The low-down on I Am Three!

 I Am Three form.

The Story of I Am Three begins in Manchester, with two young men, Adam Irving and Andy Hughes. Both grew up in the Northwest and had been performing live for several years prior to their meeting.  They formed in March 2008, following a handful of meetings at each others gigs.  Having seen Andy playing at night and day café under the pseudonym Bleeding Hands, Irving was impressed by his growling vocals and heavy handed guitar work. Hughes had likewise seen Irving play, as half of Me&Jay and was enthralled by the tight harmonies. Hughes then supported Irving during a handful of gigs in 2007 replacing Sophie’s Pigeons who had agreed to play several gigs but failed to turn up to any.

 Irv buys a double bass.

Following the whim purchase of a double bass for a mere £220, the two began to jam, and began to write completely new material based around their respective influences. Mostly improvising, they played live for the first time at The Britons Protection on 3/3/08 after only two hour long rehearsals. Under the scrutiny of one of Manchesters most critical audiences at a live poetry event, early versions of “I Try” a rap over a ¾ rhythm and their only performance yet of Hughes’ song “Two Cups of Coffee,” were received well by the attentive crowd.

Guerrilla gigging.

Having both become tired of the lengthy preshow waiting around and soundchecking in clubs and bars, they then hit upon the idea of guerrilla style gigging. Hitting Manchester’s coffee shops in the Northern Quarter, notable local coffee shop owner Lee Speed (Mod Pop Cafe) accommodated their turning up and entertaining on Saturday afternoons. They performed in local bookshops, galleries and shops. The unplugged gigs served both as a rehearsal and whipped up crowds for later gigs. Often playing 6 sets per day, Irving’s fingers would often end up bleeding as he became more accustomed to the heavy double bass strings. In one three week period, nearly a hundred gigs were performed to surprised audiences.

The music formula was simple and was dubbed ‘a beautiful car crash of music styles’ by the Manchester Evening News.  I Am Three’s live shows often came across as an instrumental battle, sometimes the duo played for forty minutes without a single pause.  

I Am Three EP.

In spring 2008, the jamming and impromptu gigs had resulted in several themes and ideas solidified into songs, as the seeds of an idea to hit Europe were germinating. Irv and Hughes planned to hit the studio to cut eight tracks in a Blue Note style session with two microphones and no overdubs. The lack of fund to pay for the recordings resulted in Hughes acquiring a set of keys for a local studio and the duo sneaking in after hours to record the tracks. The final self titled EP captures the live sound of the Irving and Hughes in a studio environment.

European tour.

In October I Am Three embarked on a 3000 mile round trip of gigs in Europe. With no accommodation en-route, they slept in the car and tents in motorway lay-bys. These filthy smelling conditions gave the name to the collection of gigs; “The Trucker’s Piss Tour 08”

Over a period of 11 days crammed into a 1991 Rover they cruised their way on a journey across central Europe which featured gigs in Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Köln, Basel, Bologna and Perugia where they delivered their sometimes epic two-hour long show, including songs they'd never attempted live before. Travelling alone, the duo acted as their own manager, roadie and driver. The two musicians battled fatigue and sore throats to perform their set sometimes three times a day to audiences in pubs, bars and clubs and on the street.

After each performance they hit the road again and continued their seemingly endless journey onto the next venue. 

"It's certainly confusing waking in one country, playing in another and sleeping in a third," the slightly confused Hughes pointed out. The duo found gigging conditions on the continent a stark contrast to the UK.

Irving surmises: "Gigging in Europe makes you realise how crappy the UK set up is.”

I Am Three come home.

The tour had been a real eye opener; this led to I Am Three to rethink their situation in the UK, where the majority of bands are playing gigs and not getting paid.

In an interview with City Life magazine Hughes commented on the subject, “most venues in cities work on the principal of the bands doing the of the gig, selling the tickets and at the end of the day not getting any money in return.” Irving elaborated, “The bar staff are paid, the door staff are paid, the sound guy is paid and the promoter is paid. The audience are only there to hear the bands but the bands are the only people not getting paid. This promoter culture is just plain theft. The majority of promoters tell the bands to do their own promotion, so why should they be allowed to skim money from the bands? The truth is, if these thieving promoters didn’t exist, gigs would still run smoothly, bands would still play the same venues, promote their own gigs and at the end of the day they’d get paid for it too.”

This stance not only led to I Am Three refusing to work with most promoters but also being blacklisted from numerous venues in the Manchester. They responded by organizing their own gigs, booking their own venues and promoting their own shows.

Despite avoiding promoters, they gigged more than ever, playing on radio stations, clubs, bars, café’s and house party’s across the UK in the months leading up to March 2009 when they began work on their debut album.

It’s Never too late (except when it is).

In February 2009 I Am Three set to work recording It’s Never too late (except when it is) The idea of the album was to produce something that would capture the blend of Irving and Hughes influences creating I Am Three’s music, including Zappa, Dylan, Beatles, and Garfunkel, but essentially still remain a complete work. The duo wanted to avoid the iPod generations tendency to listening single tracks from many artists or compilations on shuffle, and instead create a whole album, to be listened to in a specific order.

The result was an impressive self styled debut album released in March 2009 with variety and homogeny running through each track. The album's vocal delivery bounced between Joe Cocker and Sixties girl group harmonies. The tempo and timbre of the songs likewise ricocheted from the  raucous ‘History’ and ‘Older’, with it’s unexpected blistering guitar solo, to the serene ‘Soldier’ and ‘Famous’.

The musical palette of I Am Three proved to confuse some listeners with its depth and the young, experimental twosome showed they had enough energy to take on all that's thrown at them with seemingly effortless skill. Demonstrating a range of styles from Banghra to Country & Western, the album swung dynamically from the raw and aggressive to the slow and sublime, taking the listener on a journey of sound through time and space.

The recordings featured Moog, electric guitar, samples, drums loops, toy pianos & Jew’s harp. As with the recording of the EP, the duo once again sneaked into the (un-nameable) studio out of working hours to record the tracks. They successfully evaded detection for the entirety of the sessions despite leaving a carton of Egg Nog on the mixing desk on the first day.

The resulting album verges on being a lo-fi musical masterpiece, a tactical divulgence between a hallucinogenic music that consumes and engrosses from start to finish, whilst falling from climactic depths straight into a hypnotic state.

“You’d have to be somewhat unforgiving to not like this CD, some of the hooks on a first listen are instantly contagious, musically there is a distinct undertow of beauty that is reflected by the various samples and intricacies of each track. The production of the album gives something really earthy that the listener can really get hold of, various “mistakes” trip you over and are almost a divulgence.

Speaking of the recording process, Hughes said, “We’d record several tracks, playing loosely around with ideas, some of the tunes were recorded as they were being written.”

The pair have a love-hate relationship when it comes to musical influences, this is demonstrated in the initial reviews of the album, described by Classic Rock magazine as “impossible to describe” due to its genre busting nature.

2010 and beyond.

I Am Three are currently in the final stages of their next album.  “We have a lot of songs which we are never going to be able to play live,” said Hughes, “so we’re spending most of our free time overdubbing and mixing things to go on our second album.” 

Irving elaborated, “Each track is being mixed and then edited a bit to tighten it up, cut out the unnecessary etc.”

Following the release they will be hitting the road with gigs booked in Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.