"If I wanted a hobby, i'd go and play golf"

Last time Listen Up spoke to Andy Lewis, he was preparing for his band’s launch gig at the 12 Bar, and everything he said would inevitably go down as hearsay until The Wooden Soldiers had played live, and proved all the doubters wrong. Now, six weeks later, still having only played two shows, Andy Lewis’ band are recognised by many as one of the most promising young punk acts to come from the region in a long while.

True to form, when Listen Up arrives in The Adelphi Andy Lewis turns in surprise:
“Aw, shit mate I completely forgot, (despite organising the interview earlier that day) I’m still available though, just let me finish this game, you getting a drink?”
As personable and chatty as ever, Mr Lewis engages himself in a short game of virtual Subbuteo on the pub quiz machine before settling down to talk about how his band have been received since first performing six weeks ago.

“The reaction has been better than I expected, and it seems to be genuine. It helps that we’ve got honest friends, who will tell me if it’s shit. There have been people who I don’t know coming up as well and saying they’re impressed.”

Enormity

The two shows the band have played have been in entirely different surroundings, jumping straight from the comfortable and modest atmosphere of The 12 Bar to the enormity of The Mill in one foul swoop.

“Yeah it is a big difference. At the 12 Bar it’s your own gig, sorted and promoted yourself. At The Mill it’s properly organised by the venue and there’s a proper sound engineer rather than me having to piss around with it until it sounds alright.

“The Mill was a more comfortable gig though because the others had a chance to settle and get used to playing live because it’s not easy. I have been doing it for ages, and find it piss easy now, but I still get nerves - that’s what it’s all about.”

The Wooden Soldiers have had a quiet few weeks since playing The Mill on July 31, mostly due to two members living away over the summer, Tom Walley (lead guitar) and Ryan McEwan (bass) will return early September to coincide with the restart of University, and Andy hopes to get a few tracks recorded soon after their return:

“It’s hard, we need everyone together in order to record, Ryan has
been up doing practising backing vocals but hopefully they might decide to spend more of the Easter or Christmas holidays over here
this year.

“We know which songs we want to get recorded, there’s no point me giving you the names yet because nobody will know them. Hopefully they’ll recognise and like them when we get them on a record.”

On hold

Andy had previously mentioned that he would like to get the band to London in the near future, but with the current lack of band members everything is on hold until September. In fact Andy has even decided to go to university himself, but does not intend to let it get in the way of the band:

“The band comes before everything, this ain’t some sort of hobby, if I wanted a hobby I’d play golf or something. It should be easier when I don’t have a 9-5 that I’m tied to. At the moment I’ll get ideas but can’t do anything about them for four hours because I’m at work - apparently there are no 7:30 mornings either!”

The Wooden Soldiers are back in action on September 15 at the 12 Bar and on September 17 for the Preston Pop Squad gig at The Adelphi.

Written by Dan Jeoffroy

Photography: Dan Jeoffroy