Heavyball – The Interview – Scallywag Beats

Nottingham born, London based, Heavyball are a hard rocking ‘New Tone’ band. Heavyball are fronted by Bigface on guitar and vocals with his brother Habs on drums and best mate Johnny Iball on bass. 2014 saw them joined by Frosty on lead guitar.

Heavyball are signed to independant label Magnetic North Melodies

How did you meet? (Tom – I believe you come from Bromley – I went to school there – Ravensbourne – I couldn’t wait to get out!)

Habs: Bigface and I are brothers, and we met Johnny when we were kids in Nottingham. Tom (Frosty) joined us a few years ago. How come you wanted to get out of Bromley so much?…was it because of Frosty?

Frosty: Wow really!? Ravensbourne!? Wasn’t that Bowie and Framptons school? I was just down the road at Hayes school. On the face of it a pretty posh middle class school yet my main memories are smoking weed and drinking vodka on the field at lunch and nobody really caring. I think I was there at a unique period when one administration was leaving so most of the faculty had stopped caring.

Frosty: I have a love hate relationship with Bromley. Frankie Boyle lived here for a while and described it as “lobotomy made out of bricks”. He is probably right. It’s a strange place. It’s not a bad place to grow up but it can be very dull. It’s very residential and there’s very little promotion of artistic or creative ideas (probably because if you follow that path you will never be able to afford to live here, my folks brought their house 30+ years ago for about 80k. Now it would be around 750,000-1mill). It does very little to promote its musical pedigree, as mentioned Bowie and Frampton are Bromley natives but we also have Billy Idol, Siouxsie and the Banshees among other well known names and even our contemporaries the Dualers, and there is very little mention of it. For a place that seems to stifle creativity it really has produced some incredible musicians over the years.

How did you choose your name? Was it based on a medical issue?!!

Habs: It’s a lyric from an old Louis Prima song – it used to be a favourite of ours when we were kids.

Frosty: I have heard about five different stories about this and I don’t think any of them are true so I will be interested to see what new stories come from this interview….

In ten words or less – describe your musical sound.

Habs: The soundtrack to Office Space, as a kitchen sink drama.

Iball: Bleakness with a smile.

Frosty: Frosty’s sweet sweet licks

Black Eye Diaries and When Can You Start? tend to lean towards the bleak, albeit wrapped in some upbeat rhythms. What I took away from them, particularly the latter, is that we live plastic, pointless lives in jobs we hate to make ends meet and then we die – which I can totally relate to! It begs the question – glass half-full or half-empty?

Habs: Half-full, a world where you get to make and play music can’t be that bad. Some of our stuff may seem a bit bleak but I think there is a seam of optimism running through it all. The best songs ever written tend to be a clash between pessimism and optimism.

Iball: Half full definitely. When Can You Start? is a reminder that you can do something about the daily grind. For us it’s being in a band but for others it might be morris dancing. Fuck it, as long as you are into it and it gives you a purpose.

Take me through your creative process. How much of your writing is based on personal experience? Are your day jobs a hindrance or a help?

Habs: I think you’re always writing about someone you know. So our lives, and the lives of our friends, do help with our writing. I suppose we could be making millions of pounds out of music, having several houses around the world and having no contact with reality but…would we really be happy? Yes, I think we probably would be.

Iball: I agree Habs.., we should have had more interesting friends and the we might have got somewhere.

Frosty: Hindrance- I hate my day job. I should be a full time rock star

Which track are you most proud of and why?

Habs: I really like Heist, the drumming seemed to come together really well in the recording.

Iball: Frosty’s solo in No more 9 to 5. Nothing to do with me of course but I love it.

Frosty: It’s difficult to pick one. As Habs says Heist is definitely one of them. No More Nine to Five as I think it’s a great track but also completely different to anything Heavyball has done before. After Dark and Year out are two other favourites. Ask me tomorrow and I would probably pick the
other half of the album.

Who’s the biggest pain in the arse on tour?

Habs: Whoever it was that decided to make you pay 70 cents just to take a leak at European service stations. I don’t know who it was but I always give them a mental dressing down when I’m dying for a piss and the only things I have in my pockets are a set of earplugs and an empty packet of fags.

Iball: Me, I snore like a bastard.

Frosty: All of them

Who are your biggest musical influences?

Habs: It’s probably different for each member of Heavyball but new wave drummers like Stewart Copeland, Pete Thomas, Clem Burke and Billy Ficca have always been pretty influential. Just knowing when to play and when not to play is all a drummer really needs to know.

Iball: For me I’d say the Smiths. That balance of melody, misery and humour is perfect.

Frosty: Hendrix and the Chili Peppers

Which artists are you currently listening to?

Habs: I like going down musical rabbit holes on YouTube…right now a Johnny Cash/Biggie Smalls mashup album is getting a lot of airtime.

Iball: I have listened to The Cure for about a week solid.

Frosty: The Clash

What’s your all-time favourite album?

Habs: My ‘all-time’ album probably changes all the time..Lola Versus Powerman by The Kinks is hard to beat though.

Iball: ‘If You Want Blood (You Got It) ‘ by AC/DC. It’s a great live album with Bon smashing it from start to finish.

Frosty: I really can’t pick one. Today’s answer would be different from yesterday and tomorrow.

What was the highlight of 2018 and what’s in store for 2019?

Habs: The touring was great, particularly seeing how our new stuff went down. When you make an album you never know how its going to connect with folks outside your small circle, let alone people in different parts of the UK and Europe. It’s been great to see crowds singing along to our new stuff and then coming up afterwards to say that it really made a connection.

Iball: 2018, going to a Christmas market in Cologne and buying the manager a big gingerbread heart that said ‘I love you’ in German on it… And finding out next day that for the whole evening he thought it meant ‘I love dick’ 2019 surely can’t beat that can it?

Frosty: The album came out late last year so the full impact of that wasn’t felt until 2018 so being involved in that, having a part in a real album that has been heard all across the world was a life long dream.

Heavyball website: http://www.heavyball.net