'Lads With Rock 'N Roll' - Louie

It’s 11.30pm on a Friday night and KOKO’s club night is in full swing. The balconies are packed out and a mass of heaving bodies twitch and jive on the dance floor as the indie anthems blast out of the speakers and echo up into the dressing rooms. And that’s where Gigwise is- the dressing rooms. Louie’s dressing room to be precise and everyone’s buzzing as the countdown to stage time begins.

Louie are a six piece, a bona fide rock n’ roll six piece with a shot of punk thrown in there for good measure. There’s Andy, Russell (the guitarist currently offering someone some fruit), Luke and Mikey (the drummer), and two singers- Gaz and Jordan. “We like playing music and having a good time” says Jordan sitting next to us on one of the venue’s plush sofas. That’s something evident in their shows, particularly in their recent appearance at the Tin Pan Alley festival where they pretty much owned the crowd - but hey Louie appear to be quite the seasoned pro’s when it comes to festivals. “The first festival we did, actually it was our tenth gig, we played a festival in Portugal” continues Jordan, “We did O2 and Reading & Leeds last year when we were unsigned. This year we did O2, Download, and Truck and Tin Pan Alley… Ohh! Don’t! Don’t!” Fruit starts to fly around the room and as Jordan warns the offender “****in’ hell! I don’t want to get a strawberry in the ****ing face!”

Thankfully after the brief fracas, he resumes his festival-related chat. “It’s really nice playing in the day. Like playing now at 12.15 at night it’s great but you’re worried all day, I like the feel of playing coming off, drinking and watching loads of bands.” So it’s much more relaxed Jordan? “It not just that- you can meet and idol and you can meet a mate from a band. Everyone seems in a really up mood and anyone who goes to a festival and is miserable they shouldn’t be in a band because you’re a lucky bastard to be playing any festival!”

Festivals aside now, Louie are currently recording their album with Stephen Street (noted for his work with The Smiths, Jordan proudly proclaims). Between writing and gigging, about half the album is completed and if all goes to plan, the band are back in the studio in November to finish it off. As yet it doesn’t have a title but “it’ll be good when it comes out” we are reassured. Speaking of names you may think that there’s a witty story behind that of the band’s but in truth it is quite simple; The guys wanted something short sharp and snappy that a crowd could shout, so ‘Louie’ it was. 

Much the same can be said for the relationship between the dual  singers Jordan and Gaz  - most bands would struggle to support the egos of two frontmen but here again it’s simple. “What we do is both write lyrics together and separately and bring it together or we’ll sit and write lyrics together.” Jordan explains. “It’s not I write for him or he writes for me; I can write something that means a lot to me and he (Gaz) can sing it and it comes out in a different way. It’s weird… and I don’t mind that and he doesn’t mind either.” Another factor Louie have to deal with is getting the right balance between all their influences, ‘cause with six of them it’s a case of pulling out the perfect elements of each and turning it into their own music. “What got me into starting a band? I heard The Strokes when I was at college and I was like ‘that’s cool as ****!’ Our guitarist was into metal when he was younger; our drummer is really into 70’s punk which is where we get the punky influence. What did from day one was we didn’t really talk about music together we just went in the studio and played.” Smart lads.