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9Lies <www-9lies-net>

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	Want to know more about 9Lies?? Its your lucky day - Read ON!	342 days ago
	(Faustine) What is the history of 9lies? When was it born and why? (Steve) The band was formed around 2003 with the co founder member of my previous band Nick Black who now plays guitar for us, and another good friend of mine Dave kernohan. At the beginning Nick was living in England working for Airbus trying to pull himself out of a lot of debt that he had built up back home, so in its early stages the band was basically myself and Dave locking ourselves away in my studio, which was for all intents and purposes my bedroom with a lot of wires hanging around! During those sessions we started to get the roots of the sound together for what was to become the Behind It All album. Nick would then be over at the weekends and would come around and stick a few great lead guitar over dubs to the recordings, but He wasn't just a part time member though, as he would spend a lot of time recording ideas on a palm studio and emailing them back to us. Following on from that when we actually started to feel 'in a band' along came drummer Stephen "Stoogie" McAuley and bassist Chris Cardwell. Since then the whole environment for writing new material has changed with each member being able to get on with creating their own parts, and fortunately for me they are a great bunch of musicians, and we all get on great at a personal level as well. (Faustine) How would you describe your music? (Steve) We sort of do two types in the wider Genres which would be Slow, moody guitar ballad rock, and then at the other end of the scale where the crowd pleasers live is the Uptempo, bouncy, melodic rock. The one thing that they all have in common is that we do spend a lot of time on each, doing quite often complex arrangements, and if when finished we don't like the songs they go straight in the bin never to see the light of day again. We are our own biggest critics! (Faustine) What are your influences? (Steve) For myself personally, i've always been a big fan of U2, im also big into The Kooks, Nirvana and the Killers to name but 4, and for the other guys the imagination is stretched a great deal! (Faustine) Has being Damien Rice's cousin helped you in your career? (Steve) Not as much as I would have hoped in the early days. People tend to ignore the situation and never really ask any questions, which Im happier about now that we have managed to establish ourselves without it appearing to be off the back of Damiens success. Saying that, I am very proud of Damien and what he stands for. He's a lot more arty in his music than I could ever be. One thing he did do, was prove to me that you could record an album using basic equipment in your own room and if its good people will buy into that. (Faustine) Title track 'Behind it all' was described by Johnny Hero as '9lies, sounding absolutely brilliant,' and you were given international acclaim from the US. How do you feel about that? Would you describe it as a consecration? (Steve) I think I probably would yes! We are always pleased to get any airplay as its taking our music out to a wider audience than we could otherwise expect just playing dive bars and putting it on myspace and the like, and that helps drive us on really. But more than that its humbling on a personal level that someone actually appreciates what you have created and thinks it's great, That's something I don't think we will ever be able to become glassy about. (Faustine) What are the most rewarding moments? (Steve) There's two major rewards, and the first would be when your in the rehearsal room and a new song is born. There's always a major buzz about and a bit of a high. The next reward is when your playing these songs live and the crowd get into the music and start giving you feed back, it's easy to understand why people say it is a buzz. ... there's nothing like being worshiped.... Although, im never sure if its us or the songs, lol (Faustine) And the most difficult ones? (Steve) .......in the writing process where everyone has different ideas as to where the song should go. ... leads to many amusing and bemusing arguments..... (Faustine) How do you cope with your growing success? (Steve) One day at a time, there are lots of other concerns that have to be dealt with outside the band so we just try to take things as they come. The success itself can be like busses. things look grim and then someone puts your song on a reality tv program, or contacts you from halfway around the globe to tell you that they played one of your songs and the response was great and could you do an interview on air. At the minute our focus is on Album 2, which is keeping our minds off everything else. We are very level headed though, so keeping our feet on the ground has never been a problem for any of us. (Faustine) How do you cope with tension? What is your way of relaxing? Your