CityLife

Twisted Wheel's Jonny: You ain't seen nothing yet

Jonny Brown - hyper frontman aims high

THE first time CityLife encountered Jonny Brown - the singer, guitarist and songwriter of Twisted Wheel – the term ‘attention deficiency’ sprung immediately to mind.

Hyperactive, gregarious, prone to zipping off onto strange conversational tangents, Brown was a true rock’n’roll sort of Tasmanian Devil, whose dust storm it was impossible not to get engulfed by.

Indeed, entire herds of donkeys would be missing their hindlegs after an encounter with the Twisted Wheel main man.

Four years after that very first CityLife encounter – when Brown was still the young guitarist in Oldham band The Children – and those famous energy levels show little sign of waning. 

High-velocity standards

Mind you, they have every reason to be running low on rock’n’roll battery power.

In the space of just two short years, 22-year-old Jonny Brown has been manic even by his own high-velocity standards: splitting up The Children to form Twisted Wheel, being courted by every major record label in the land, flying off to Los Angeles to record a debut album, going on tour with Oasis (and surviving it)...

And all the while, stirring up the biggest storm (in a media teacup) over a Manchester band since (excuse the comparisons) The Courteeners.  

There really is no rest for the wicked. Jonny Brown, despite all the chaos of the past two years, has hardly broken into a sweat.

Very hyper person

“It’s been a doddle,” beams Jonny, sipping a beer in a messy backroom of Market Street HMV, before the band are due to perform a special in-store show to an eager crowd of Twisted Wheel diehards.

“I think this band has maybe had one week off in two years,” he continues.

“The madness started at In The City, two years ago, when all the record labels started chasing after us. And we haven’t really paused for breath since.

''It suits me though; I’m naturally a very hyper person, always on the go, bobbing about.

Mad characters

That’s pretty much how I got inspiration for the songs for our album; bouncing about, chatting to people, meeting all these mad characters in Manchester, then writing about them.

“I’m not the kind of person who can sit still for longer than five minutes. Nah – life’s too exciting to put your feet up and watch the telly. There’s work to be done.”

Twisted Wheel – comprising Jonny, bassist Rick Lees and drummer Adam Clarke – are, as you might have gathered, not the sort of band for whom rueful reflection comes naturally.    

Befitting a band who are named after the famous Manchester Northern Soul club of the Sixties, Twisted Wheel’s arrival on the Manchester scene was all about keeping things partisan and uproarious.

They began by building up a fanatical following in their native Oldham, which quickly engulfed Manchester, before inevitably winning that coveted crown (oh, sod it, we’ll just say it), a ‘band of the people.’

Exalted bubble

So far, so brilliantly pride of Manchester music. But the past few months have seen Twisted Wheel encounter a little hostility as they’ve ventured outside their exalted Manchester bubble.

When their self-titled debut album came out in early April, it debuted at just No.45 in the charts, and would climb no higher than that.

The album’s appeal was probably not helped by mostly negative reviews in the national music press, the nadir being a scathing NME review which condemned the band for being little more than northern oiks trading in boorish lad-rock clichés.

Bruised but far from beaten; Jonny thinks that his band’s detractors are guilty of stereotypes themselves. Northern band stereotypes, to be precise.

Tick the boxes

“I think there’s a lot of small-minded journalists who’ve already decided they won’t like us,” he snarls, his voice rising considerably.

“We don’t tick the boxes of what some journalists consider fashionable. We write punk-rock, we’re northern, we write about real life – experiences of real people.

''The sort of experiences which affect everyone, wherever you live in the world.

''We’ve played Italy, and the fans there totally understand what we’re singing about; they get all the English north-west references. They can connect with it.

Reining back his anger

''I think if you consider yourself a real music fan, then you’ll understand what northern bands sing about.

''Whether it’s Happy Mondays or The Smiths, these bands are all singing about universal things.

And I’d like to think we’re doing the same thing. Unfortunately, some music critics will always use that ‘northern’ thing against you. They can turn you into a cliché and criticise you for it.”  

''Jonny sighs, slowly reining back his anger. “But if there’s one thing we learnt from Oasis, it’s that you shouldn’t try to please the critics. Just please the people who get it.”

Gallaghers close mentors

Indeed. The Gallagher brothers have become close mentors to the Twisted Wheel clan of late.

It was actually Noel who discovered Twisted Wheel while watching Manc TV station Channel M, before picking up the phone and inviting the band to support Oasis on their stadium dates last year.

 Elsewhere, Liam G recently declared on his Twitter page that Twisted Wheel were his fave new British band, and that Jonny Brown was, “the new Paul Weller”.

All of which would make Twisted Wheel incredibly loyal to the Gallagher brothers.

Massive band

So loyal in fact, that a daily tabloid recently published a bizarre news story about Twisted Wheel fighting with Italian hooligans - all in the name of defending Oasis. True?

Jonny laughs: “Not true! That was just the tabloids making stuff up. But I’d happily defend Oasis any day of the week. They were a massive band for us.

''Morning Glory was what got me into playing the guitar, and Noel is a huge songwriting influence.

''But we’re careful not to get too star-struck about meeting them. It was nice seeing how much we could talk to them on their level – we’d just get drunk after gigs and share down-to-earth northern banter.

Innate fearlessness

''When we played Wembley, Liam introduced us to his family and kids. Oasis are heroes, but they’re like friends now.”

Oasis patronage or not, Twisted Wheel have always been well equipped with an innate fearlessness.

The band’s biggest Manchester show to date, at the Ritz last year, witnessed a near mini-riot, when Jonny emerged from the venue post-gig to play an impromptu acoustic set on Whitworth Street.

“It was mental,” recalls an incredulous Jonny. “There were police vans and everything. We were worried we might get done for inciting a riot, but the whole thing passed off pretty peacefully. The next time I play a surprise gig, I’ll go somewhere a little less public.”

Coronation gig

Fearlessness certainly comes into play with the band’s two up-coming Manchester appointments.

There’s a sold-out, hometown sort of coronation gig this weekend at Academy 1 (“I’m buzzing about it, it’ll be like our ‘thank you’ gig to all the hardcore fans,” says Jonny).

Then there’s the not too small matter of supporting (yes, them again) Oasis at the band’s super-sized Heaton Park shows in June.

“It’s gonna be amazing,” grins Jonny. “I remember going to Heaton Park as a little kid, just on a day out, and thinking how amazing would it be to play there one day.

Extra bit special

''After playing so many stadiums last year with Oasis, we’re really started to enjoy playing big venues.

''And with Heaton Park being a homecoming show, it’s that extra bit special.

''The Twisted Wheel fans are gonna take it over. I can’t wait.”

Twisted Wheel support Oasis at Heaton Park on June 4/6/7.