Faulty towers
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]They make Mötley Crüe look like the Proclaimers and are the subject of a hilarious new TV series. Sarah Dempster meets Towers Of London, the rock'n'roll reprobates fast becoming the most notorious band in Britain[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Saturday October 21, 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The Guardian[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Nice guys, really... Towers of London, fast becoming Britain's most notorious rock band[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]
[/FONT]
Donny Tourette - Vocals
Dirk Tourette - Guitar
The Rev - Guitar
Tommy Brunette - Bass
Snell - Drums
If the mark of a successful music documentary is its ability to capture the essence of a band while also making them look a bit like characters out of Wacky Races, then Bravo's new, 10-part reality series on Towers Of London is a sash-wearing, bouquet-waving triumph. A scrambled-egg mess of cheese-string limbs, phlegm, swearing, exclamation marks, malapropisms, vomit, rudeness, nudeness, monstrously narrow trouser-legs, bellowing punkrock daftness, dumb-as-a-bell declarations of greatness and hair that looks as if it's been assembled from the contents of a hoover used to clean a field, they make for astonishing viewing.
In episode one alone we find the Londoners urinating in a hospitality tent, punching an American, accidentally swearing five times on a live radio show, rolling across a dressing room floor while making whooping jungle noises, cavorting with halfnaked groupies and kicking an idiot in Peterborough city centre after he accuses lead guitarist The Rev of having "chicken legs". It's hilarious. But for all their grandstanding self-belief, Towers Of London are immersed in a fug of haplessness. They get confused by simple requests for information and are often left spluttering in inarticulate frustration at the indignities of the music "biz". At one point, guitarist Dirk Tourette interrupts his own discourse on what it means to be Dirk Tourette by asking if it's "alright if (he goes) to the toilet?" At another point, we watch the band playing on some swings, their faces frozen in mute, childlike glee. They're clearly having a ball, albeit a slightly melancholic ball that often lands in their face.
Today, scattered around a table outside an otherwise deserted London pub, Towers Of London look shattered. While Dirk (real name: Francis Brannan) fiddles with his discombobulated haystack hair-do and singing younger brother Donny (nee Patrick) shivers glumly in his enormous red leather jacket, tremendously nosed bassist Tommy Brunette (real name not forthcoming) solidifies his status as the quiet man of punk by spending the next hour in virtual silence, nodding his large head serenely like a slightly mysterious seaside donkey. The Rev (Paul Mayers) and tiny drummer Snell (real name also unknown) are not here, on the grounds of still being in bed, where they probably remain, snoring like narwhales.
Why the torpor, gents? "Nothing much. Just knackered," says Donny, adjusting his sunglasses with trembling fingers that, like his face, are the colour of cottage cheese. "We're out most of the time these days, y'know, with gigs and stuff , and it gets really tiring. It's catching up with me. I'm looking older these days. A lot older. If you see a picture of me from a couple of years ago, I look quite youthful. Now look at me," he says, peering over his shades to reveal a startling collection of papery folds. "Now people are calling me 27 in the paper. 27! They're seeing these lines and are just assuming I'm 27!" How old are you then? "25!" Outrageous.
But such is the toll of a life lived, according to a typically solemn Dirk, "on the edge". Formed in 2004 following a string of aborted, ill-fated, Oasis-y"outfits", including one called, somewhat inevitably, The Lost Boys, Towers Of London have spent the best part of their short career doggedly working their way through every cliche in the rock "handbook". Pungent behaviour has ensued. They were kicked out of Germany's Rock Am Ring festival for stealing Mötley Crüe's rider. They released a single called **** It Up. They appalled ornithologists by releasing 32 pigeons into the crowd during this year's Reading festival.
("We went down to Uxbridge shopping centre the day before to catch them with our coats. When we released them we expected them to flap off but they didn't want to come out. Some of them were just wandering around the stage. There was **** everywhere," grimaces Tommy, before immediately slumping back into a semi-slumber.) Such rum conduct has naturally galvanised tabloid attention, with Donny's alleged relationship with overprivileged teen-about-town Peaches Geldof securing for the rapscallions a rather unlikely residency in the gossip pages. Is there any truth in the rumours, Donny? "****in' 'ell! Um. Urr. No comment. Hurgh-hurrgh!" he splutters, his hair visibly wilting in embarrassment.
