The Ragamuffins on being 'boss'

The Ragamuffins confess to having tea habit

Indie pop band The Ragamuffins talk about meeting Sean McGinty, the band's tea habit and Beatlemania in Italy...

Where are you from?

Well we're quite nomadic as a band really having spent time living away at different Universities from Newcastle to London, and different members are originally from different parts of the country, but at the minute we're pretty much based in Blackburn and play most of our gigs in and around there and over in Liverpool.

Tell us about the band...

We formed properly early in 2008 when Paul and Jules joined Richard and David and we christened ourselves "The Ragamuffins" shortly afterwards. Since then we've played loads of gigs in Lancashire including opening Clitheroe's state of the art The Grand venue in April 2008, before playing at Darwen Festival.

We've headlined the O2 Academy, played The Zanzibar, Magnet, Cavern, taken part in the annual International Pop Overthrow Festival, played at Bumper and The Metropolitan as part of MTV Liverpool Music Week, and even get our songs played regularly at Anfield, home of Liverpool FC.

In September 2008, we were flown over to Italy to open the six month long "Made in Europe" Festival just North of Milan and we regularly play gigs in London town.

In April 2009 we flew over to Mayrhofen in Austria to take part in the Snowbombing Festival there to take part in a bill including Noisettes, Biffy Clyro, Dizzie Rascal, and we've also played before The Zutons at Durham University and at the Beatherder Festival 2009 alongside Utah Saints and Reverend & The Makers.

Style and influences?

We try and stay as true as possible to our pop roots which isn't too hard to do when you've grown up in the region that has gave birth to some of the greatest pop music the world has ever heard: you've really got the music textbook right there at your fingertips!

We also love Motown and Northern Soul music which comes through in quite a few of our creations but we're not afraid to get the synths out and experiment as well.

What's the BBC Introducing experience like?

We did a "first play" of our (then) new "El Bandito!" EP on Sean's show in 2008 and it was great fun. I'd sent demo CDs out of our very first three track CD and as a result he asked us in to have a chat about who we were and what we were up to. It gives you reach to people who otherwise wouldn't listen to your music. We had some really nice comments which is fantastic and in a way helps you justify to yourself why you're doing it - at times when things maybe aren't going so well!

We're staging our own Intimate Evening in the BBC Open Centre in Blackburn on 11 September - so watch out for that.

The band has confessed to a tea habit...is that your idea of a post match drink?

Whilst we most definitely run on tea as a band - it's not the only tipple we enjoy. We played at Durham University before The Zutons recently and on finding out we got free drinks we kind of got into it a bit too much after we'd played. I wound up chatting to Paul Smith from Maximo Park at length and eulogising his decision to play Camera Obscura's "French Navy" in his DJ set. Oh dear. Nice fella, though!

The Ragamuffins are big in Italy. How did that come about?

When we opened the six month long "Made in Europe" festival, it was like total Beatlemania after the gig. Seeing some of our fans inventing a dance routine spontaneously for the chorus of "Stories From The Backseat" was pretty awesome, too.

It was quite bizarre, though, especially so early into our playing career together to be mobbed and asked for so many autographs!

When we opened the six month long "Made in Europe" festival, it was like total Beatlemania after the gig. David Jagg, The Ragamuffins

Ian McNabb of Icicle Works described you as "boss". Tell us about that...

It was when we played an acoustic show at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool late in 2007, before The Ragamuffins really officially came to be, but when we had the songs written and plotted out. It was a great gig, and he did add a prefix before "boss" that I am not allowed to state on BBC Lancashire!

We wound up playing some Beatles songs later on in the evening with him and taking questions pretending to be various members of the Fab Four a la their first ventures into America. It included the timeless "How did you find America?" and the "We turned left at Greenland" riposte which was a beautiful but surreal moment. The man is an absolute legend; anyone who's played with Zak Starkey and Crazy Horse, as well as writing so many fantastic songs, deserves a lot of respect.

Is that the coolest compliment you've had?

Probably the coolest compliment we've had so far would be some of the fans we've got turning up at gigs commenting on hats we've got on or crazy shoes we're wearing or - even better - wearing them themselves. I mean, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery really!

It means as much when a random person comes up to us and says a song really meant something to them at a specific time when they were feeling down as if, say some supermassiverockstar gave you their seal of approval, but obviously the seal of approval from said supermassiverockstar will get you exposure from a wider audience. One of the paradoxes of playing music I suppose!

The band had a nightmare with a stand-in guitar amp!

What's your worst moment so far?

We had a nightmare with a stand-in guitar amp when playing our track "Hold Steady" recently. It made it sound like I was playing a ukulele which wasn't too good. It was similar to the Bill Bailey "imagine a catastrophic technical failure at a U2 gig!" sketch.

Also, I nearly died standing on the PA stacks at Liverpool O2 Academy mid gig last year.

Has your style changed/evolved much from your early days?

Yes, but not consciously. I always wanted us to have big, infectious pop basslines and keyboards and girl/boy vocals but when we started out that wasn't possible - so it was only natural that we'd gradually get towards where we wanted to be as a group.

We did a really intimate gig recently at the Aspinall Arms in Mitton which our mate Simon runs and wound up doing a request section - including older songs from before The Ragamuffins - at the end of the gig. That was good fun!