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Back to index of Nerve 14 - Summer 2009
Music Profile
- Alan O'Hare
By Amy Denis
After fronting various bands, Liverpool's answer to Bruce Springsteen has really hit the nail on the head this time and is clambering the ladder of success with his band The Trestles.
The group is about to launch their first EP and O'Hare prides himself on being a unique artist as far as pop is concerned. Few songwriters around today have a socialist edge to themselves and their lyrics.
Taking inspiration from Springsteen and The Clash, Alan sees the social conscience of music reviving itself, as it did many years ago in the form of punk.
"Being in my twenties I wasn't really around to understand punk and the social change that it spoke of, but they say that before punk there was nothing, so let's hope that now we're on the brink of the next uprising."
Alan says he doesn't have a specific political message and isn't trying to speak out about any particular point nor point his finger at others, but he wants to encourage pop music with a conscience.
But he made no conscious decision to write songs with a social meaning, and claims it was something that came very naturally from his working class background, "I chose not to ignore my social conscience, like many others do."
"You've got a mobile phone/A big-screen TV/A laptop computer and
an MP3/
But I don't see much joy/I don't see much grace/Let in some love and get
rid of the hate"
These are the opening lines of title track Hard Faced Town and are also the lyrics Al decided to put on the album cover instead of a band photo, to distinguish The Trestles from the rest.
The new album, showcased at The Mello Tone, has been praised both locally and nationally during what O'Hare calls a 'soft release'. The Hard Faced Town EP was put together by Alan and Tom Collins, the only permanent fixtures of the band. All other musicians are temporary, allowing the band to evolve and not become creatively stagnant.
The band formed under the name of The Trestles after socialist author and hero Robert Tressell. Al was further encouraged to use this name after it was pointed out to him that Bruce Springsteen used it in the first line of his song Darkness On the Edge of Town.
For more information on upcoming live events please see myspace.com/thetrestles
The four track EP Hard Faced Town is now available from sonicaonline.co.uk