hobbies? (Steve) I think its safe to say that for all of us the band and the parts or instruments we play in it would have to be our main hobbies, and relaxation's just gone out of the window! We try not to take ourselves too seriously though and would regularly have a few beers and a good laugh. (Faustine) How do you see yourself in ten years? (Steve) Hopefully as the largest rock band on the planet and having other bands such as U2,and the Rolling Stones, etc. ... opening for us...LOL!!!! we always think big! in the words of Bono. "If you want cottage industry, then take up knitting!" (Faustine) What is your personal motto? (Steve) I have two sayings, one is "Its about music and not money" and the other is "no publicity is bad publicity!" im forever repeating this within the band when something goes wrong in public, like for example a newspaper in Ireland had a review of the Behind it All album and above it was this really dodgy photograph of the band from the early days which Dave had badly photoshopped. We weren't quite sure where they had got it from until a friend of ours in the media told us that it appears on a website that she had found while searching for 9Lies photos on Google. I hear its still there! (Faustine) What is a normal day for you? (Steve) A normal day starts around 9.30Am with several cups of coffee until I feel something resembling human. Then its onto the internet to check and reply to email and messages on websites, and because we our signed to our own indie label at present, we deal personally with fans and fan mail, and parcelling up CD's to mail around the globe, just the whole deal of things you would expect other band would have a record company for! Then in the evenings At present we are spending a lot of time getting the new songs ship shape for recording them in the studio starting on September 15th. This new albums the real deal done in a real studio with a producer and all the trimmings so we want our ends to be as tight as possible and the best it can be which can take up a lot of time. The live shows at present are cut back to around seven a month, but when the new albums finished that will increase drastically. (Faustine) What would you like to say to our readers? (Steve) I would say, Readers, If you havent already done so, then check us out! at www.9Lies.net or our latest pet which is our Bebo page at www-9lies-net.bebo.com where you can become a groupie, listen to free music or leave us a message! And on our website most of the 'Behind it All Album' is available for free download, so well worth checking out! (Faustine) Steve Mann, Thankyou! (Steve) For you Faustine? Anytime! 9 Lies Nine .......................................  ........................ 9Lies Interview Two for The Taxi A&R Company. Q: Where did you grow up? A: Belfast, Northern Ireland. A lot of that was spent during the troubles here, which occasionally raises its ugly head in my lyrics. Q: What made you realize that music was your path? A: I dont often tell this story because people think im either crazy or telling blatant lies, but around 12 years ago I had a dream that myself and two friends of mine who didnt play any instruments at the time, along with two unknown people were in a band and gearing up to play a big gig in a barn somewhere in the countryside. I was outside in the sun being interviewed as people below were queueing up to get into the venue. When I woke up I coulnt believe how real the dream had seemed and had this energy inside that this was what I had to do, so I called up my two friends James and Anthony, who both thought I was insane. They decided that it would be a bit of craic giving it a go, so James bought himself a cheap drum kit and anthony a bass and an amp, and we set out to get the rest of the band together. The whole thing at the start was a random clatter and strumming, but did eventually come to a point where we were able to play and write songs. Anyways, that band eventually fell apart two years later when James moved away to University and Anthony went on the run from the police, and so I moved on, still knowing that this was what I had to do. Ironically now in 9Lies for over 3 years and as founding member, we now rehearse in a barn in the country despite being townies, which is something that just struck me a couple of weeks back. But the whole thing over the years has been a real road trip with ups and downs but Its been fantastic and life changing. I wouldnt change a thing. Q: How would you describe the music that you typically create? A: I think we write cross genre. A lot of our music would be uptempo rock, pop/rock right down to slow melodic ballads with big guitar solos. We try to keep our music open to as many people as possible. Q: Who are your biggest musical influences? A: Everyone in the band have different influences, but speaking for myself im big into U2, Nirvana, The Killers, The Kooks, and on the softer side of things, my cousin Damien Rice's music. Q: What makes your music unique? A: