Tim (vox. and guitar) sits back in a corner shrouded in shadows, (despite the sunlight pouring in through the large windows), just overlooking the balcony and is tugging on his drink. Amy (vox. and guitar), who turned every fella’s head as soon as she walked in, is also surveying the busy scene below. What follows is a bizarre conversation about touring, dangerous driving and sandwiches.
The three boys- Tim, Simon (drums) and Jim (bass) all knew each other before The Barbs, and so decided to form a band. Six months later they’d met Amy
Tim: “We needed a girl to do half the vocals, so we put an advert in, and Amy answered the advert”.
So confident were they in Amy, that soon after her joining the band, a gig had already been booked.
Amy: “I had 3 weeks to learn all the words, all the new moves and get ready for our first big gig, so I was pissing myself (laughs) I was so worried! I practiced my ass off!”
Amy was the last of three to audition and before she’d arrived the rest of the guys had been panicking, but she came just in time; “we let her in and now we are THE Barbs!”.
Amy: “I think I chose this band because of the way they said they wanted someone to do the vocals, and whatever and I didn’t think that it was going to be something like the other half of the band and I thought it’d be more in the background, but that was alright they didn’t sound very scary- it was well written (laughs).
Although neither of them really come from musical backgrounds (unlike Jim or Simon, who are both “proper musicians” as Tim puts it) – Amy used to write songs before she joined The Barbs; and even played the Glockenspiel once… as far as “getting the ball rolling”, for Tim it was bands like The Pixies that made him want to play. When he was at school everyone around him had already started to make up different bands and despite being able to play the guitar he got bored of it after a few months and stopped. But then he joined a band and hasn’t “put it (his guitar) down since”.
So it was The Pixies for Tim, but Amy: “Do you remember the song ‘Bumper Town’? I remember hearing that when I was a kid (laughs). That was the first time I heard a guitar in a song. You always hear a song, and you hear all the pieces -I clearly remember that tiny little guitar (part). My first ever concert was Guns N’ Roses- that was amazing! That was when I declared my love for Slash!”
Nerves were never a huge problem for The Barbs; Amy used to get a little nervous before going on stage, but now they both agree that it all depends, and the more you play the more you boost your confidence. “Its not so much about getting the people involved at the back, but once you get a few people who are having a laugh, you feel that you’ve some kind of impact on the room, (which means) the next time its not quite so bad. I think that night we played with The Darkness was the worst. Oh my God that was the worst!”
Tim: “Normally it’s excitement, but that time it was nerves. I don’t even think that it was because The Darkness were playing- it was a really good day, and it had all just been building up and we’d had a few drinks, and with us that was when we realised that it really had stepped up a gear, what we were doing. We’d played for quite a lot of people before, and we have done since; but that was weird. A bit overwhelming really! We had people that had come from here, we had a lot of our crowd- a good 40 or 50 people that had come to our gigs in London, and you feel you’ve a bit of responsibility. (At the same time) it was going live on the internet as well, so my family at home were watching as well.”
Amy: “The thing that got me was the cameras everywhere… people were filming in front of you, behind you, underneath you- I was wearing the shortest skirt. That was such a bad idea”.
Tim: “It was good though”.
Somehow during our conversation we progress to topics of true rock. It turns out that they’ve had to sneak people up to their room, slept under the tables and one member even woke up the paralysed.
When Rm13 asked them whom they would like to play along side Tim instantly decided that it would be The Pixies now that they had reformed. For Amy, however, the decision was not so clear cut. “I dunno”.
Tim: “Think of someone who you want to support and maybe they’ll read it and be all flattered”.
Amy: “This is making my head hurt um… Dogs Die In Hot Cars”. She’d also love to play with the 5,6,7,8’s and Jet, (Tim is quick to point out that they’re Australian, much like Amy herself who is a “farming gal from oz”). She leans over and speaks directly into the dictaphone that’s lying on the table, smiles and says pointedly “Jet”. Jet it is then.
Although he had always said that when they spilt up, he would be there when they reformed, Tim didn’t manage to get to the Pixies’ gig at the Brixton Carling Academy. “We were on tour and Simon legged it down here, but I really wanted to. It came to the day and I felt ‘I’m glad I’ve no ticket ‘cause it would kill me’, ‘cause I was so knackered that I didn’t want to get on a train, I won’t appreciate it”. The band were also up in the north of England at the time, and making it back to London would be too much before going back out for another gig. “The train fare as well- it took more than one of us to do it and we chipped in with Simon’s fare too”. At least he phoned them during the gig.
As it all draws to a close I feel the need to ask the question on everybody’s mind. If you were a sandwich what sandwich would you be?
Simon would apparently be a ham sandwich, where as Tim just sees himself as a cheese and tomato sauce toasty. Jim is a club sandwich whilst for Amy it’s easy- Vegemite. “Sainsbury's don’t stock the big tubs, they only do the little ones, but if you go into…what’s that shop called?...Safeway or something, you can buy the big tubs! The vitamin B... it’s like the highest source of vit. B known to man…”.
Tim: “It was discovered on the moon. It’s not like marmite is it?”
Rm13 and Amy: “No. Marmite is stickier, whereas Vegemite is smoother”.
So next time you eat your sandwiches, think of The Barbs and the huge difference between Vegemite and Marmite.