Interview - Mike Griffin

(The Velcro Teddybears)

 

As Landlord of The Royal Standard pub, and lead guitarist in The Velcro Teddybears, how on earth do you find time to practice and gig yourself?

 

It used to be quite hard to find time to juggle both. As I've settled into the pub business, and gained more experience, it becomes a lot easier to begin delegating and finding more free and leisure time for myself (which I've definitely earnt!). Nowadays, we generally practice 1-2 times a week and try to gig every fortnight. This is different from when we first started out as a band and were gigging 2-3 times a week. That was quite stressful when trying to cover staff shifts at the pub as I only officially had 1 day off, which was usually spent sleeping!

 

You also book bands to play at The RS, do you use this as a chance to check out fellow bands as well as provide entertainment for the bar?

 

Before I started running and turning The RS into a music venue, I was an avid lover of live music, often watching bands most nights of the week whilst at University. I realised it was much easier to get the bands to come to me! Seriously though, I am a big fan of live music and when you see that one special band that goes on to make national press, and they've played an early show at your venue, it is a rather special feeling.

 

You've just transitioned from acoustic to electric, how long have you wanted to take this step for?

 

I always dreamed of being a 'rock god'. I was brought up with the likes of Jimmy Page, Angus Young and Slash to name but a few, and they all played electric guitar. I started out learning electric, and for some reason made the transition to acoustic - but playing acoustic like an electric! That's probably why I broke so many strings! You reach a point, I think, in acoustic guitar where you plateau and yearn for more, which I think electric unlocked for us. Playing acoustic helped us become a very tight band, making very few mistakes, which are amplified x10 on acoustic instruments. Hopefully this comes across in our new live shows.

 

Was it a smooth transition or were there a few hiccups along the way?

 

I had to remember how to play electric guitar again! Playing acoustic can be quite heavy handed, whereas there is a finite skill to playing certain aspects of electric. Plus, compositions do not work the same, or played the same, from one setup to another. We are steadily getting into the groove, and after each practice we are becoming more confident and flamboyant in our song writing.

 

Is that it for the acoustical sounds now, or is the plan to mix it up?

 

We will always have our acoustical sounds as they are our first songs, and probably will be some of our best. We hope to mix it up at our shows if we are given a long enough set to showcase them. We also are quite adaptable, as we can play acoustic tents and large stage electric shows. We have transcribed some of our acoustic songs to electric, but, there will always be our acoustic gems that cannot make the migration.

 

We hear you are a huge Taylor Swift fan, do you have any other guilty pleasures you'd like to confess to us?

 

Not a huge fan! She has a real pretty face and one catchy tune! No pleasures should be guilty, otherwise they'd be secrets!

 

Who would you say are the biggest influences on the band?

 

For me, my guitar playing style is heavily influenced by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath as these are the bands I learnt whilst teaching myself guitar. I think this is more apparent through our electric sound than our acoustic sound. However, the underlying aspects are there in our acoustic set as well. I think Josh is influenced by the early 60's Rock and Roll such as Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival, with funky, fluid, lead basslines. Mikey (drummer) is influenced by some weird bands, the less said on that the better! We always try to write songs about things that actually mean something to us, or that we have experienced in our life. We have hundreds of half written songs that haven't quite grasped our guts as a band, and have been shelved. They may resurface, in a different form in jam sessions and become different songs down the line, but at the end of the day we don't write drivel.

 

And where is your next gig?

 

Our next gig is at the Rocking Chair with a really good Camden band called The IC1's, who I had the pleasure of booking for our Tramlines Festival in 2013.