…back from the time when he joined THERAPY?:
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Interview with Graham Hopkins
Graham Hopkins is the real new kid on the block as Therapy? prepare for a hectic 1996. Just twenty years of age (‘Yeah, I’m the young ‘un of the band now, the kid!’), the second new recruit lives in Clane in Co. Kildare, about thirty miles or so from Dublin. Oddly enough he joined his previous band, My Little Funhouse when their drummer left so you could call him - if you wanted to - the supersub man on the Therapy? drumstool. It’s all here - learning to drum with the Guinness Jazz Band, hanging out with Slash from Guns ‘N’ Roses, touring with soft-metal rockers Thunder, leaving school to fly to Las Angeles, the inside story on that audition.
How did you find out that Therapy? were looking for a drummer, did someone get in touch with you?
I heard about it through Kerbdog - I’m very good friends with Darragh and a few of the lads in Kerbdog. They told me what was going on and Darragh rang Andy. A friend of mine, Bob O’ Brien rang Gerry Harford and got on the case. I sent in a CV thing and had the audition a week later in The Factory in Dublin.
What happened at the audition?
The first day we played about four songs and we got on really well, all four of us. The next day Gerry called me back and said that it was between me and another guy. They gave me about seven or eight songs they wanted me to do with them and I went back a few days later.
We hung around for a couple of hours first and talked before playing about fifteen or so songs, mostly from the last two albums and Thin Lizzy’s ‘Bad Reputation’ because I’d seen them at the gig in The Point, Dublin and we had been talking about it. There was also some stuff we did off-the-cuff - Andy would start something and we’d all start to jam along. It was brilliant and I certainly didn’t want to leave. We talked for while afterwards and I felt we had got on really well. The night after The Sweet were playing up in the Olympia and they asked me did I want to go along. So I met up with them in town and we went for a Mexican feed and they said congratulations, you’re the new drummer in Therapy? I was delighted, I’ve been up on a cloud since.
What has it been like for you so far? Are they treating you okay?
So far, it’s going really really well. The other three are really nice guys, very easy to get on with. In the last two weeks there’s been an awful lot of talking and everything is out in the open all the time. That’s something I really like.
Were you a Therapy? fan before this? Had you heard much of their stuff?
I saw them in the SFX when Kerbdog supported them and played on the same bill as them at Sunstoke Festival in Dublin. I actually bumped into Fyfe in the jacks that day! They were always a fucking brilliant live band. I bought ‘Troublegum’ when it came out so yeah, I suppose I was a fan. I didn’t really know much about their early stuff, the Wiiija records and that. I had first heard of them around the time of their ‘ShortSharpShock’ EP.
What were you doing before this?
I was arsing around with small bands, bands that my friends were in and stuff like that. Most of them were around here or around Naas and then there were a few bands with older fellas up in Dublin and that. One of them was called Wildchild . I don’t think I need to say any more about them! A real ROCK band.
My father is the drummer in the Guinness Jazz Band so I grew up with jazz gigs in the background and I started playing jazz gigs myself when I was about 13 or 14. I’ve played drums since I was old enough to be aware of what they were. I can never remember starting, as far as I knew I’ve always played. Not just the drums but the guitar, the bass and the piano as well up to grade six.
So how did you hook up with your last band?
How I got that gig was through a guy called Tom Skerritt (co-owner of Totally Wired Studios). I got to know him really well through my father because he was doing sound. I started to do weekend work and rock gigs with Tom and Mikam Sound and we became really good buddies. Then he got the job of doing sound with My Little Funhouse on their European tour. They were having a lot of hassle from their drummer on that tour so I was flown out to join up with the tour, I pretended to be a drum tech for two or three weeks while I got to know the band. When we got home the drummer was fired or he left and I stepped in straight away.
That was 1993 and I was 17. I left school about two months before I was supposed to do my Leaving Cert. Yeah, I’m a dropout! Anyway I went straight into an Irish tour and a UK tour and then flew off to American and spent over a year out there.
