Zero or hero? Love or hate them, Never A Hero won’t reveal themselves any time soon, but they may have sold you one of their T-shirts. Jennifer Palmer-Violet talks to frontman Phrixus
Never A Hero’s frontman Phrixus didn’t know what ‘trolling’ meant until he joined the Sudbury-based band last year. After seeing the ad for a new singer, he looked them up online to find all kinds of noise. “They were getting love and hate on You Tube,” he says, “but I’ve come to find that as soon as you start to do something a bit better than normal, you’re going to get both sides of it.”
Coming from a much less intense band, the former actor and opera singer, who signed up because the original vocalist fell ill, accepted his fate. “We don’t listen to the hate anymore,” he says. “We get so much of it each, it’s quite funny.”
But there was never any intention to polarise opinion, claims Phrixus. It’s simply the five-piece’s look that stirs up most of the backlash. Each wearing masks, they’ve been accused of copying the handful of bands who do the same. He laughs: “I can’t even name 10 bands who wear masks, but I can name thousands that wear jeans and a T-shirt.”
And the comparisons he finds intriguing. “I don’t consider myself a wannabe Hollywood Undead because I don’t know who they are!” he admits. “Our music is so different to theirs, as soon as you get past the image I think people see there is something more. I love how catchy and intricate [our music] is. It isn’t simple stuff.”
Beyond the masks, the band, completed by guitarists Kaji and Mickey Thin, bassist KB and drummer Daisy Lai, are a sophisticated mess of genres. Kaji is mad on rock and blues, while guitarist Mickey Thin is all for pure metal. Rap and classical are mixed in too. Each to their own.
“We throw a lot of things away and we have so many arguments on vocals now purely because there’s a lot more people writing,” says Phrixus. “I remember with
Burning Skies [the video for which features Coronation Street’s Les Battersby] we all wrote the music and then Mickey wrote the vocals. I was so gutted. We spent a day ripping it apart and making it what it is now. We try to get it so most of us like it.
“Obviously we want people to like the music we write,” he continues. “If we don’t like what we’re writing, if we don’t get excited by it, we won’t put it out there. We always try to keep something in there that people can relate to, even if it’s one bit, because otherwise you’re just writing for yourself.”
Signed to a US label, the band’s debut album, Bleed Between The Lies, is set for a re-release now they’re gaining momentum. And a headline UK tour is planned for later this year. “We’d love to go everywhere,” Phrixus says. “We’ve given our souls to this, so we’re in it for the long haul. We’re very excited about the second album because with the first one we had the songs for a long time. The new songs sound incredible so we can’t wait to get gigging again and try these ones out.”
What lies beneath Phrixus is clearly revelling in his new lease of life. “In my other bands I used to get a bit carried away,” he says. “I can be a bit, not crazy, but mysterious in this. I live a bit differently with the mask on; even watching the videos it’s very different to how I am. And KB especially is such a shy guy when he’s not got the kit on.”
It’s quite a commitment, of course. “We sweat amazingly,” he says. “I don’t mind that anymore – just don’t hug me after a show!” But he’s given up on his straitjacket. “For the first few gigs I had to wear it and then put a shirt underneath it. When I started sweating through both, it didn’t look good!”
The masks are absolutely integral to the band, though. Fans talk about the ‘characters’ rather than the men underneath, who often work their own merch stall unbeknown to others. “We’d never stop wearing the masks; it would be a totally different band. We have spoken about maybe in a few years having a de-masked thing with an album around that, and make it a big deal that we take these masks off. But we’ll still have hints of them around. One day we’d like to do an acoustic album. We’ll wear wooden masks and do it in a forest.”
The haters must be foaming at the mouth.
Never A Hero play the Intrepid Fox in London on Thursday 18 April
Bleed Between The Lies is out now; single Hollow and the Crow is released on 15 July