I think thats down to the strengths, life and knowledge of all of us in 9Lies. Nicks mad into his guitar effects, and is always, buying, selling, tweaking etc, trying to get sounds from his head, into songs, stoogie never gets lazy on the drums and always has to create great rhythm back bones for the songs, and I like to put my lifes experiences and feelings into words, so im in my ideal situation now! Q: Has there been one particular moment in your musical career that you're most proud of? A: wow.....there have been so many at this stage. I think you cant get away from the feeling of your first FM radio broadcast, and for us that was in 2005 with the song Behind It All. That set the stage for us to do a big push into the media which met with us having radio airplay all over the world, even now I get a buzz from that. Then theres the live aspect. I remember playing a gig last year in a small border town called Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland, and the crowd were with us all the way going crazy and coming up on stage singing and dancing, it was a fantastic night for everyone and I think thats pretty much what its all about. Q: What's next for you? A: Well, we have our first single coming out this year, which we are releasing ourselves after the success and tinkering at releasing our debut album last year. But we feel by doing a single this time, we can focus people more on an individual song for maximum effect in the media. Internationaly the single will be available on iTunes or on cd from our website www.9Lies.net, and it will be available in Music shops here at home. We are pushing for maximum airplay, and press inches worldwide. spreading ourselves a bit thin you think?? If you want cottage industry then take up knitting! 9 Lies Nine What a year it's been for 9Lies! It was the year which saw the 'Behind It All' album being released to critical acclaim, with massive radio airplay around the globe, and all without a record company being involved! It was also the year which saw the song 'Blind' being snapped up by Warner Brothers, and 'Behind it All' the title track from the album finding a new home as theme tune to reality tv show 'Our Prisoner' in the USA. We've been beamed up and down from satellites around the world more times than we care to remember. In just 6 months, 18000 people joined us on our 2 International myspace sites and in the last 3 months we've gathered almost 900 groupies since joining the Bebo social networking site, with fans placing our songs on over 1500 of their playlists! The Song 'Slippin Away' has not only been downloaded online during the last year more than 29,000 times, but has more recently been chosen by ASCAP for excellence in songwriting at the ASCAP Music Expo 07 in L.A. Download sales on digital sites such as iTunes and Rhapsody have remained strong, as have Material Worldwide CD sales from our Online Music Store, and all of this is down to you! Thankyou!!! It does'nt end there though! The new album 'Halfway from Nowhere' is almost finished and sounding absolutely fantastic!! If you haven't already done so, then join the 9Lies Mailing list for free, to be kept up to date and receive free member offers! For additional resources about the band, check out www.9Lies.net
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	Want to Know more about 9Lies? Read Stevie Manns Interviews with Taxi and Magazine Journo Faustine	961 days ago
	(Faustine) What is the history of 9lies? When was it born and why? (Steve) The band was formed around 3 years ago with the co founder member of my previous band Nick Black who now plays guitars for us, and my good friends Dave kernohan. At the beginning Nick was living in England working for Airbus trying to pull himself out of a lot of debt that he had built up back home, so in its early stages the band was basically myself and Dave locking ourselves away in my studio, which was for all intents and purposes my bedroom with a lot of wires hanging around! During those sessions we started to get the roots of the sound together for what was to become the Behind It All album. Nick would then be over at the weekends and would come around and stick a few great lead guitar over dubs to the recordings, but He wasn't just a part time member though, as he would spend a lot of time recording ideas on a palm studio and emailing them back to us. Following on from that when we felt ready to take the songs on the road came our Drummer Steve "Stoogie" McAuley and Bassist Chris Cardwell, since then the whole environment for writing new material has changed with each member being able to get on with creating their own parts, and fortunately for me they are a great bunch of musicians, and we all get on great at a personal level as well. (Faustine) How would you describe your music? (Steve) We sort of do two types in the wider Genres which would be Slow, moody guitar ballad rock, and then at the other end of the scale where the crowd pleasers live is the Uptempo, bouncy, melodic