He's a busy man being in two touring bands at once, but Daniel P. Carter found some time to talk about his newest band 'The Lucky Nine':

What was the story of the band getting together, how did you already know each other?
We've all know each other for years anyway, I've known Jay who plays bass since I was 10, I used to be in a band with Ben who plays guitar. Richie I've known since he was in 'Cable', and Colin I've known since 'Hundred Reasons' first started. It's kinda weird though cause we all pretty much grew up in the same area, and knew each other from other local bands but never met up properly until much later.


Is it more fun being in The Lucky Nine than 'A'?
Well it's a different set up from how it is for me in 'A', and how it is for Colin in Hundred Reasons I think.


How do you find the time to dedicate to this band with everyone being so busy?
I could always do with a little bit more, but that's just the way it is, that's the basis of it. We all knew were in other bands when we started doing it.


Are you all being fulfilled by the other bands?
Yeah obviously, but at the same time this is an opportunity for us to do other things that we don't normally do in out other bands. It kinds of came about, not out of a necessity as that makes it sound like there is some kind of discontent within our other things that we do, which there's not. But it's just one of those things.


How did you come up with the title of your album?
(laughs) Just through an interest in load of different things really, and it just kinda came to me, and it just seem to fit.


The EP was released on MIGHTYATOM and the album is on Hassle Records now, can you explain the label change.
It wasn't really a change it's just that MIGHTYATOM only licensed the EP off of us, and we spoke to MIGHTYATOM about doing the album, but we went with Hassle as there is a long standing relationship with a lot of the people there. We've worked with them in different ways and they're just a good bunch of people so it seemed like the right thing to do.


So how does it work now with managers, is The Lucky Nine managed by one of the other band's managers?
We it was. When we first started the guy that managers 'A' is a consultant manager for Hundred Reasons, so it just seemed to make sense that way. The way we saw it was, if he's gonna manage The Lucky Nine, then he's gonna be fully aware of what our schedules will be like in the other bands. As it turned out it got a little awkward, and there were a few conflicts of interest. So are sort of self managed now, I do it, myself and Richie.


To people who haven't heard the music, how would you sell it to them?
Erm, I don't know really. It's quite weird because recent reviews always mention the Deftones, and I really do love that band a lot but i can't really see us having an awful lot of that in there. I would say if you're into bands like Quicksand and Tool.


So stereotypically this genre of music tends to come over from America, do you think being an English band do you think it makes you more unique, or do you think it makes it harder to crack the market?
I don't know, it's quite a weird one really just cause of expectations of how our other bands are well known and stuff. One thing that put me off was that when we finished the album and were taking it around to prospective labels the thing that really put me off a lot of places. They were sitting there working it out on a calculator "well 'A' sold this many records, 'Hundred Reasons' sold this many records so you put that and that together and that makes this”. At no point have I wanted this to be something that trades off on our other activities, because it’s not, its, its own thing. I don't have any expectations about it really, I'm just really proud of it, and I want people to hear it really. I don't want to be trading on our other endeavours.


What do you think is going to make you stand out from other bands in this genre?
I just think it's a really good record, and it's really honest. It's just a bunch of people doing what they love doing, I'm not going to pimp it, that would just belittle it a little.


Do you think you're a studio band or a live band?
Well it's quite a weird one really because of how the record came about, it was just a studio band to start with. In the very beginning it was just Richie, Colin and myself. We didn't really know what was going to happen with it, whether it would ever get heard, let alone whether we'd do any shows. We did the album, and then got offered a tour with 'Hell Is For Heroes', and then we had to look at it as a band it can't just be the three of us pouncing around. So then as soon as we found Ben and James we started rehearsing, and the whole dynamic of everything totally changed. So we actually went a re-recorded the whole album again. So it started out as a studio band, but we love playing live now.


So did you take it on as your own project, did you all fund it yourselves.
Yeah, it's just something we've been plodding away at for some time.


So is there any more recording planned?
Yeah, we've got most of the second album written already. We just want to keep making as much music as we can, and if people want to listen to it then great. Other people expectations of somebody else in a creative endeavour can get a little muddled sometimes, and we wanted to back off a bit as much as we can.


You played Download festival, how does that compare to other festivals you've played.
Well Download was the first festival that we'd played as 'The Lucky Nine', we've done pretty much everything between us in our other bands. But Download was a great day, it was kinda of hard work as I was playing with 'A' on the main stage and playing with 'The Lucky Nine' in the evening in one of the tents. So it was quite a hectic day on that front, but it was a good day and we got a good reaction. It was a hard one though, because most of the gigging we've done has all been prior to the album coming out. I'm keen now to just get out, and see what the shows like now people might actually know who we are, and what the songs are.


Can you imagine doing anything but music?
Well yeah, it wasn't what is studied, I studied art that's why I was so keen to do all the artwork for the album. So I think if I wasn't in bands and stuff, I'd probably just concentrate on the professional side of illustration.


Do you write the lyrics yourself?
No, Colin wrote all the lyrics for this album himself apart from one song.


What are you immediate plans for the future?
Well I'm on the last date of the 'A' tour tonight, then I've got two weeks off and then I start a tour with 'The Lucky Nine'.

Check out The Lucky Nine at:

www.theluckynine.com

Kelly Maxwell