (laughs) 

Jimmy: Men's Adventure magazines are a lot of short stories, kind of like men's entertainment magazines from the 50's/60's. They have pictures of pretty girls kind of pin up girls but with these really cool, interesting short stories.

Alfie: An older version of FHM (laughs) We just find it entertaining to write the songs.

How did you meet each other?

Jimmy: We used to play in different bands, we played together sometimes and thats how we met each other. When both our bands split up, we got together and started playing music together.
Alfie: Yeah thats pretty much it in a nutshell. It is all about 3 or 4 years ago so there has been quite a gap between those two and the sounds are very different.

Alfie: Yeah thats pretty much it in a nutshell. It is all about 3 or 4 years ago so there has been quite a gap between those two and the sounds are very different.

Jimmy: But we only started about a year and a half ago.

How would you qualify your style of music?

Alfie:  It is hard for us to say we prefer for everyone else to make up their own minds. We always had this strong country and western influence in it but it is mainly because a lot of the stories we are writing about are of that era you know... 

Jimmy: But I guess it is kind of pop music really in it's simpliest form but we like a lot of different kinds of music, but yeah it's pop music really if you have to define it...

What are your influences?

Jimmy: We listen to lot of world music, but also country music, rock'n'roll records but then a lot of contemporary stuff too... like dance music, hip hop music. But to be honest I think the biggest influence to both of us is each other, we kind of work on everything together. Our biggest influences will be like what Alfie and I discuss about films, books, music and stories, that is probably our biggest influence.

Alfie: The stories are the biggest influence and then the song comes naturally.

Where does the idea of the "Hawaiian style" song Deep freeze virgins come from?

Alfie: Yeah Deep freeze virgins it is a funny one because it is a whole mixture of sounds, a mixture of stories as well, I mean kind of sounds like a country and western song, it's like the first example of a song mixing it up. 
Jimmy:  We have got a song set in the Alpes, then another one about Hawaii set on a beach and then you'll have another set in the desert.

Alfie: We are also working on a song with an Italian but the song is delivered with a Spanish accent. (laughs)
Jimmy: But Again that is part of that Mens Adventure world, non descript places but just imagery really, I think we are a great band to close your eyes and listen to.

How long have you been playing together?

Jimmy: About a year and a half.

Alfie: Yeah like we first started meeting up then we got together like a year and half ago, we did our fist couple of shows together live, so just over year or so I guess.

 Where did you have your first gig?

Alfie:  I run a bar in Mile End called the Victoria and we did it in the basement there. So it is nicely intimate and create as much control as we possibly could. Our first proper show was upstairs in the Haggerston. We tried to keep the shows quite intimate because there was only two of us, we had guest drummers and things like that, it was much more acoustic. We have been 5 from 6 months or so.

Jimmy: All the recordings we do is just me and Alfie then when we play live we have James Christie on drums, Pascal Chea on bass and James Foreman on guitar, we all hang out together and stuff, we are friends now.

What is your best memory as a band?

Jimmy: That is a good question! I think one of my favourite ones ever was when we played birthdays in Dalston that was like one of my favourite things we ever did together, that was like a really good gig, really good fun...

Alfie: That was one of the first examples of a venue being fucking tired and empty then when we came on it became really busy so I guess that kind of like marked a decent point.

Jimmy:We have worked our way slowly. We took our time and feel ready and confident in what we are doing and where we are going...

Alfie: We have never left London yet so you know for us little venues that we previously play with other bands before, it is not that much new so... yeah I think there are plenty more best times to come.

Any plans for the future?

Alfie: Yeah we are hopefully getting someone to put a record out for us. We haven't released anything officially yet.

Jimmy: The ideal would be to just have someone to facilitate us make some proper records, singles...

Alfie: an EP or something... 

Jimmy:  That would be good. That's probably our only real objective at the moment apart fom playing live.

Will You make an Album?

Jimmy: Yeah we will do...

Alfie: make an album... 
Jimmy: We have been doing this for like about 12 months so I think me and Alfie we've got pretty fast minds, we don't really want to be doing what we are doing right now for like a lot longer so we record what we are doing. Put it out and kind of end there and then start the next wave, that would be the idea for this year, the plan.
Alfie: Yeah there is more things in life than cowboys to sing about, we want to start to talk about some other more manly adventures.

Next gig : 19th January at XOYO in Old street stay tuned! 

Follow them on Facebook  and listen to their music on Soundcloud there is a new demo up !