It is on a typical cold, wet, dark, rainy January evening that theAbsurd team hammer on Andy Jones’ front door. "Heeey guys…" we’re met with that enthusiasm Andy reserves for old friends. The thing with Andy is he greets everybody like an old friend. His easygoing attitude and natural charm would put anybody at ease and we’re soon exchanging hugs as Andy heads off to make some tea. We had ideas about how we wanted the interview to go; new album – check, influences – check, but as usual with Andy this interview wasn’t going to follow any sort of pre-determined format… so we decided to go with the flow!

“It can feel like you’re a thousand miles away from London,” he says about trying to get publicity, or a record deal for The Roseville Band, as he folds his tall, angular frame onto the couch, “but people need to have belief, there’s still bands round here who think that getting a deal is all about luck, but it’s not, it’s just business.” Andy’s not shy about sharing his opinions on finding fame either, he speaks with real enthusiasm when you get him on the subject of what it takes to ‘make it’ in the music business, “you’ve got to go out and create your own luck” he says with genuine passion.

No one could accuse Andy of not following his own advice either. The Roseville Band, who are Andy Jones on vocals and guitar; Steve Jones on guitar and vocals; James Edwards on drums and vocals; Phil Watson on bass guitar, Stu Nicholls on trombone and Ali Evans on trumpet, recorded and released their first EP, ‘So Where Have You Been?’ in October last year. No longer prepared to wait for luck to come knocking on their door, the band decided to take charge of their own destiny. Andy said, “We gigged for about a year and a half and built up contacts through gigs, so we said we should just do an EP ourselves. We released ‘Where Have You Been?’ as a free download on our website and Myspace; we’d seen Radiohead do it with In Rainbows so we thought why not?"

The Roseville Band's hardwork and determination is definitely paying off and the guys are already experiencing their first tastes of success. After a late entry in the national ‘Last Band Standing’ competition early in ’08, the band finished 11th with over 3000 votes. That’s an amazing achievement when you consider that 650 bands were in the running. Although the band didn’t get to the top ten they’re confident that they’ve made new contacts in the music industry - and it did prove just how much support they have.

Andy recounts the EP's success on the internet with pride, “we got over 1000 downloads in the first week and since then we’ve had loads of interest from different labels.”

Using their initiative has certainly paid off for The Roseville Band, to the extent that a Liverpool-based label have now got involved with producing the new album. Management Company Tri-Tone approached the guys after the release of the EP. This was a real coup for the band as Tri-Tone are hugely respected in the industry, working with artists like The Coral, I Am Kloot, Badly Drawn Boy and labels like Deltasonic, Twisted Nerve and City Slang.

Andy becomes animated when he talks about their new promoters, “Labels like Deltasonic and Tri-Tone are the kind of labels that produce real music and invest in artists. I love song-based music and these people invest in bands. Everybody’s looking to pigeon-hole a band, they’re all ‘are you like the Libertines, Klaxons, Razorlight?’ or ‘you could be just like so-and-so.”
“Today I see record companies more like banks - it really is that fickle. They want assurances that you’ve got a huge fanbase before they’ll invest any money in you… it makes you a bit cynical after a bit.”

It’s a sign of the times that so many labels are in it for the money rather than looking for original, talented artists that don’t follow the crowd, and the band have met their fair share of promoters who are just in it for the wrong reasons; ‘Nathan Barley’ types as Andy calls them. This is bound to happen as the guys start becoming well known on the national music scene. “But,” Andy continues, “companies like Tri-Tone are more hands on, you get more parity, more equality for artists. We’re really happy about this because we know we’ll be properly represented.” The band are teaming up with top producers Lance Thomas and Dom McCready for the new album, having first worked with Dom on the ‘Where Have You Been?’ EP. This is a real confidence boost; they’ve got a label that isn’t trying to turn them into ‘the next Kaiser Chiefs’. Recently being featured by the NME as ‘some of the best grass-roots talent around’ can also only help to improve their profile, and increase their fanbase.

So, The Roseville Band start recording the new album this Friday (16th January 2009), at the Filter Rooms in North Wales, and aim to have it ready before the summer, ideally May this year. Again Andy’s got plenty to say about this, “Lance Thomas is a great producer, he’s worked with The Clash, PJ Harvey, The Coral… He’s been making records with people for over thirty years so he’s exactly the kind of person we want to get involved with.”

One of The Roseville Band’s strengths is that they’re a really tight band. Ok, some bands sound polished in the studio, but The Roseville Band have performed at over two hundred gigs. They’ve put in the time, and have earned the experience to back up their talk; that’s why they plan to record the whole album live. It’s going to be refreshing change to listen to an album that unashamedly celebrates the roots of British rock and roll.

Andy elaborates, “If you’re not playing that angular 80’s celebratory music, you don’t fit the bill and some people aren’t interested, but things are changing. Glasvagas are cool, they’re rooted in rock 'n' roll and song based tunes, there hasn’t been a British band like that for a while. Even though Britain has had so much to do with the history of rock 'n' roll we don’t celebrate these British bands.”
“With Glasvagas, suddenly a rock n roll band seems fresh and we find this encouraging, people are coming back to our style of music, we’re never gonna pander to what’s in fashion.”

So what exactly have the band got in store for us? What’s going to be on the album? Andy’s not giving much away at this stage, but what he did say was, “The one thing I am confident about is that we’ll make a great record. I haven’t got my heart set on being a rock ‘n’ roll star but I have got my heart set on making records. We’ve just got to have faith that this’ll come good … all we need to do now is get in the studio and deliver the goods.”

The Roseville Band certainly have the experience, the determination and the talent to see this dream through, and we’re confident that this is going to be one album that theAbsurd will have on our playlist for the whole of summer ’09!