That must have been some headtrip
Yeah, I was a 17 year old kid in a band who were managed by the same people who looked after Guns ‘N’ Roses. We would be in a studio and the like of Alice in Chains or Guns ‘N’ Roses themselves would be hanging out with us while we were recording. And then there were the big rockers like Motley Crue and that, you were always meeting people like that. It was freaky, there I was mingling with all these big rock heads. But at the same time, it was a brilliant experience, I loved it to bits.
I got on really well with most of the lads in the band and I’m still good friends with some of them. While I was with them, the bass-player left and Joe Doyle, my best friend in the whole world, flew out to take over. He was just 16 when he joined, an unbelievable bass player. So it was even better when he came onboard from my point of view.
Did you do much touring in the States?
We spent a lot of time touring. We went over to the States during the summer of 1993, came home for Christmas and went back out afterwards until the following summer. WE played with the likes of Jackal, Duff from Guns ‘N’ Roses band and Vince Neil who used to sing with Motley Creu (loud laughter). And we did one European tour with Thunder! Thunder, Jesus!
During that time we recorded an album which never came out because of changes in the record company. I think Tom Zamut (the A&R man famous for signing Guns ‘N’ Roses) was more into signing My Little Funhouse as a second Guns ‘N’ Roses rather than signing them on their own merits. When I came into the band, I don’t think he was into the change and we didn’t see eye to eye about things.
We spent all of last summer writing and rehearsing in Kilkenny before going back out to the States to record an album with Joe Beresi - he’s worked on the new Weezer album and he’s mixing the Kerbdog album at the minute, he’s an excellent producer in my opinion. When I got back to Ireland in November, I decided that things weren’t working out, there was even a bad vibe going on towards the end of the recording session, so I wanted to get out of there.
And so along came Therapy? looking for a drummer and find you, the supersub of the drumming world!
Yeah, I am the supersub drummer a bit, aren’t I? But I’m not a sub, I’m not a Fyfe Ewing at all, I’m me, I’m totally different to Fyfe. What am I bringing with me to Therapy? I don’t really know (pauses) I suppose my youth! (laughs). But I don’t really know, I’m going to play my heart out and get along with the lads.
We’ve been talking a lot about writing together for the next album as a foursome. With the Funhouse I did write some things but we never recorded them. The whole vibe with Therapy? is totally different.
I’ve been told that Michael is more of a rocker, into death metal and stuff, while Andy’s more into punk and Joy Division and Martin, well he played with Siouxsie & The Banshees and This Mortal Coil whereas I don’t know where I come from at all. Maybe I do represent their fan-base but I definitely don’t want to be seen as this rocker who’s after coming into the band. At the end of it all, I’m a drummer and I just play how I feel.
So how would you describe your own musical tastes?
I was always into kind of heavy stuff but not that Guns ‘N’ Roses sound. I hated Guns ‘N’ Roses actually, could never see why people went mad about them. Before I joined my first band I would never have considered myself as a rocker. I thought they were good in a way because there was no-one else in Ireland doing what they were doing. There were plenty of rock bands but no, you know, ‘rock’ bands.
At the same time, I wouldn’t have Been into that much alternative stuff. It was more bands like Faith No More, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden. When the grunge thing happened, I was sort of into that. Because of my jazz upbringing I’ve always been into more jazzy stuff. There’s this great band called Steps Ahead who I love to bits. They’re American, real session heads and they’ve got some really great mellow tracks.
What’s ahead of you and Therapy? in the coming months? And what are you looking forward to most of all?
I’m really looking forward to the next few months, to travelling around with other musicians who I don’t really know and getting to know them. It’s going to be a whole different vibe for me. I am looking forward to getting started, to getting down to gigging and touring and all of that sort of lark.
After the holiday in Morocco, we will be rehearsing for a week before doing a song for a Smiths’ tribute album and for a Misfits’ tribute album. The Misfits song is mad, real garage rock. then more rehearsals before going out to America to tour with Girls Against Boys for three weeks. Afterwards, it’s back to Europe for some festival dates and then back again to America. I thin we’re going to spend most of this year in the States, touring and working our asses off out there. I’m gagging for it!
INTERVIEW BY - JIM CARROLL
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Stefan
Posted on Tue, 4 December 2001 at 15:06
