Meet The Bohicas. They’re the latest buzz band creeping out of old London town (for something different), but don’t switch off yet. This angular rock four-piece has more than just label hype behind them – already, they’re winning fans with only a double A-side to their name, and other musicians are queuing up to be front and centre at their gigs. This despite the fact they’ve only decided to embrace music full-time in the last 12 months.
Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos happened into The Bohicas’ audience at one of their earliest shows, liked what he heard and took them for a small tour around the UK and Ibiza. Now there’s an EP on the way, an album nearing completion, and the video for their double A-side release, ‘XXX’/‘Swarm’, is still notching up the YouTube views.
Frontman Dominic McGuinness explains quite simply why the childhood friends finally decided to take this music thing seriously. “I think we grew up a little bit and realised we wanted to avoid real work and play rock’n’roll for as long as we can,” he says. “It’s tunnel vision, I suppose.”
So how is he handling the role of frontman with only a few serious hours of gigging and press interviews under his belt? “It’s all good,” he says. “I mean, I can’t do anything else so I have to get this right, otherwise that’s it for me. We’re trying to deal with it differently though. We share the rhythm and lead guitar so there’s no single lead player; there’s no Elvis Presley. We also have harmonies, so we’re The Beatles, I guess,” he laughs.
The Bohicas are only just about to do their first run of fully-fledged festival dates and McGuinness is keen to see how the audiences compare with smaller club shows. “We’ve got a bunch of festivals we’re gonna be doing over here in the UK over the summer as well as coming over there [to Australia] for the first time,” he says. “We’re looking forward to seeing what these festivals are like because we missed the festival circuit last year. We’re yet to experience that kind of crowd. We have done a few small kinda city festivals here and they’ve gone really well. We played one the other day in Leeds and I wasn’t expecting that kind of reception at all.”
No matter how much kudos it gives you, supporting Franz Ferdinand would seem like a daunting way to kick off a career – but McGuinness was humbled by the Scots’ warmth towards his band and their continued support. “It was a real deep end, that one; it was so early on for us. They were really lovely though. Alex had come to see us a couple of times in much smaller, crappier venues in London and he just has nothing but love for us. We’ve done another show with them since Ibiza and that was awesome too.”
The Bohicas have some catching up to do as far as releases go, with a plethora of material written and a burgeoning fan base growing ever eager for more of their music.
“We’ll have the EP to release, hopefully, before we come over,” McGuinness says. “We’re recording the album at the minute as well and it’s basically done, we’re just putting the final pieces onto that. We’re recording in a place out east that takes about two hours to get there and it’s in a warehouse at the back of a fish shop. It’s not exactly the slick, Abbey Road environment you might think of – but it’s really big.”
The Bohicas are playing with Unity Floors at Oxford Art Factory on Wednesday June 18, tickets avilable through Moshtix.
