The Gentlemen: The pop rockers pushing hard for a mainstream hit

Wednesday 26th August 2009

Mike Rimmer has had several meetings with THE GENTLEMEN. Here's what he saw and heard. Photos by Ben Goulter.



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So what's the vision for The Gentlemen at this point in their development? What is it that they want to do? Nicholas responds, "I think we'll discover it more as we go along but we really just want to play to the masses and we just want to get a good career out of it and see how it goes really. We're keen for lots of radio play and go to the festivals and continue touring and just continue songwriting too and writing fresh stuff all the time, that's what we enjoy doing."

The Gentlemen: The pop rockers pushing hard for a mainstream hit

The band are enjoying playing on the university and small club circuit. They spent the last few months playing at Barflys and trying to make friends with new fans in the way that a thousand other British rock bands are trying to do. Tonight the small club is sparsely populated with a few die hard fans and a few followers of the support act who have hung around as well as some record company people. The band put on a rousing performance but the sound guy's decision to turn everything up beyond 11 means that the volume is a little louder than needed for this small venue thus spoiling the gig slightly.

So are they making many new friends? As I meet the band outside the Barfly, there's a middle aged woman who saw the band in Coventry and she's asking for autographs. She doesn't look like your typical rock fan. So they're proper rock stars now then? "Yeah, it's fantastic," laughs Nicholas. "It's everything I ever dreamed of." I point out that when I write it in print, it's going to sound really arrogant. "That's fine," he smiles.

Back on the Rimmerama radio show, one of my listeners messages the show to tell us that in a questionnaire for a Christian girls' magazine, one of those lovely Gentlemen say that with nine minutes left to live, they would have mad sex with their wife, if they had one. Nicholas laughs, "Was that Joel?" Yes, and Joel said, "Have great sex with my wife." But he's not married yet! Nicholas says, "Yeah, but the end of the world isn't going to happen for at least a year. I was talking to Jesus this morning. I just said, 'Jesus give us enough time for these albums to recoup and then we can go to heaven.'" He laughs.

Hmmmm. . . Nicholas, skirting very close to being a Jehovah's Witness because they have a habit of trying to predict when Jesus is going to return. So the aforementioned questionnaire asked, "If you had nine minutes left on earth what would you do?" Nick said, "Get naked, sing outside and eat a sandwich;" Sean said, "Attempt at telling all my friends and family how much I loved them. You'll never do that because in the last nine minutes you'll never get a signal on your phone will you." Joel says, "Record as many drum rolls and loops as possible and have fast sex with my wife, if I were married, of course."

Now this is drummer Joel we're talking about who is about to marry singer songwriter Philippa Hanna in September. So, does Philippa know this, has she read what he said? Joel is suitably tight lipped. He laughs, "We have a strict policy of not talking about our personal lives."

So basically Joel Cana is taking a showbiz stand and is pretending not to get married to protect the band because they want to pretend to their fans that they are single boys. So he's denying he's marrying Philippa Hanna? I wonder how Philippa feels about this? Live on the radio, I immediately decide to get Hanna to come on the show on the phone. Nicholas sighs, "This has backfired for you Joel, hasn't it?"

But it hasn't. Philippa is not answering her mobile and the show is coming to an end. Time is on the band's side. Or perhaps it's because real gentlemen really know how to be discrete. CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Mike Rimmer
Mike RimmerMike Rimmer is a broadcaster and journalist based in Birmingham.


 
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