Now, the visibly unhealthy ne'er-do-wells join The Osbournes, Whitney Houston and Lisa Scott-Lee in allowing a television crew to film them in such a way as to make them look at least eight times stupider than they actually are. Why? "I'd been having nightmares about (the series)," scowls Dirk. "You put your trust in people, don't you? And you just hope that they'll repay that trust. It's always in the back of your mind. That paranoia. But it's good. I'm happy with it." Were there any moments in the series - the bit where we see an unidentifi able member of the band's hands kneading a naked groupie's oscillating bum cheeks, say - during which they found themselves thinking "good Lord, that really is a bit much?" "I think nearly all of it's a bit much. But that's us, innit?" he says. "We wanted people to see the truth of what really goes on."
Donny (wistfully): "It's quite nice to look back on things, innit? 'Cos I can't remember half the stuff we've been up to. It's like a diary." Their parents must be devastated. "I think all mums and dads would be worried if their sons were in this band," sniff s Donny. "I think they're aware of what's going on. I'm not sure if they'll be watching the series though. I don't think they will." He looks panicked. "Hope not."
Underneath the mum-worrying thuggery and the bum-kneading ribaldry, Towers Of London are evidently decent chaps. Like Spinal Tap (the TV series' inevitable touchstone), they're essentially amenable sorts, their abject bewilderment and sporadic bouts of atrocious behaviour exacerbated by the traditional
pressures of life in a good-time rock band. Are they merely misunderstood? "To be honest," says Donny, "I'm a bit shocked by some of the stuff that's been said about us. It's the press, innit? Everyone blows the anti-social thing out of proportion." He looks baffled "It's hard to get away from. It's crap. "I can be a bit bad, but other times I'm the loveliest guy you'll ever meet. We're all like that. We're not, like, the baddest of the bad. We're actually pretty nice." ·
Towers Of London, Thu, 10.30pm, Bravo
guardian.co.uk
[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]They make Mötley Crüe look like the Proclaimers and are the subject of a hilarious new TV series. Sarah Dempster meets Towers Of London, the rock'n'roll reprobates fast becoming the most notorious band in Britain[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Saturday October 21, 2006[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The Guardian[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Nice guys, really... Towers of London, fast becoming Britain's most notorious rock band[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]
Donny Tourette - Vocals
Dirk Tourette - Guitar
The Rev - Guitar
Tommy Brunette - Bass
Snell - Drums
If the mark of a successful music documentary is its ability to capture the essence of a band while also making them look a bit like characters out of Wacky Races, then Bravo's new, 10-part reality series on Towers Of London is a sash-wearing, bouquet-waving triumph. A scrambled-egg mess of cheese-string limbs, phlegm, swearing, exclamation marks, malapropisms, vomit, rudeness, nudeness, monstrously narrow trouser-legs, bellowing punkrock daftness, dumb-as-a-bell declarations of greatness and hair that looks as if it's been assembled from the contents of a hoover used to clean a field, they make for astonishing viewing.
In episode one alone we find the Londoners urinating in a hospitality tent, punching an American, accidentally swearing five times on a live radio show, rolling across a dressing room floor while making whooping jungle noises, cavorting with halfnaked groupies and kicking an idiot in Peterborough city centre after he accuses lead guitarist The Rev of having "chicken legs". It's hilarious. But for all their grandstanding self-belief, Towers Of London are immersed in a fug of haplessness. They get confused by simple requests for information and are often left spluttering in inarticulate frustration at the indignities of the music "biz". At one point, guitarist Dirk Tourette interrupts his own discourse on what it means to be Dirk Tourette by asking if it's "alright if (he goes) to the toilet?" At another point, we watch the band playing on some swings, their faces frozen in mute, childlike glee. They're clearly having a ball, albeit a slightly melancholic ball that often lands in their face.
