Answer

Answer

http://www.theanswermusic.com/
Gallery

Biography

The Answer formed in 2000 by guitarist Paul Mahon, whose father was a jazz trumpeter and member of seminal Irish Beat group The Freshmen, who toured with the likes of the Beach Boys. Aged 18, Paul knew he wanted to put together a GREAT rock band and mentioned it to bassist Micky Waters, an old school friend who had cut his teeth in numerous cover bands around Belfast. Micky jumped at the idea so they started writing together straight away.

Paul and Micky trawled through the ranks of everyone they knew in the Northern Irish music scene in their search for the singer they really wanted. The guys were often told about an amazing young blues singer called Cormac Neeson, but when they tracked his parents down, they found that Cormac had hightailed it out to New York the day he finished his A levels and was working in pizza joints and singing in Blues bands at night over there. Undaunted, they got his contact address and wrote to him, telling him about the band and their plans for world domination. It seemed too good to be true so a few weeks later Cormac moved back to Belfast and started writing lyrics to the searing licks that Paul and Micky had been writing.

All along Paul and Micky knew the drummer they needed and wanted in The Answer. James Heatley, who had played as Ash's stand-in live drummer in 1993 (when Rick was doing A-Levels) was a highly sought after sticksman who had formed his own band rather than continue working with Ash, as he had a burning desire to follow his own muse. Paul called him up only to find that he was about to take his finals at University, so the trio waited patiently while James was completing his degree in Psychology (no thick drummer jokes applicable here then!).

On the night after James' final exam in late June 2000, the four of them got together for a rehearsal and by the end of the first song it was obvious something special was happening in the room. Everyone was just staring at each other and laughing - "That was fucking amazing" was the general consensus.

2001 was spent writing, rehearsing, gigging locally and building up a set The Answer could really be happy with. By 2002 the guys had attracted the attention of MCD promotions in Ireland, (the company who recently bought out the Mean Fiddler Group, alongside Clear Channel), who put them on as openers at the Witnness Festival that year.

There's no way an unsigned band can make a living out of music alone, so each member of the band was engaged in full or part time employment, but a year and a half ago these four determined young men quit their day jobs, moved in to a farmhouse on the coast of Northern Ireland and devoted their time to constant rehearsal and songwriting.

Last summer, The Darkness were so wowed by the Answer at a festival in Ireland that they invited the band to open at their Brixton Academy gig at the end of November 2004. Blown away by the band's performance, Albert's, publisher of AC/DC worldwide, began negotiations to sign The Answer. The first fruit of the deal, the 'Keep Believin' EP, is now set for release on July 11th. read less

Features

News Articles

CDs

Live Apperances