Hundred Reasons: epic rocking from level-headed Surrey boys

For too many a year the American musicians have had the (only?) hold on the rock market but Brit-bands are starting to riff back. There are Lostprophets, A and Hundred Reasons, to name the ones who have had albums released by the major labels; the latter’s album, ‘Ideas Above Our Station’, is a marvellous piece of work that combines hard rocking with some emo-moments, expending on the basic formula…

Having toured extensively the fivesome from Guildford also played the main outdoor dates – OzzFest, Isle of Wight – and Glastonbury later this month. The band claim that all that hasn’t sunk in yet but are generally very pleased with their progress; Hundred Reasons’ singer, Colin Doran, and guitarist Paul Townsend are facing us and talking about their ambitions. Townsend’s was to meet Ozzy but he failed to do so at Donington; they played their drummer’s dream-gig at London’s Astoria and singer is dying to play Brixton Academy. Not much really to it and achievable in a short while, surely?

“These are places we went to see so many bands play,” Doran explains quietly, “and we never really thought we’d get as far as we have.”

“So, our ambitions are very low,” Townsend confirms, “and just to find ourselves here is something out of this world. I’m sure we’ll ‘grow’ ambitious as time goes by… And, playing Isle of Wight, was an added bonus; I was pretty chuffed because it was one of (Jimi) Hendrix’s last gigs. He influenced so many rock guitarists, he is a God of guitar and anyone who influences you that is not Hendrix, they were probably influenced by him.”

Am-swears

Four members were in a band together, “playing metal, loosely termed, and not emo-enough,” Townsend explains before adding quickly, “we were evolving musically,” but were unhappy with the fifth member, officially disbanded only to reform with a new guitarist, Larry (Hibbitt), and new name. One of their three demos ended in the hands of Radio 1’s Mary Ann Hobbs, got reviewed in magazines, gigs followed… Hundred Reasons relocated from Guildford to New York City to record the album – because it is cheaper than in the UK and the analogue equipment that is disappearing in the digi-studios across this Fair Isle – and were in the process of mixing tracks when the terrorists struck the twin WTC towers. Still, nothing of that has made it onto their album because they had songs written, rehearsed and toured over the years.

“We were really concerned for New Yorkers,” Townsend illuminates, “and the producer of our album (Dave Sardy) grew up in New York, had friends there and it was awful for him. He had to work on the album and we felt really sorry for him but it had nothing to do with our future.”

The future looks bright and their album is due to cross the Atlantic because it nicely balances British influences with American sounding production.

“I’m sure that our producer has brought in some of it,” Townsend agrees, “especially in the sound of guitars because Larry and I were using modern amps… But, the reason could well be, as you mentioned the lack of modern British bands, that we were influenced by the Americans…”

“Who were influenced by the British bands originally,” Doran interjects.

“… Yeah, and we looked up to them,” Townsend doesn’t lose a bit, “Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden… Since then we had bands like Terrorvision, Therapy?, Reef, but they are not the bands playing music we are interested in…”

On the other side were bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jane’s Addiction…

“Well, the place is so huge that you have an enormous choice of bands and styles,” Townsend counters, “but we prefer bands like Fireside… We’ve never listened to Jane’s Addiction for instance, not because we weren’t interested, we just didn’t come across it… Faith No More is one of the major bands for me, I think not many people made better albums than they did.”

Chord-fields

Hundred Reasons is a democratic band that songwrites together, jamming until they hit a groove and improvise melody and vocal on top… The process keeps the members’ juices flowing and everybody’s fulfilled. The band’s also been very careful not to rush into cutting an album, writing up to 300 song, but have issued several EPs, toured to ‘pay dues’ and establish a fan base. They are still humbled by the whole experience and recently were given a demo-tape by unsigned band Lucidium they played before the set that night.

“There are a lot of bands that are really great,” Townsend points out-there, “and we might get ten demos a day. We can’t do much but play them at our shows and talk about them in interviews…”

With his curly explosion of blond-locks, singer Doran looks a bit like young Robert Plant but appears to be on a reserved side that, as Jonathan Davis will attest, can be tasking for a frontman who is not a gregarious person. Will he be able to handle the fame-game when it gets passed the security?

“I hope quite well,” Townsend muses, “but we’ve always tried to keep each others’ feet on the ground and if someone is depressed or has a problem, we provide a moral support and we literally look after each other. I’d like to say that we wouldn’t change but there are no guarantees… I expect we’ll become more reserved and not hang out with our fans as much as do now. But, I’ll always spend a few hours on our Website, whenever I can, answering fans questions.”

“I know when it is time to be sociable,” Doran concludes, “and when I can be alone. Being on a tour is not a time to be alone and I act accordingly.”

Level-headed, music lovers, creating anthemic songs, there certainly is a future for British rock.