Us And Them: Vega4

An Englishman, Irishman, New Zealander and a Canadian make their way into the nation’s capital. This is the not the start of a bad joke, but the beginning part of a story in which one of the indie planet’s hottest new bands spend years upon years constructing what could potentially be one of the most poppy, ambitious and life-inspired records this year. Most will have to wait until October to find out how so, but Festivalwise were lucky enough to catch up with Vega4 front man Johnny McDaid in the very city the story began, finding out about Jacknife Lee-inspired egg throwing contests, nephews becoming Myspace stars and what exactly stimulated such a distinctive band name…

"One of us was reading a book one day, and it had the name ‘Vega’ and we sought of liked that idea, and the ‘4’ is to represent the four countries we’re from," states Johnny, clearing up that mind-boggling mystery. With an album out in a few months time and much single-work to precede it, Irishman Johnny, Canadian drummer Bryan McLellan, New Zealand guitarist Bruce Gainsford and English bassist Simon Walker certainly have a busy few months ahead. But other than their "unique" band name and multi-cultural band members, there is more, which stands Vega4 out from the crowd even further within the alternative music realm. "We have this thing called homework where the idea is to get each other say five to ten tracks a week from other artists, so we’re pulling in about fifteen to thirty new tracks each wee," says Johnny. One would think after nearly two decades of schooling, homework would be done and dusted never to return ever again, however if the concept of swapping an array of compact discs is involved, that sounds like a very cool bit of homework to us.

One week in which homework didn’t have a deadline was the week of South By South West, aka SXSW, the music festival to beat all music festivals that takes place every spring across the pond in Austin, Texas. Johnny excitingly reveals "It was amazing fun for us. We played the opening slot in two very big days, and they were great because Snow Patrol were headlining both, as well as The Magic Numbers, The Subways and Nine Black Alps." Not a bad line-up by any means, especially when you finish early with more than enough time to catch these very acts. "We went and hired some rickshaws so we went to a lot of parties there, saw some great bands, and it was just great to walk around and see all these different things."

Debut single ‘You And Me’ is without a doubt one of the highlight singles of this year, choc-full of fast Strokes guitars and a Killers-esque chorus, once it enters your head it seems like there’s no possible exit door. But that’s a good thing, and something Johnny and his band intended to do. "It’s quite playful and flippant, and we did it down at Garret’s house (the residence of super-duper producer Jacknife Lee) and when we finished it we kind of looked at each and thought ‘wow, that’s pretty special’." An exciting, uplifting single to kick off with, Vega4 appear to have both the suitable amount of charm and talent to go the distance, and an unfortunate lack of live dates in the past has made them itching to get on stages across the globe. "We haven’t toured very much recently because we’ve been making the record. It took us so long as we were in the rehearsal studio for two years while in a record deal we had to get out of, and there was a big legal case there, which took a year and half. So we’re dying to get out there and I think we’ll be doing our own tour in September which we’re so excited about."