The Firm

1. How did you come up with the name The Firm?

First of all, it's worth pointing out that we are well aware of the fact that we are not the first 'The Firm' - there have indeed been about three others, but nobody really cares. When quizzed on this, my stock belligerent answer is that we are not called The Firm - we actually are The Firm. The name came almost as a response to the name of a band myself and Julia used to be in called Sub-Culture. Sub-Culture seemed to be all-encompassing and almost welcoming and, after the largely negative experience of being in that group, we wanted something a bit more forceful and violent, so we chose The Firm as we'd spent a large portion of time sitting in the Blind Beggar. We would sit in what were allegedly the very seats that other famous Firm sat in when having meetings, and we would make plans. None of these ever came to fruition, but that didn't stop us. We also like the business-like connotations of the name, seeing as bands - whether they like it or not - seem to be run mainly as businesses these days. It also gave us the chance to say 'we're with The Firm', which is always one of life's great pleasures.

2. What is The firm about and what are your main influences?

That almost implies that it's a film, which is a lovely thought. Unfortunately, the plot would be too long-winded to go into, so we shan't bother. Essentially, what we are trying to do is marry what we see as very leftfield elements of music and throw them into almost shameless pop songs. I have never really entertained the idea of having a particular sound and, whenever I feel we've achieved that, I've always suggested doing the complete opposite, which is probably down to me being an awkward bastard. So what people might have us down as at the moment probably won't be how it'll be in 'x' amount of time. Having said that, our primary influences at this point in time would probably include the darkest elements of post-punk, the noisiest elements of shoe gazing, the DIY ethic of punk and C86, Albert Camus, Get Carter, the very bowels of London, newspaper headlines, Pet Shop Boys, Oscar Wilde, psychedelia, Suede, The Smiths, nostalgia, poverty, depression and The Verve. We also obsess over the lyrics, which are deeply important to us because we want them to mean something to people. We don't just want to be background music, we still believe in the romantic notion that music can change people's lives and influence their lifestyles. We want to encapsulate that and therefore I make sure the lyrics stand up as poetry. Whether that is the case or not isn't really for me to say, but I like to poke fun at what people see as being tragic and depressing, but also I try and find the dramatic in the very ordinary.

3. What type of people do you bring to your shows?

Beautiful and intelligent sorts, obviously. We hope we shall see more of them! In fact, we'll probably end up scaring most of them away.

4. What’s is one of the bands gig or personal highlights?

The best thing we have ever done is set up our clubnight, which is called The Vapour Trail. We were absolutely sick of having to play with insufferably tedious bands with whom we had absolutely nothing in common, and decided to capitalize on the lack of decent nights in town. There are some brilliant ones, but they are very few and far between. So, given that Julia used to run clubnights in Hamburg and is a DJ, and also the fact that, at the time, we were very interested in the C86/early Creation scene and how the bands used to put on their own nights and write fanzines, The Vapour Trail was born. It has been an unsung inspiration and has seen a lot of excellent bands play, and some are very much involved in it to a large degree. The other highlight was a gig we played at the Buffalo Bar where we really felt The Firm was born - it was myself, Chris, Julia and Yameen onstage together for the first time and, prior to that, the band wasn't really a complete entity. We played five songs at deafening volume and just prayed that the melodies could be heard, although we also wanted people's noses to explode. As it panned out, the melodies could be heard, no noses exploded, everybody was happy.

5. What’s the worse gig you have ever played and what made it so bad?

Prior to the true birth of The Firm, an embryonic version, shall we say, played a dire gig at The Resistance's clubnight in Cambridge. The grunting fool who was supposed to be playing the drums failed to show up so we had to do a semi-acoustic gig which, against all odds, went down well. That was more to do with people feeling sorry for us, though. That said, at least we were in time, which was something of a rarity at that point.

6. Any plans for the new future?

There is plenty in the pipeline. We will be playing with some wonderful people at the Vapour Trail over the coming months and will hopefully commence touring next year. In February, we are releasing our debut single on Whimsical Records, which will be 'If You Don’t Want to Know Life's Dismal Results' and we're doing the video for that next month. Also in December, we'll be completing a huge stack of new songs because I want our set, and eventually our album, to read like a manifesto - "Life and Love according to The Firm" - although it thankfully won't be called that, or hopefully be anywhere near as dull or dreadful as that suggests! Christ, people have enough on their plates.

7. Is there any Ep's or albums that fans can get their hands on?

At the moment, there is nothing absolutely new but I'm going to compile some sort of compilation of early demos, so if anybody is interested then they can contact us through www.myspace.com/thefirmband and I'll be more than happy to post them a copy when it's finalized. Other than that, there are demos on that site, although some are not representative of where we are at currently, and are certainly not the definitive Firm. For that, you'll just have to hang on until 2009.

8. Any last words?

I'll just go and grab a dictionary. No, I think the important thing to remember is that, as the world seems to be becoming a bleaker and more depressing place, what with money disappearing and technology swallowing up reality - not to mention all of the dire things screamed at us from newspapers along with the decline in popular culture - we still have music and the romance that goes with it. The careerist crap that has been falling off the factory line in the last few years is being replaced by drama, passion, melody and mystery, not to mention a sense of anger, all the things that make for the best pop music. And at the risk of sounding like an arrogant swine, I believe we do those things very well.

Ross/ The Firm

This band is amazing and i really like their music! I think that you should check them out on myspace myspace.com/thefirmband