Today, scattered around a table outside an otherwise deserted London pub, Towers Of London look shattered. While Dirk (real name: Francis Brannan) fiddles with his discombobulated haystack hair-do and singing younger brother Donny (nee Patrick) shivers glumly in his enormous red leather jacket, tremendously nosed bassist Tommy Brunette (real name not forthcoming) solidifies his status as the quiet man of punk by spending the next hour in virtual silence, nodding his large head serenely like a slightly mysterious seaside donkey. The Rev (Paul Mayers) and tiny drummer Snell (real name also unknown) are not here, on the grounds of still being in bed, where they probably remain, snoring like narwhales.
Why the torpor, gents? "Nothing much. Just knackered," says Donny, adjusting his sunglasses with trembling fingers that, like his face, are the colour of cottage cheese. "We're out most of the time these days, y'know, with gigs and stuff , and it gets really tiring. It's catching up with me. I'm looking older these days. A lot older. If you see a picture of me from a couple of years ago, I look quite youthful. Now look at me," he says, peering over his shades to reveal a startling collection of papery folds. "Now people are calling me 27 in the paper. 27! They're seeing these lines and are just assuming I'm 27!" How old are you then? "25!" Outrageous.
But such is the toll of a life lived, according to a typically solemn Dirk, "on the edge". Formed in 2004 following a string of aborted, ill-fated, Oasis-y"outfits", including one called, somewhat inevitably, The Lost Boys, Towers Of London have spent the best part of their short career doggedly working their way through every cliche in the rock "handbook". Pungent behaviour has ensued. They were kicked out of Germany's Rock Am Ring festival for stealing Mötley Crüe's rider. They released a single called **** It Up. They appalled ornithologists by releasing 32 pigeons into the crowd during this year's Reading festival.
("We went down to Uxbridge shopping centre the day before to catch them with our coats. When we released them we expected them to flap off but they didn't want to come out. Some of them were just wandering around the stage. There was **** everywhere," grimaces Tommy, before immediately slumping back into a semi-slumber.) Such rum conduct has naturally galvanised tabloid attention, with Donny's alleged relationship with overprivileged teen-about-town Peaches Geldof securing for the rapscallions a rather unlikely residency in the gossip pages. Is there any truth in the rumours, Donny? "****in' 'ell! Um. Urr. No comment. Hurgh-hurrgh!" he splutters, his hair visibly wilting in embarrassment.
Now, the visibly unhealthy ne'er-do-wells join The Osbournes, Whitney Houston and Lisa Scott-Lee in allowing a television crew to film them in such a way as to make them look at least eight times stupider than they actually are. Why? "I'd been having nightmares about (the series)," scowls Dirk. "You put your trust in people, don't you? And you just hope that they'll repay that trust. It's always in the back of your mind. That paranoia. But it's good. I'm happy with it." Were there any moments in the series - the bit where we see an unidentifi able member of the band's hands kneading a naked groupie's oscillating bum cheeks, say - during which they found themselves thinking "good Lord, that really is a bit much?" "I think nearly all of it's a bit much. But that's us, innit?" he says. "We wanted people to see the truth of what really goes on."
Donny (wistfully): "It's quite nice to look back on things, innit? 'Cos I can't remember half the stuff we've been up to. It's like a diary." Their parents must be devastated. "I think all mums and dads would be worried if their sons were in this band," sniff s Donny. "I think they're aware of what's going on. I'm not sure if they'll be watching the series though. I don't think they will." He looks panicked. "Hope not."
Underneath the mum-worrying thuggery and the bum-kneading ribaldry, Towers Of London are evidently decent chaps. Like Spinal Tap (the TV series' inevitable touchstone), they're essentially amenable sorts, their abject bewilderment and sporadic bouts of atrocious behaviour exacerbated by the traditional
pressures of life in a good-time rock band. Are they merely misunderstood? "To be honest," says Donny, "I'm a bit shocked by some of the stuff that's been said about us. It's the press, innit? Everyone blows the anti-social thing out of proportion." He looks baffled "It's hard to get away from. It's crap. "I can be a bit bad, but other times I'm the loveliest guy you'll ever meet. We're all like that. We're not, like, the baddest of the bad. We're actually pretty nice." ·
Towers Of London, Thu, 10.30pm, Bravo
guardian.co.uk