Bar/None Records: Tiger

[EP Cover] If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a good surprise....Well, who'd have thought that such deliciously strange delights would come from Buckinghamshire, let alone a village called Princess Risborough? But that's where the story begins. It's a story of dense, humming Moog and guitar collages. It's a story of lateral thinking married happily to fizzing pop songs. It's a story of Soul boy haircuts and of heavy metal t-shirts. It's the story of a gang of rural yobbos - Dan, Julie, Seamus, Tina and Dido - who know a bit about art and what they like. It's the story of Tiger and it's getting better every day.

It starts with singer Dan Laidler, the shy, introverted outsider, and guitarist Julie Sims, the vivacious village hipster, platonically admiring each other's lifestyles from afar as teenagers. But their worlds never really connected - both thought the other's lifestyle was romantic, but perhaps not for them. Time passed. Dan who's always painted, went to St. Martins Art School in London, didn't like it's stuffiness and dropped out. He carried on painting, but the art world? Nah. He continued writing songs on his keyboard too - something he'd always done - and scribbling lyrics in his notepad, but as for being in a band? Well, who with...?

Julie, meanwhile, had moved to London too. She wasn't up to much really, just odd jobs. Then one day her path crossed with Dan's again and he let slip that he'd made these tapes of songs he'd written.

"When I heard Dan's demo it didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before," she says. "It sounded like someone working instinctively and naturally, and it didn't seem to have anything to do with other music. It sounded original, and that comes from someone who's able to express themselves without relying on their heroes or influences. That tape inspired me to pick up a guitar."

"So we got together, but because we weren't musicians we didn't know what to do for a time. For the first six months we talked and got to know each other really well."

Eventually Julie started re-arranging Dan's songs on her guitar, and a band was born. They found keyboard assistance in old friends Dido and Tina, and roped in Seamus on drums.

"None of us, apart from Seamus, has been in a band before," says Julie. "We were looking for people who were right for us rather than good musicians because we wanted to keep that naivety. I think it's an important part of our music because music that comes from ignorance has a much more fresh feel to it. You're doing what you think is right rather than what is."

They may not have known what they were doing, but they did it well because their fourth gig at the end of '95 landed them a deal with Trade2. Their first single, "Shining In The Wood, " however, came out on Fierce Panda and confirmed what many had already suspected from their live shows: this was a band with a unique vision. Sure there were reference points there (The Stooges, Ramones, Stereolab, Suicide and The Fall have all been mentioned in despatches) but the songs and ideas were all the group's own.

The second single, "Race", moved things on a step and encased things in a crisper pop shell. NME made it single of the week - first line finds Dan yelping "She's in the corner having a baby" - and the kids agreed. The first single proper went in at Number 36 and proved there's still room for wry, peculiar innovation in the top. And the last word, as always, must go to Julie.

"The thing about our music is that when people connect with it, it opens up and they see right into it. I think we're unpretentious, I think were fun, there's humour in there and we're peculiar. It's a bit arrogant to say if you've got it you'll get it, but that's the way it is. Tight music values don't come into it."

TIGER (L-R): Tina Whitlow -Keyboards, Guitar; Dan Laidler - Vocals, Guitar; Dido Hallett - Keyboards; Julie Sims - Guitar, Vocals; Seamus Feeney - Drums
Photo: Justin DeDeney