rock. The one thing that they all have in common is that we do spend a lot of time on each, doing quite often complex arrangements, and if when finished we don't like the songs they go straight in the bin never to see the light of day again. We are our own biggest critics! (Faustine) What are your influences? (Steve) For myself personally, i've always been a big fan of U2, im also big into the Manic's, Nirvana and the Killers to name but 4, and for the other guys th imagination is stretched a great deal! (Faustine) Has being Damien Rice's cousin helped you in your career? (Steve) Not as much as I would have hoped in the early days. People tend to ignore the situation and never really ask any questions, which Im happier about now that we have managed to establish ourselves without it appearing to be off the back of Damiens success. Saying that, I am very proud of Damien and what he stands for. He's a lot more arty that I could ever be. One thing he did do, was prove to me that you could record an album using basic equipment in your own room and if its good people will buy into that. (Faustine) Title track 'Behind it all' was described by Johnny Hero as '9lies, sounding absolutely brilliant,' and you were given international acclaim from the US. How do you feel about that? Would you describe it as a consecration? (Steve) I think I probably would yes! We are always pleased to get any airplay as its taking our music out to a wider audience than we could otherwise expect just playing dive bars and putting it on myspace and the like, and that helps drive us on really. But more than that its humbling on a personal level that someone actually appreciates what you have created and thinks it's great, That's something I don't think we will ever be able to become glassy about. (Faustine) What are the most rewarding moments? (Steve) There's two major rewards, and the first would be when your in the rehearsal room and a new song is born. There's always a major buzz about and a bit of a high. The next reward is when your playing these songs live and the crowd get into the music and start giving you feed back, it's easy to understand why people say it is a buzz. ... there's nothing like being worshiped.... Although, im never sure if its us or the songs, lol (Faustine) And the most difficult ones? (Steve) .......in the writing process where everyone has different ideas as to where the song should go. ... leads to many amusing and bemusing arguments..... (Faustine) How do you cope with your growing success? (Steve) One day at a time, there are lots of other concerns that have to be dealt with outside the band so we just try to take things as they come. The success itself can be like busses. things look grim and then someone puts your song on a reality tv program, or contacts you from halfway around the globe to tell you that they played one of your songs and the response was great and could you do an interview on air. At the minute our focus is on Album 2, which is keeping our minds off everything else. We are very level headed though, so keeping our feet on the ground has never been a problem for any of us. (Faustine) How do you cope with tension? What is your way of relaxing? Your hobbies? (Steve) I think its safe to say that for all of us the band and the parts or instruments we play in it would have to be our main hobbies, and relaxation's just gone out of the window! We try not to take ourselves too seriously though and would regularly have a few beers and a good laugh. (Faustine) How do you see yourself in ten years? (Steve) Hopefully as the largest rock band on the planet and having other bands such as U2,and the Rolling Stones, etc. ... opening for us...LOL!!!! we always think big! in the words of Bono. "If you want cottage industry, then take up knitting!" (Faustine) What is your personal motto? (Steve) I have two sayings, one is "Its about music and not money" and the other is "no publicity is bad publicity!" im forever repeating this within the band when something goes wrong in public, like for example a newspaper in Ireland had a review of the Behind it All album and above it was this really dodgy photograph of the band from the early days which Dave had badly photoshopped. We weren't quite sure where they had got it from until a friend of ours in the media told us that it appears on a website that they she had found while searching for 9Lies photos on Google. I hear its still there! (Faustine) What is a normal day for you? (Steve) A normal day starts around 9.30Am with several cups of coffee until I feel something resembling human. Then its onto the internet to check and reply to email and messages on websites, and because we our signed to our own indie label at present, we deal personally with fans and fan mail, and parcelling up CD's to mail around the globe, just the whole deal of things you would expect other band would have a record company for! Then in the evenings At present we are spending a lot of time getting the new songs ship