I caught up with one of the friendliest Men on the scene at the moment, the lovely Anthony from Five O'Clock Heroes, this is what he had to say for himself.....

Why did you move to New York?
I moved to New York in about 2000, because the music scene at the time in England had gone pretty sour cause there wasn't any Indie bands really doing anything. The only reason I moved to New York really was because I had a brother there, but there was a good scene coming out in New York with The Strokes there and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs so it was all pretty interesting and I felt there was more going on over there than over here.


So did everything happen in America and then you came over here?
Well I met the bass player and guitar player over there around the same time. It was a very sort of fruitful time to be in a band I thought. Everybody had a sense of optimism; everybody wanted to play music, so I think The Stokes and people sort of opened the door a little bit for musicians in that genre. Bands like The Bravery were starting at the same time, and playing the same venues as we did, and came up the same way it was pretty good.


So what's the story of the band getting together then?
Well Elliot and Nado I met in New York, we were kinda friends before we started playing together. They were in different bands, I was in another band, and then Patrick was the last member to join. The only reason he joined was because we had a big long tour booked in the UK with The Bravery, Brendan Benson and The Paddingtons but our drummer had visa problems and he couldn't do the long tour in the UK. . So for that reason we had to find a drummer within 24 hours, and got Patrick who just worked in the pub. So within about 3 hours he was in rehearsal with us. We had one rehearsal with him that was about 4 hours long, and he learnt about 6-7 songs and that night we played the first show in Hull. He learnt the other songs in the sound check. 40 shows later we were on fire! We were lucky to find him as he blended in perfectly.


So you threw him in the deep end straight on tour!
Yeah well we're a band that essentially has to fight for everything we have because we're not really signed on a big level, we don't really have an enormous amount of resources on every level. We tour in a transit van. It's a pretty straight forward game, but at the same time when you've got no money to help you out, I think you have to sort of adapt and just sort of be quite versatile to the situation and resourceful. If you're not resourceful it'll just crush you, you could just give up before you've even started. But I think that's something we're never gonna do, as I think we're quite determined. Not determined from a fame perspective but just to sort of achieve certain goals. I think we're all pretty realistic about it, and take every step at a time.

Can you imagine your second album being a completely different direction to the debut like some bands do?
Well with us it's difficult because of money again we never had the time, the chance to sit down and digest what we were recording as it was money. We recorded our album in 5 days, and we just didn't have that much time to thaw it out, because we rehearsed a hell of a lot, we played live a hell of a lot and then we just went in there and just thought right this is what we want to do. I think if we were given the opportunity to do a second album, I don't think we would second-guess what we would do, I think we would just do it naturally. We wouldn't go crazier; I think we stick to a very strong structure. We go in there with a few ideas, and we bash it out, but you do have to be careful what you play in there, you can play live.


So how did you come up with your band name?
(laughs) Everybody asks me that. I don't put too much weight on names, I not very good at them either. I took it from The Jam, from the album The Gift which is my favourite album. Not that I feel we sound anything like The Jam, but just growing up i listened to a lot of The Jam. There is a song called Justice is a Five O'Clock Hero. It was a quick thought process, everybody was happy with it so we just kept it.


Who does influence you?
Personally Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson I think. From a live perspective people like The Who and The Clash, but you can never compare yourselves to them because that would be ridiculous. There is a very delicate line.


I've heard the single, I can hear many eras of music in there explain...
Well with Skin Deep (the B-side), it kind of reminds me which is very embarrassing but it's a slight parallel to The Doors, I don't know why, and the other parallel is Hall & Oates, 'Maneater' I guess. That's the thing. I think when you hear our songs, you probably would hear different genres and it's only because we listen to everything, I try and take in as much as I can. In the new single 'White Girls' I think it's the most different song from all the songs we play, I think it's slightly dancy. I had the title before I wrote the song, I just thought 'White Girls' would be an interesting title; maybe it would just make people listen to it. Lyrically i was a bit rude, slightly provocative.


Is it weird seeing your video on MTV2 for the first time?
Well it is for me, I don't know about the others. I don't like to watch myself, I'm the worst judge of my own appearance. But not with that video mainly because it was a tour video. Our friend came on the road with us for 3 weeks and filmed it, he basically filmed wherever we were in hotel, or little chef, or on stage. So when I watch it now I'm like "oh there's Stoke", but if it was a more showy video like the 'White Girls' video is, more performance related I'd feel a lot more awkward about watching it. But it's gotta be out there, people have gotta see it, so you gotta do it.


So generally English and American bands have very different sounds, what nationality do you characterise yourselves in?
I don't think nationality plays a huge part in it, my only argument for that is because you have English people and Americans in this band. I don't think there are any rules when you're writing, and there should be because if you're aiming for a style, a genre or a type of music then to a certain degree you're already fucked. You gotta have room to play what you wanna play. Otherwise you're never gonna be happy, and you're never gonna be original and you might as well be in the Sugarbabes or something. You're never gonna have your freedom, for me there is no answer to a question like that.


How was touring with The Bravery? Wild parties and groupies?
All I can say is every night can be different. One night you can be throw out of your hotel room which happened in Liverpool, or one night you can be stopped by the cops which happened in Brighton, they gave me three points on my license and fined me £60! You don't have to be in some room, smoking crack.


So do you have any more recording planned?
Not at the moment, I think for the moment we've gotta see what happens single wise. Also signing wise, with a worldwide deal, and if that happens I think we'll concentrate on America as well because we had a pretty good following in New York, and we obviously want to see a lot more of America. For the mean time I think England will see a few more singles and B-sides before we release an album, that's the way we're going to have to do it financially. So the short answer to that is no (laughs), but we are playing a fuck of a lot.


What's next then?
I think ultimately we've gotta get a proper deal, up to this point we've sorta been doing it on our own. I don't think it will stop is touring, there might be a European tour coming up, but we can't do that without label backing us. We just gotta get that sorted and then we're just going to have to play.

If you haven't heard Five O'Clock Heroes yet, you're missing out on something important
 

http://www.thefiveoclockheroes.com