Kassidy Interview

At the end of last month I was lucky enough to interview the lovely Barrie James and Hamish from Kassidy just a couple of hours before their sold out Glasgow gig- 28th April 2011 in O2 ABC. Due to publications with other sites, it's delayed going up on mine, but thought you might fancy a swatch anyway! 

What a Welcome home…

After playing thirteen headline gigs in sixteen days, selling out three of these dates and running about the country with the enthusiasm and excitement of a small kid at Christmas, Barrie-James O’Neil and Hamish Fingland did not disappoint as they burst into the dressing rooms in Glasgow’s O2 ABC. With just hours to go until they graced the stage of their sold out home town gig, they were the epitome of the confidence and determination that has lead Kassidy to the levels of success that they are achieving.  

“Everywhere we’ve played the crowds have been fantastic to us,” said Barrie with a grin on his face. “People have learnt the words to the songs, totally helping us out with the singing. It’s just a great buzz. Everybody’s coming and everybody likes it. We’re on form just now, so we’re pretty happy.”

Kicking off in Dundee before touring Scotland, driving down to England to play the likes of Newcastle, Nottingham, Manchester and London, before heading back home for the Glasgow date, Barrie explained, “Dundee was the first one. We’ve started our last few tours in Dundee, pretty much because it’s the best place to start… the people there are just fantastic. We just love the banter of Dundee people. We know a lot of people in Dundee, so it’s a good place to start and Glasgow’s a good place to end it, because it’s our home town.”

Selling out their Glasgow gig five weeks in advance, as well as their dates in Dundee and Edinburgh, the guys remain down to earth about why they’re fans are so supportive in their home town.“We have no idea. All we can think of is the fact that we’re very active to anyone who follows us… who follow Kassidy on Facebook or on Twitter. We like to keep everyone informed about everything that we do. We like to make videos and we like to share our music tastes with people and we like people to share their music tastes with us. We just like to know what people think. You know, people who follow us, we want to know what’s on their mind. We’re very personal with people who follow us,” said Barrie, with Hamish jumping in to explain, “We’re really appreciative. It gives us energy.”

Kassidy are famous for their innovative use of social media to keep in touch with their fans, updating frequently and actively interacting with their fans. Recently this included a live performance via live streaming on Facebook.

Hamish explained, “We just heard about the programme and we… well everyone has Facebook, and everyone loves to get involved.  

                                                                                                          (Photo by Henry Lee)

If there’s a spell where we’re not gigging… we love to be active- if we’re not gigging and we’re not recording, we’re like “what are we meant to do? What are we meant to do?!” cause we love performing. So it was like “You know what, there’s this programme where you can do that,” and we thought, “let’s just get gigging!” So it’s good fun; we got a great reception.”

But the guys were exceptionally modest when it came to the fact that they’re not far off 10,000 fans on Facebook. “It’s amazing. It just comes out of nowhere man, we don’t know where these people come from. We don’t know how people hear about us… I’m pretty sure our friends make up fake accounts to try and help us get to the 10,000 mark,” laughed Barrie.

When asked what made the band different, the guys showed no lack in confidence over where the strength of the band lies. “We’re real, we’re honest. We’re a real band,” Hamish quickly and confidently stated. “There are not a lot of real bands anymore. We live in the same house, we write songs every day, we record ourselves… we don’t stop- ever. We’re a real band. We’re a family.”

The enthusiasm and excitement that this band has for their band and their music, is something that you cannot deny. Barrie explained, “We want to write the best songs, and we want to be happy with our own songs and our song writing and we want to play, we want to be the best live band out there. I think we’re pretty close to getting there.”

“We are close to it,” continued Hamish. “You’ll see it tonight. We are. It’s confidence. We’re doing well just now. You’d rather be hated than just be alright. So if you can be loved or hated, you’ve got to be one or the other. Who wants to be mediocre?”