Riots in holiday parks, black guys in cowboy hats and the worst wine bar in Britain. Mr Derry share a little of the random events that have shaped the band that are determined to make you put pretension down, step away from the mirror and just have a dance.
“In Burntwood we have two landmarks,” boasts Mr Derry guitarist, Dave. “There’s the smallest park in Britain and the ‘Worst Club in Britain’. Officially. It was voted the worst by Radio 1 listeners!”
“It’s not even a proper club, it’s a wine bar,” chips in vocalist, Joni Coyne. “It’s so bad.”
“It only sells wine gums!” chimes drummer Noel. As the group laugh, you really get the feeling of a gang of friends that can only be forged through a youth together. “We all grew up on the same road in the same village except for Kabir. It was proper like the Waltons!”
So when you live in a village that excels in being small or crap, it’s hard to get your head around being level with your idols. “When we released ‘Goodnight’ it sold out everywhere and Colin Murray really got behind us. We got to number 30 in the indie charts, just behind The White Stripes and Kings of Leon, which to us was just brilliant,” gushes Joni.
But like all tales of rock ‘n’ roll beginnings, Mr Derry are benefiting from a combination of hard work and good luck. “We’re caning it in the new year,” says Tom Coyne of their upcoming gigging schedule, “We’ve got a new manager and we played with Juliette and The Licks, and got an agent out of that so that’s cool.”
“Yeah, that was at the Millennium Dome, definitely the biggest gig we’ve had and Juliette Lewis picked us for that herself!” Says Joni. “It was brilliant, the crowd loved it.”
“Really randomly, a few months after a friend of mine was in New York,” says bassist Kabir, “She met a photographer and when he heard she was from Birmingham, he asked if she knew us. She said yeah and he was like I’ve just done a shoot with Juliette Lewis and she was wanking on about a band called Mr Derry! That made my day that did.”
A bit of an understatement, but when you’re a band who are banging out some of the best full throttle rockabilly indie tunes to dance your life away to, they’re building a steady fanbase who love ‘wanking’ on about them.
The most striking thing about Mr Derry when you speak to them is how unpretentious they are. It’s refreshing in this quaffed, skinny-jeaned, image obsessed scene to have a band that are balls-out entertainment, more concerned with what’s going on with the crowd than what’s going on with their fringe. The feeling of fun from the band is obvious as I’m barraged with story after story, chronicling the random events that have played a part in the Mr Derry story.
“I’ll tell you one of the weirdest things that’s happened to me and Tom a while back,” starts Dave, “We were in London and we were hammered. We’d just got ourselves a bagel from a 24-hour bagel place and I thought it’d be funny to run and throw myself at a poster on a bus shelter of Tony Blair and behind it was a black bloke and he had this big cowboy hat on. Anyway, just from me banging into that we started chatting, and then a few months later he writ…he writ…I don’t know what the fuck he writ about us anyway but it was good. But it’s just a random way to meet someone in the middle of Brick Lane and then they end up helping you…bizarre stories.”
“We have had a lot of them,” agrees Joni, before dropping possibly the most rock ‘n’ roll sentences I’ve ever relayed, “Like the time we started a riot at Pontins. That was probably one of our best moments. We all went to the ATP festival there,” she continues, “We’d took all of our equipment with us and we set everything up in front of our chalet window at like 2 in the morning and started playing. We ended up with ten security guards straight round, but everyone had been talking about it at the festival and we’d been giving out secret invitations all day, so, no word of a lie, we had 250 people outside our window and camera crews! The security locked us in our room, shut our curtains and cut off the electricity!”
“We ended up grabbing what instruments we could and leading everyone down to the beach and having a party there,” says Dave. “It was like the Pied Piper!”
Look out for Mr Derry bringing the party to you soon.
Cassie-Philomena Smyth