A hardcore punk attitude that thrives on the dancefloor

After losing a member, Belfast trio Not Squares embraced upbeat dance music, but they haven't left their previously discordant punk identity entirely behind, as their live shows prove, writes JIM CARROLL

FOR MOST bands, losing a member is often the beginning of the end. They might struggle on without him or her for a while or get in a substitute, but many acts find that the original magic just isn’t there any more.

But as Not Squares’ vocalist and drummer Keith Winter explains, the Belfast band discovered a different kind of mojo when one of their original members headed to the US.

“Not Squares has really been two different bands,” Winter points out. “At the start, when Rachel [Keenan] was in the band, it was quite indie and it looked like we had a formula with three guys and a girl. That, though, was never deliberate. We started out in the practice room with an attitude of ‘give it all you can and do whatever you want’. That’s always been the process, trying to take what you come up with in crappy practice rooms into a venue or recording studio.” A change came when Keenan got an American visa and headed to California.

“That’s what she always wanted to do, so we said farewell to her and went back into the practice room to try to adapt the material with just the three of us. We had a tour booked and dates at the Latitude festival so we had something to aim for.

“Ricky [O’Rawe] and Michael [Kinloch] brought along the synths and they employed this amateurish dilettante attitude of thinking they could play something when they didn’t have that much experience with the instrument. They used their bass skills on the synths and we basically turned into a dance band.”

From their very first gig as a three-piece, Not Squares were knocking audiences for six. “I mean, people were surprised, but we were really surprised,” says Winter about the transformation. “The first gig we did as a three-piece was in a squat in London. A friend of mine has lived there for a few years. It’s a great place with a cafe, gallery, the lot. They’re all big music fans and our previous bands have played there before.

“When we turned up in the new guise, they really took to us. They thought we were about good times and having fun, which is what we wanted to be about.

“It’s a full sound and we’re all doing quite a lot during the gig, but at least it’s fun.” Since that rebirth, the Not Squares fanclub has grown with every show.

Here’s a group combining a muscular hardcore punk attitude with the ferocious, euphoric rhythmic energy of the dancefloor – without falling between any stools. It’s a sound that also works when you put the trio in the recording studio: debut album Yeah OK is a punchy stomper with tunes such as Asylum and Release the Bees to grab your attention.

What’s interesting about this new direction is that there never was a dance angle to any of the trio’s previous musical exploits. “It was all angular, discordant Washington DC punk or post-rock,” says Winter of time spent in acts such as Tracer AMC, Gaju and The Killing Spree. A fresh start has meant a new musical slate. “It began with everyone from LCD Soundsystem to Chk Chk Chk, contemporary bands who were playing upbeat dance music, but then we started to branch out because of the new direction we were taking as a band.

“Releases on Daptone Records, for instance, would have been no-go territory in some ways for us before, it would have been a genre too far. But those records are now right at the centre of what we want to listen to and be inspired by along with old disco records, Afrobeat, Tony Allen and Mulatu Astatke.”

As has been the case since their early shows in summer 2009, the band’s live show still commands the bulk of the attention. Just as the crowd dig the energy from the stage, the band themselves thrive on the atmosphere created in the room.

“It’s great to be able to draw on the energy of a crowd and be able to look them in the eye,” says Winter. “We try to play in the round or on the floor as much as we can to get that energy from playing beside the audience. If people want to join in, that’s fine too.”

Not Squares are one of many Belfast acts currently making a splash beyond the city. Winter believes the scene there is “really healthy and vibrant” at present. “I was watching videos of some Belfast bands online yesterday and it made me realise just how good things are here. Belfast has a strangely mature and eclectic scene with a lot of different genres. Because it’s a small city, a lot of bands are friends and people do stick up for each other which is great.”

One welcome trend is that more and more of these acts are heading down the M1 to Dublin instead of hopping across to London as used to be the case. It’s something Winter welcomes. “Bands like And So I Watch You From Afar are always down in Dublin and you’ve bands like The Lowly Knights and Kowalski playing down there too.

“With us, we never saw any division. It’s only an hour and a half down the road. Newry is no longer a nightmare to get through so there’s no excuse. It works the other way too – Cap Pas Cap, Cast Of Cheers and Le Galaxie were up here for gigs recently.”

They also know there’s more to Ireland than Dublin or Belfast. “There’s this guy in Letterkenny called Seosamh who got us to play there and has become fast friends with us,” says Winter. “His attitude is a maverick ‘why is this not possible?’ and he wants us to play a three-week tour of Irish-speaking schools in Donegal. More people like that would be useful because you’d end up not having any border at all.”

Yeah OKis out now on Richter Collective. See myspace.com/notsquares for tour dates