CityLife

Child's play for Salford's Suzuki Method

NEW SALFORD GENERATION: Suzuki Method

YOU may have read (most probably in CityLife) about Salford’s recent accolade as an epicentre of art-pop über-hipness.

Thanks to bands like The Ting Tings and the hippy art-space Islington Mill, where the band is based, Salford has witnessed an vibrant explosion of groups and creative types eager to indulge their high arty pretentions. 

However, this is a part of Salford which The Suzuki Method – 2009’s most exciting dance-rock heroes – have very little affinity with.

“We’re definitely not an arty type of band,” says Adam Leishman, the band’s singer/guitarist, between mouthfuls of Guinness in Salford boozer The Kings Arms. 

He adds continues: “We know about the art-pop scene, but we have little in common with it. I consider that area the new Salford – new expensive flats and all that.

“I’d like to think this band are a bit more old-school Salford, the sort of Salford that inspired bands like The Fall – quite dark and gritty, real Albert Finney stuff. As a musician, there’s a real romance in that sort of old nostalgia.”

They may distance themselves from the arty beatniks of the Islington Mill, but that’s not to say The Suzuki Method are musical Luddites, stubbornly rooted in the past. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Like Manc peers The Whip and Delphic, they’re a pop band who bring a wonderfully futurist imperative to the Manc music table. 

Since they first appeared on the Manc scene around two years ago, The Suzuki Method have accomplished the rather unlikely feat of marrying the polar worlds of hard rock and eighties hard dance.

Like Queens Of The Stone Age transplanted to the Hacienda, circa 1988, The Suzuki Method is a band that hits you right in the solar plexus, while simultaneously energising your dancing feet.

“There’s a lot of indie bands around in Manchester right now,” considers Adam.

“And that’s indie music in the sort of commercial pop sense. I think what this band does definitely fits more into the rock category. But we’re not afraid to bring technology to the mix. It’s rock music but with a strong emphasis on the rhythm and the beats.”

Hacienda

Formed in Salford around three years ago, The Suzuki Method – the line-up completed by bassist Michael Mathews, drummer Jake Ryder, guitarist James Elliot and singer Adam’s brother Glen Leishman on keyboards – see themselves as ‘children of the Hacienda generation’. 

As young teenagers, all the band members inherited a love of Hacienda dance tunes from their party-going raver parents, and bassist Michael can fondly remembers the times he was “strapped in the back of the car as a kid, with my parents blaring out Hacienda dance tunes from the car stereo”.

In the case of drummer Jake, he can even boast parentage with a direct link to the halcyon days of Manc baggy. 

“My dad is Paul Ryder, from the Happy Mondays,” he explains. “So, for me, music was always around. I was picking up instruments and playing with bands from an really early age. But I think it was when my dad turned me onto Black Grape that I really started to take music seriously.”

That aking things seriously meant forming The Suzuki Method with four of his closest mates and trying and attempting to bring back a certain dancefloor sensibility to the world of straight-laced Manc indie rock.

Feral rock

Combining the feral rock of Queens Of The Stone Age (one of the band’s biggest influences), with the sort of futurist pop agenda first outlined by New Order, The Suzuki Method are primal rock ’n’ rollers full of groove and well as heart.

But Above anything else, though, the band’s main musical imperative is to be natural and instinctive, as outlined in their choice of band name.

“The name The Suzuki Method comes from the method of teaching,” explains bassist Michael. “It’s where young children play music from an early age, as soon as they can speak. You just let the child learn the instrument themselves, without tuition and forcing them.

“It’s a brilliant way of teaching and I think it’s something we can all identify with. The best bands learn to play by instinct and feel. You don’t have to have a degree in music to write a classic song that connects with people. The Suzuki Method of teaching music used to be on the national curriculum, but it’s not any more,” adds Adam.

“It’s a shame, because young kids are more likely to pick up a copy of Guitar Hero than they will pick up a real guitar these days.”

Intelligent, principled and defiantly old-school in their business approach, The Suzuki Method have firmly pitched themselves as true rock ’n’ roll outsiders who might gatecrash the Manc music party in 2009. 

With big record labels showing interest and gigs selling out at super-speed (the band’s recent festive party at King Arms was one of the Manc music shows of 2008), The Suzuki Method have every intention of showing that Salford doesn’t just do clever-clogs art-pop, it can also do guts and passion, too. 

“Yeah, I’d like to think we wear our Salford roots proudly on our sleeves,” beams Adam. “We’ve lived in the area all our lives and it’s true that Salford breeds a certain sort of attitude and humour among the bands.

"Just look at The Fall and New Order. I don’t know much about the arty cool side of Salford, but we’re proud to be from here.”

The Suzuki Method play The Roadhouse on Wednesday, January 14. For more info visit myspace.com/suzukimethodmusic.