UNSIGNED SPOTLIGHT
THE ALMABOOBIES
Meet the hard working trio blazing a trail across the UK classic rock and bike festival scene…
www.thealmaboobies.com
Words: Tim Slater
fruity and refreshing. Others prefer earthier summer tones: the plangent throb of a Harley Davidson engine, the heady aroma of fermenting cider and well worn leather delivered to sound of a great rock band belting out a set of much loved classics.
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If the latter scenario floats yer boat, you may already be familiar with an eye-catching trio The Alamaboobies. Fronted by sisters Victoria and Elizabeth Ellis (guitar/vocals and bass/vox respectively) accompanied by newly recruited drummer Jeo Gaskin, the band are a popular regular fixture on the UK bike rally and classic rock circuit, clocking up over 100 a gigs a year including several
trips overseas. g VE: “We started the band in Australia, we moved over there when we
were aged 13, 14 and 18. We started played in Australia for about four years, including this place called the Robin Hood, which was a bar in a place called Frankston. It was a bit of a dive and the owner was a bi-polar alcoholic, but he was brilliant! We kind of cut our teeth there, playing three 45minute sets every weekend for two years, then we moved back to the UK. Then we played professionally for two years until I went to Uni and my younger sister Alexandra (the band’s former drummer) studied hairdressing, so we had to take it on a semi-
professional way.” g PM: Your live set mixes some well-wrought classic rock coverscovers (Black Sabbath, Joan Jett et al) with original material, how do you achieve the
right balance between popular covers and your own songs? g VE: “When we came back to the UK we started playing bike rallies,
which require covers, and we put together a set mixing about eight of our own songs with covers. When you are only playing one or two original songs in a row the audience would listen to it and they kind of buy into it, buying badges and T-Shirts and stuff but we also found that unless the audience is really into you, they would maybe drift off when we played too many original songs; not because of anything we’d done wrong but it’s a bit like listening to a CD for
the first time, people need to get to know you.” g PM: What do you your friends think about their daughters playing at
these huge events in front of thousands of hairy scary bikers? g VE: “People say to our parents ‘we can’t believe that you let your girls go and play these bike rallies’ but we’re safer at these bike rallies than we would be
in any chav bar! The bike rally people wouldn’t let anything bad happen to us.” g PM: What is your most memorable gig so far? g VE: “I’d say that it was playing at Brands Hatch for the World
Superbikes. We thought that it would be playing in a little marquee in the middle of a field somewhere but we turned up and the stage was two arctics stuck together, a massive great line array PA and a huge tent where the sound engineer was! It was huge! We went to go up on stage for the show and the sun was just setting. As the sun dipped below the horizon we saw a sea of over 15,000 people watching and…and I nearly crapped my pants! (laughs). It was absolutely brilliant, you can’t hear individual claps, you just hear this huge roar from the crowd…they were making so much noise, it was absolutely
58 3pickup
Free’s company: the Almaboobies unveil new drummer Jeo Gaskin (centre). phenomenal. People get their kicks from skydiving but we definitely get our
kicks from getting up on stage.” g PM: Playing gigs on big stages with all of the professional sound and lighting equipment and engineers is something of a rare luxury. How does your
day-to-day equipment bear up under your heavy workload? g VE: “Our first PA was made by Wharfedale, which we bought about eight years ago and now it services the live music in our parents pub! The Wharfedale PA was the first PA that we bought when we were in Australia. It is a brilliant piece of kit; it just goes on forever. We needed an upgrade and so we thought that we’d go for Wharfedale again. Because we gig so much we really rag the top end, so we looked around for ages to replace the tops. We went back to Wharfedale and we now use the FHO series top boxes and they are
absolutely brilliant. They sound really clear and they are bloody loud!” g PM: Your diary is pretty full, how do you manage to get so many gigs? g VE: “People ask how we get so many gigs but the truth is that we spend
every waking hour on the telephone. My sister would go out with a massive armful of promo packs to send to venues, which have to be followed up and then followed up again because you can never get hold of anybody! In the end it slowly starts to come together but at the beginning it is all pure legwork. It is hard and you need to show some fortitude because people will knock you back but you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself down and carry on regardless. If you believe in yourself then you can push
forward.” g PM: Finally, your band’s name? How did you come up with something so far out as The
Alamaboobies? g VE: “It’s a secret. If we told you we’d have to kill you!” PM
“You’ve got to believe in yourselves…” Victoria Ellis rocks the house!
or some, the sound of summer is the evocative thud of willow on leather, or perhaps the genteel ‘thwack’ of a tennis racket accompanied by the clink of ice in a glass and the trickle of something
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