Six By Seven

Old biog! New one soon.

Six By Seven are...

• Chris Olley - vocals, guitar
• Tina Blower - guitar
• James Flower - keyboards
• Chris Davis - drums
• Paul Douglas - bass (left 2002)
• Sam Hempton - guitar

It takes a lot of courage to tell your own truth. And even more talent to tell it so compellingly that refusal is not an option. In an age when so many bands talk about 'keeping it real', all the while pandering to every hoary, escapist fantasy in the rock'n'roll text book, when gentle mollification, bland assurance and careful appeasement have all but obliterated honesty of expression, Six By Seven stand out like a beacon on a blasted heath. At a time when the selling of existence as 70-odd years of fun and frolic in the sun is a sure sign of increasing desperation, Six By Seven are a crucial, devastating reminder of the winter of our collective discontent.

Chris Olley - towering combustion engine at the heart of the impassioned rock'n'roll machine that is Six By Seven - knows that the truth can get you into trouble, that honesty has become unpopular and integrity somehow uncool, but he can't play it any other way. Doesn't see the point. ‘I don't know what it means to compromise,' Olley says, with the refreshing forthrightness that has characterised his band since day one and marked them out as special. ‘Our music is uncompromising and that's what people like, but it worries them, too. It's never worried us,' he laughs. ‘I think we're an exciting live band and I think we've made an exciting record. I really believe Six By Seven is important.'

Like oxygen. The Way I Feel Today is the Nottingham-based outfit's third album, and they still haven't learned how to pull any punches. Thank God. They still throw plenty, though. Having parted company with co-founding member, guitarist Sam Hempton after Glastonbury 2000, Six By Seven sound cleaner and more sharply focused than ever before, but have sacrificed none of their trademark ferocious intensity. All 11 songs burn with an emotional power that borders on the nuclear, whether in ‘Cafeteria Rats', a rifftastic, scabrous attack spat out at those who talk themselves up to hide the emptiness of their lives, or in the touchingly direct declarations of love that are 'So Close'. and 'I.O.U. Love'. This is an album that throbs with the stuff of real life: the impossibility of living up to others' expectations (the two-minute, proto-punk blast of ‘Flypaper For Freaks'); the existential anger that underpins the glowering, epic ‘America Beer', where Olley howls ‘nobody told me it would be like this' over and over; the almost unbearably poignant, inherited self-loathing which drives a ruthlessly primal ‘Bad Man'. In a Britain where the perceived sensitivity of the so-called ‘new acoustic movement' has a damp grip on a legion of tear-stained anoraks, Six By Seven's unique blend of cynicism and positivism is needed more than ever before. It's also the thing that often has the band wrongly tagged as gloom merchants.

‘I'm miserable beyond belief,' admits Olley, only half seriously. ‘If an optimist sees half a glass of milk and says it's half full and a pessimist sees half a glass of milk and says it's half empty, then I see half a glass of milk and say it's sour! But if people actually took the time to listen to my lyrics and came to see the band live, and heard the sonic build-up with its swathes of emotion, they'd actually realise it's all very positive. And yet I always seem to be labelled as some kind of monkish figure who comes on with a guitar and just plays to piss people off.'

The Way I Feel Today (original planned title, ‘These Compulsory Meatless Days') was written at Olley's Nottingham home, unlike the previous studio-penned The Closer You Get, with each track demo'd in a rehearsal studio and then played live when the band went into Rockfield Studio. Olley explains: ‘We made a conscious decision to record the album live, without a single overdub, because when you don't have that option, your concentration and focus are so much better and you get an edgier, better-sounding record as a result. Musicians get too tied up in it all. Basically, when we were in the studio and we started to get hyper-critical of a song, we'd put Surfer Rosa on and then listen to it again. Then we'd be able to say, "actually, it's really good!"'

Much of Six By Seven's fire comes from Olley's existential discontent, which is why The Way I Feel Today is essentially a punk record, keeping spiritual company with The Sex Pistols, Nirvana, The Fall, The Clash - bands whose sound is filth and fury in equal parts, whose sonic power is further strengthened by the fact that they actually have Something Vital to say. A lot of Olley's lyrical inspiration comes from television, film and newspapers and he keeps scrapbooks full of potent collected phrases as his source. ‘It's my culture,' says Olley of television. ‘It's a condensation of everything that surrounds you, firing out of this little box. You make what you want out of that and you shape it. I'd written "These Compulsory Meatless Days" at the top of a page in my book - probably in a drunken stupor - and underlined it about 10 times. Then, in a circle next to it, I'd put "next album title" and that was always in my mind when I was writing the lyrics for the album, even though the title's now changed. As soon as I think a song might be getting too literal, though, I put in something that throws it off track again.'

It would be crass beyond belief to claim that Olley's pain is rock's gain, but the remarkable redemptive power of Six By Seven's music comes largely from his willingness to lay himself bare. Not with bravado, not with a bleeding heart on his sleeve, but because he can't see the point in being anything other than honest. ‘I'm a stickler for commitment,' says Olley simply, ‘and I won't do anthing by halves; my dad was an army major and I was brought up that way. If I do something, I give it absolutely everything I've got. Otherwise, I don't see the point. I may as well fuck off and do something else.'

Determination and directness - they're both Six By Seven's rhyme and reason. Put simply, the way they feel. Always.

Biography by Sharon O'Connell, from Mantrarecordings.com