shape for recording them in the studio starting on September 15th. This new albums the real deal done in a real studio with a producer and all the trimmings so we want our ends to be as tight as possible and the best it can be which can take up a lot of time. The live shows at present are cut back to around seven a month, but when the new albums finished that will increase drastically. (Faustine) What would you like to say to our readers? (Steve) I would say, Readers, If you havent already done so, then check us out! at www.9Lies.net or our latest pet which is our Bebo page at www-9lies-net.bebo.com where you can become a groupie, listen to free music or leave us a message! And on our website most of the 'Behind it All Album' is available for free download, so well worth checking out! (Faustine) Steve Mann, Thankyou! (Steve) For you Faustine? Anytime! .......................................  ................ 9Lies Interview Two for The Taxi A&R Company. Q: Where did you grow up? A: Belfast, Northern Ireland. A lot of that was spent during the troubles here, which occasionally raises its ugly head in my lyrics. Q: What made you realize that music was your path? A: I dont often tell this story because people think im either crazy or telling blatant lies, but around 12 years ago I had a dream that myself and two friends of mine who didnt play any instruments at the time, along with two unknown people were in a band and gearing up to play a big gig in a barn somewhere in the countryside. I was outside in the sun being interviewed as people below were queueing up to get into the venue. When I woke up I coulnt believe how real the dream had seemed and had this energy inside that this was what I had to do, so I called up my two friends James and Anthony, who both thought I was insane. They decided that it would be a bit of craic giving it a go, so James bought himself a cheap drum kit and anthony a bass and an amp, and we set out to get the rest of the band together. The whole thing at the start was a random clatter and strumming, but did eventually come to a point where we were able to play and write songs. Anyways, that band eventually fell apart two years later when James moved away to University and Anthony went on the run from the police, and so I moved on, still knowing that this was what I had to do. Ironically now in 9Lies for over 3 years and as founding member, we now rehearse in a barn in the country despite being townies, which is something that just struck me a couple of weeks back. But the whole thing over the years has been a real road trip with ups and downs but Its been fantastic and life changing. I wouldnt change a thing. Q: How would you describe the music that you typically create? A: I think we write cross genre. A lot of our music would be uptempo rock, pop/rock right down to slow melodic ballads with big guitar solos. We try to keep our music open to as many people as possible. Q: Who are your biggest musical influences? A: Everyone in the band have different influences, but speaking for myself im big into U2, Nirvana, The Killers, The Kooks, and on the softer side of things, my cousin Damien Rice's music. Q: What makes your music unique? A: I think thats down to the strengths, life and knowledge of all of us in 9Lies. Nicks mad into his guitar effects, and is always, buying, selling, tweaking etc, trying to get sounds from his head, into songs, stoogie never gets lazy on the drums and always has to create great rhythm back bones for the songs, and I like to put my lifes experiences and feelings into words, so im in my ideal situation now! Q: Has there been one particular moment in your musical career that you're most proud of? A: wow.....there have been so many at this stage. I think you cant get away from the feeling of your first FM radio broadcast, and for us that was in 2005 with the song Behind It All. That set the stage for us to do a big push into the media which met with us having radio airplay all over the world, even now I get a buzz from that. Then theres the live aspect. I remember playing a gig last year in a small border town called Warrenpoint in Northern Ireland, and the crowd were with us all the way going crazy and coming up on stage singing and dancing, it was a fantastic night for everyone and I think thats pretty much what its all about. Q: What's next for you? A: Well, we have our first single coming out this year, which we are releasing ourselves after the success and tinkering at releasing our debut album last year. But we feel by doing a single this time, we can focus people more on an individual song for maximum effect in the media. Internationaly the single will be available on iTunes or on cd from our website www.9Lies.net, and it will be available in Music shops here at home. We are pushing for maximum airplay, and press inches worldwide. spreading ourselves a bit thin you think?? If you want cottage industry then take up knitting! 9 Lies Nine
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