John McIvor : London folk from a bathroom

Written by Rachel Preece

Sunday, 18 July 2010 00:00

Named after their lead singer, John McIvor are a melodic fusion of blues, folk and tender acoustics. McIvor, along with Tom Hill (guitar) and Boris Baumeister (drums) have earned praise for the intricate story-telling within their songs. The band are palpably influenced by the London folk scene (Noah and the Whale, Mumford & Sons etc) and having recently played the illustrious Isle of Wight festival, the trio are destined to become a part of this talented young assemblage of musicians on the London scene. We caught up with singer John McIvor to talk about their rather promising future...

John McIvor

Matchless: Hi John, congratulations on playing the Isle of Wight festival – did you have a good time?

John McIvor: It was amazing! We all loved it and it was a big honor to play at such a legendary festival. The sun was shining all weekend too, which was a massive bonus!

Matchless: Which other bands did you see there that you enjoyed?

John McIvor: There were a lot of great bands, most of which we didn’t get to see, but my favorites that we saw were probably The Strokes, Noah and the Whale and Paul McCartney. We saw as much as we could, but we were so busy most of the time we didn’t get a chance to see many. I think Tom and Boris saw The Editors as well. They said they were excellent!

Matchless: How would you describe your music?

John McIvor: I suppose, to keep it simple, we would call ourselves alternative/folk, but we feel (with Boris’s drum style) that it’s something more. Folk has always been a huge part of my life - especially traditional folk, but when starting the band our aim was to create our own brand of folk music. This is the reason why Tom and myself asked Boris to play drums. He was influenced a lot more by modern music such as broken-beat style drums, some underground French hip-hop and stuff like that… We hoped this would put a different perspective on our sound and it seems to have worked really well!

Matchless: How did you get together with your band?

John McIvor: Well we all met while studying music in London. We all became good friends during this time and in our final year of college Tom and myself moved in together. We had this great bathroom upstairs; well… it was more like a conservatory/bathroom. It had a typical conservatory layout with a glass roof and windows, a bath and toilet on one side covered by a small wooden wall, and then on the other-side there were some wicker chairs and a small table. We all spent most of our nights up there listening to music, watching the sun set, and getting inspired. Our relationship grew stronger during these moments and after talking about it a couple of times we decided to set up the band.

Matchless: What do you do when not making music?

John McIvor: I like to just chill mostly, but I get bored quickly so I try to make music as much as I can.

Matchless: You’re currently playing a lot of London gigs; do you have plans to gig elsewhere in the near future? Do you have plans to visit Germany any time soon?

John McIvor: Unfortunately not Germany just yet because at the moment we just don’t have the money to do it. We are planning a UK & Ireland tour to begin sometime in late September, but Germany is a little out of our grasp for the moment, maybe sometime in the beginning of next year…

Matchless: What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?

John McIvor: Tough one to answer… Different gigs bring different emotions, and different feelings carve the surface each time. For instance The Strokes live could not be compared to Bon Iver live… One you spend running and jumping up and down, shouting your head off while the other you just stand in amazement, goosebumps all over your body, shivers up and down your back. I can probably narrow it down to about three, but don’t hold me to this… Bon Iver at Hyde Park, Paul McCartney at Isle of Wight, and Bob Dylan at the O2 Arena (terrible venue I think, but just to hear Bob and his band was enough). Best festival I have ever been to would have to be Oxegen in 2008.

Matchless: Your lyrics have drawn praise from music journalists, where does your inspiration stem from?

John McIvor: Mostly self-experiences like bad relationships, regrets, loss, basically what’s going on around me and inside me, but I like to be open to write about anything. I actually really want to write more political songs, like Heroes. With everything that’s been going on in the east for quite some time now I feel that our generation needs more protest songs.

But I also try to write fictional songs too were I create different characters and stories in my head or simply just put myself in someone else’s shoes. Like Maybe, it’s a made up story that I thought of when I was trying to figure out what it must feel like to grow old and watch all your friends die around you. What if you were the last one left…? How would you deal with that…? And I guess I decided to write about it because I felt the topic deserved a song and people in that situation may relate to it.

Check out the band's music here: http://myspace.com/johnmcivor

Written by Rachel Preece