Missed calls, politics and a son - all a day's work for band

I KEEP exchanging phone calls with Brainchild’s Chris Dowling and he finds it completely hilarious. “I knew this would happen – I’ve been expecting your call,” he says laughing. “I’ve just popped out though. I’m walking down the road to get something from the shop. Tell you what – call me back in half an hour.”

I duly respond and call back 30 minutes later. “No way, we’ve just got to go and complete something in the studio now – how come you keep ringing at the wrong times?” he chuckles. “Time for a new plan: I’ll ring you in a bit and we can do the interview then,” he chuckles so again I agree.

Luckily it is a case of third time lucky as we finally get the chance to conduct an interview and Chris delights in seeing the funny side. “Wouldn’t it be funny if you had to do something this time?” he asks. You get the distinct impression that life in The Brainchild camp is all fun and games. Not only have they just released their new single ‘Me and My Mate’ - a quirky mix of tongue-in-cheek rock, but they are also the house band for The Monster Raving Loony Party which only goes to cement their madness.

“We are all loonies,” he screams down the phone. “It's all good fun. We are all completely mad so we fit in well with the party. The Nutfinder General Screaming Lord Sutch formed the first party band under the name ‘What’s Next?’ but he’s no longer with us so we thought we would step in to be their band.

“It basically means that whenever they have a meeting, or in their case it is probably more like a party, we provide the music! Don’t you just love politics?” Luckily the craziest party in the land have never enjoyed an awful lot of success in politics to date but, despite his wacky exterior, had he become a politician, we could be doing alright under Chris’ leadership.

“You know what I’d do if I was a politician?” he asks. “I’d ban tax! Actually no, that’s not very practical is it? OK then, I’d put more Bobbies on the beat but reduce tax so more money is being spent on locking up criminals. You see? That one could work!” So they can do serious! “Oh yeah, we can do serious,” he agrees. “We actually do a lot of serious songs and even when we are joking you can always find a message in our songs sometimes.

“We’ve actually been recording some songs for our new album ‘Conversational Tennis’ which is out next year – that’s why I kept fobbing you off – and there are a lot of serious songs in there. We get that from my son I think.” His son? Intrigued?

“That’s where the name comes from. My son is a little brainchild. He’s the opposite of his dad in every way. I was a little tyke at school and was always getting into trouble as for me, it was always about being in a rock band but my son is only 11 and he has a remarkable brain on him. He goes to school and really loves it and is doing really well in his studies – he must be someone else’s!”

So we could yet get a politician out of Chris and maybe, he can see a route through the door to banish taxes? “Oh no,” he clarifies. “My son is going to be a rock star! He’ll be the first of his kind – a clever rock star! In all seriousness I want him to pursue whatever career he wants to pursue but he is already a good musician and even writes some of his songs – they’re almost as good as his dad’s too!” he jokes.

Not at all. In fact, his dad’s are so good that he has been in the studio all morning deliberating over which ones to put onto the new album. “Agh, selecting songs for albums is a real, real pain,” he tells me. Every group goes through the same motions where you just cannot fill an album with the right songs – you always have some extras.

“We went home from the studio yesterday and every one of us thought ‘yeah, we’ve got the first few songs of the album nailed.’ We got back in this morning though and it was a case of ‘I want this one,’ or ‘this one would be better actually’ as we all slept on it and came up with better alternatives.

“There is always a danger that you can think too much about something, whatever it is in life and that is really not healthy at all. You should keep your thinking to a minimum and just go with the flow. Have a laugh and a good time and life will be good – that sounds like a cool philosophy for me. I liked that actually, might make a note of it. ‘Have a laugh.’”

And as I say goodbye, those words implanted in my mind, I am absolutely certain that my earlier thoughts were correct. It is always fun and games in The Brainchild camp – have a good time and life will be good!

The Brainchild’s latest single ‘Me and My Mate’ is out now. Check out the singles page to read the review. Hear more sample tracks from the superb forthcoming album on their My Space site.
www.myspace.com/brainchild44