Interview with Al Bairre

Al Bairre is Kyle Davis, Tom Kotze, Tessa Johnson, Julia Johnson, and Nicholas Preen. Kelsy Arden sent them some questions in anticipation for their performance at Rocking The Daisies. They apologised for taking so damn long to reply. We have forgiven them and we’re just pretending that these questions are actually in anticipation of The Al Bairre Tour With Al Bairre.

 

The Fuss – How was the band formed? Was it the sudden realisation you’d all jam well together or more of a slow process?

Al Bairre – It was a semi slow process i guess. Kyle and Nicholas have been besties since they were babies and used to jam for fun every weekend. Then one night they met the twins at a pre drinks during Plett Rage. After Nic kissed both the twins he invited Julia to come join in one of Kyle and Nic’s jams or ‘Friday Night Fun Fiesta Jam Session Extravaganza’s’ as they used to call them. It was the 3 of them for a few weeks. Then we needed some good old fashioned low end so we invited Tessa to come play cello. Then the 4 of us were drummer less for ages before we found Tom. Now we’re the 5 best friends that anyone could have.

The Fuss – Bands often say they started for the music – not the money. What are your views on this and what was your point in starting the band?

Al Bairre – The point of starting the band was because Kyle and Nicholas used to go watch bands every weekend and it always looked like heaps fun. So when we found the twins we thought we’d give it a whirl. They wanted to do it for the money and fancy cars but Nic and Kyle told them, “no”. So now we do it for the music.

 

 

The Fuss – Did you ever see yourselves getting this much attention, especially for a young, local band, and how do you deal with it?

Al Bairre – We usually deal with the attention by making one of us expose ourselves.

The Fuss – You’re good friends with Matthew Mole and Shortstraw amongst other South Africa musicians. Do you feel there’s a difference between music culture in SA as opposed to around the world?

Al Bairre – We haven’t had a chance to play our music anywhere outside of SA so I’m not to sure what the story is over there. But here it’s a dream. We froth for local bands so when we get to play with them we just force the friendships until they work. As it currently stands we have forced 9 out of 12 band friendships.

The Fuss – Your Instagram and Facebook are uncensored and funny and you interact with your audience in a casual friendly way. Do you think this makes your more like-able and approachable?

Al Bairre – Im not sure. If people like male-frontal nudity then i guess it must make us more likeable. We get like over the top excited when people wanna talk to us so we can’t help but interact. If we don’t we will combust. ELE. Everybody Love Everybody.

The Fuss – Do you think you’re ever going to collaborate with fellow South African musicians? If so, which would be your first choice to collaborate with?

Al Bairre – Anything with Tamara Dey. She’s so sassy and we love sassy.

The Fuss – What has been your most memorable performance to date? And why so?

Al Bairre – I think we all have our favourites. But i think Vodacom In The City 2013 takes the sausage. We played with The Hives, Alt-J, Skunkanansie and Boys Noize to 13 000 peeps and were treated like royalty the whole day with our own hotel rooms, press conferences, drivers, free food. It was swell as.

 

The Fuss – Rocking The Daisies is coming up, how do you prepare for such a big event? Do you feel overwhelmed that you’ll be sharing the stage with such large, international acts?

Al Bairre – Sorry we took so damn long (sad face). We’re a bunch of bums. Please accept our apologies.

The Fuss – Which international acts do you associate yourselves to the most?

Al Bairre – One Direction. Im deadly serious. They have it going on. We are forever asking ourselves, “what would Liam do?”

The Fuss – Lastly, How long do you see Al Bairre carrying on? You’ve achieved much more than expected so do you think you can make this your careers for life, or do you have other aspirations?

Al Bairre – At the beginning of this year we held a band meeting and we put it to 1D and they reckoned we should carry on.