CHRIS HODGE - vocals/guitar JENNIFER STEPHENS- vocals FRENCHIE - guitar STEVEN T. HALL - bass JOEY SHUFFIELD – drums
Call it metal, call it heavy rock, or just good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll, Young Heart Attack have it running through their veins 24/7. A gang of hard-livin’ disciples from the Southern States of America they remind you of all the great bands rolled into one – The Who, the MC5, the Stones, Zeppelin, and… how about AC/DC with the B52’s on backing vocals?
However, they’re anything but one of those reference-machine type bands. They make a mighty sound of their own, and will restore your faith in a life lived nonsense-free, according to rock ‘n’ roll’s governing, hip-thrusting principles, in pursuit of the best of times.
When they formed three years ago in Austin, Texas, these folks were blissfully unaware that we Brits had hummed and hawed and finally decided to start rockin’ again. They’d been knocking around in different bands since their mid-teens, including the odd liaison with future members of …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead. When a series of coincidences meant that their core members Chris Hodge, Steven T Hall and Frenchie were all between groups, it was obvious to all of them that they should play together. They were born to do it. There ain’t much else to believe in down South.
They’d written their first batch of songs and were all set to start igniting their home city’s many lowlife bar-rooms, when a creeping feeling told them all that, while almost everything about their music was present and correct, one certain je-ne-sais-quoi was missing.
“If it’s three o’clock in the morning,” reasons Steven today, “and you’re really wasted and you go to a party, you do not want it to be all guys. You want the guys there so you can rock, but you want some chicks involved, so you can do some rolling too.”
To this end, they called up their friend Jennifer Stephens, who was in her final semester at university.
“I hadn’t been in a band before,” she says, “and to be honest, I hadn’t really intended in being in a band at all. I really like Patsy Cline, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, the blues, but I hadn’t really sung rock before. I’d only sung in choir. But then Chris made me some mix tapes and gradually introduced me to a lot of things.”
They clicked, Jennifer’s voice worked brilliantly against Chris’s Bon Scott/Percy Plant screamin’, and the band were set, with built-in secret weapon.
Says Steven, “We’re all definitely aware that if we didn’t have Jennifer with us, we would not be separated apart from a lot of heavy rock bands. We’re not ashamed of bein’ balls-out cock-rock, we’re heavy shit, but you add her into the mix, it brings a sexual element to it, an inviting element, which makes it not so sausage-party or whatever.”
In little more than a year, they released several incendiary low-key 45s on Rex Records, rose up through Austin’s live scene, and were soon, to quote the Quo, rockin’ all over the world, where, unbeknownst to them, a new generation of bands like The Datsuns and The Darkness were doling out the heaviosity with similarly gleeful energy, and with rags-to-riches popularity.
Thus, over several trips to Europe, they made tons of new friends. They’ve variously toured with The Darkness, Turbonegro and, last November, Motorhead. The latter jaunt resulted in Lemmy flying out to The Young Heart Attack compound, the Bubble, to record a version of AC/DC’s ‘Get It Hot’ with them (see the B-side of current single ‘Tommy Shots’).
Their debut album, ‘Mouthful of Love’ which will be released on XL Recordings - is the culmination of everything they’ve ever wanted to do with music. It is right there in your face for 34 minutes, and then it’s out of your face again. For that brief running time, it is full-tilt rock ‘n’ roll that will stop for no-one. Two guitars cranked to the max without recourse to widdly-widdly solo shit, Chris Hodge belting it out for the boys (you wouldn’t want to have his larynx on a Sunday morning) and Jennifer chiming in with her bluesy melody lines.
“We like miniature explosions,” explains Frenchie, on their sound. “Groups in the ’90s rocked with a sense of shame, almost like they were apologetic about it, like diary rock. They were sad about something. There was angst, but a real self-absorbed something going on. If WE are gonna come to your town and play a show in front of five fucking people, that’s not a reason to be pissed off, that’s an escape from our miserable lives at home to go and play some fucking rock ‘n’ roll to you.”
According to Frenchie’s urgent, brilliant logic, ‘Mouthful of Love’ explodes out of your speakers. What this writer digs about it now, after umpteen listens, is the fact that its makers are obviously fans of all that is great from rock history, and may nod towards, say, the intro to The Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ on ‘Starlite’, etc, etc, but they’re very much bringing their own shit to the table. Witness their cover of the MC5’s ‘Over And Over’: just as the ’5 once put a supersonic rocket under Chuck Berry’s ‘Back In The USA’ and made it their own, so YHA steamroller the ’5’s own classic, re-jigging its chord structure, adding Jennifer’s little oo-oo-ooooh, rewriting history in their own image.
“We’re not Beethoven,” Jennifer states. People should just put the album on when they’re getting ready to go to a party. It certainly should get you pumped up to go out, or it would even be good between parties, in a night-on-the-town scenario.” She laughs a down-home Texan chuckle, and concludes, “It’s just inspiration for a good time.”
Mouthful Of Love is released on XL Recordings on 12 th April 2004.
