The Magic Numbers - A Kind Of Magic interview

On the eve of their biggest UK tour to date, West-London-via-New-York-via-Ireland-via-Trinidad sibling foursome The Magic Numbers enthuse their way through an hour in The Fly's company.

Scene 1, January 2004

I’m off to see Ella Guru at the Water Rats in London’s King’s Cross. Arriving early, I amble into the venue to find half a room full of people in rapt silence. Paying little attention to the people on stage – desperate for the loo, y’see – it isn’t until I return with a pint that I realise the friend I’m meeting, who is watching the support act, has tears coursing down her face. The music is emotional and delicate, but honest and incredibly powerful, although it’s hard to pin down to one genre: countryish, soulful, a touch of the blues, perhaps even shades of folk and prog. The singer, hirsute but clean-shaven and besuited, will later be witnessed bouncing around the venue bar like a cuddly, beaming Tigger; he refuses to say why.

Scene 2, September 2004

Another night, another gig: tonight it’s Film School at the Barfly in Camden. Crikey it’s busy. Yes, there’s a buzz about the Cure-ish US headliners, but it seems most people are here for the support band. The venue is so packed, it’s almost possible to lift our feet off the ground and not fall down. And the support? It’s that band again. The singer, instantly recognisable despite now sporting a full black beard, stands centre-stage with his acoustic, flanked by two nervous-looking girls, and grinning at the capacity crowd – as if he has no idea what they’re doing there. The drummer sits impassively behind them, surveying the expectant audience…and half an hour later, there is not one single person in that room who hasn’t had their life changed forever by The Magic Numbers.

Hyperbole comes cheap in the music industry. It’s the stock-in-trade of publicists, journalists, promoters and managers – they’re the best new band in Britain, sliced bread’s got nothing on them, they’re the new Killers, they’re the old-skool new breed fast-track slow-burn medium rare mid-priced latest greatest fastest tallest shiniest poprockjazzdubspazzcrunk sensations! Enough already. This is no exaggeration. This is about love, pure and simple: the love of music, the love between siblings, the love of life in all its grubby, incomprehensible glory.

The Magic Numbers are four. Not three: that would’ve been trite. The grinning singer mentioned twice above is called Romeo. Yes, Romeo – don’t argue, just get on with it. The girl who stands to his left on stage is his sister Michelle, who plays bass guitar and xylophone as well as providing lissom vocals. Behind Romeo on drums is Sean, his friend of a decade and co-founder of The Magic Numbers, following "at least two" previous aborted attempts to get a band together. And to his right, usually clutching a melodica (y'know, one of those little pianos you blow through) and capable of absolutely devastating, emotionally naked singing, stands Sean's sister Angela. Get used to the line-up: you’ll be seeing a lot more of them from now on.

Scene 3, April 2005

Right now, The Magic Numbers are sitting at a table at Shane McGowan's boozer of choice, Filthy McNasty's in King's Cross, nursing drinks and chatting amiably, with The Clash tootling away on the jukebox. They’re apologetic about reducing my friend to tears back in January 2004, but to be honest, they don’t seem all that fazed. I get the feeling that Magic Numbers gigs make people cry all the time.

As it turns out, Romeo was bouncing around after the Water Rats show because The Magic Numbers had just confirmed their deal with Heavenly, home to fellow heart-on-sleeve merchants Doves and Ed Harcourt. Since then, they’ve toured with both of the above, with Travis, with Athlete, with anyone who’ll let them share the love. They sold out three near-legendary headline shows in as many weeks at The Borderline last November, won hearts at SXSW, and only last week played a benefit at the Royal Albert Hall. Romeo, Michelle and Angela are all wide-eyed with the memory, but Sean had a different experience, looking down from the gods.

"I've seen a different perspective because I wasn’t playing – it was an acoustic thing." So you got to watch your own band? "An enviable position!" chips in Romeo. "I was probably more nervous that gig than ever before," admits Angela. "It was in between the Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand," Sean continues, highlighting the strange bedfellows The Magic Numbers have to contend with. At the recent Camden Crawl, they were sandwiched bizarrely between Maximo Park and GLC. Their music, steeped in '60s American country-pop harmonies and imbued with a healthy dollop of '70s love-all-that-is-good-and-right sentiments, may yet jar with the cynical, chart-chasing current crop of '80s-obsessed haircut bands. The Magic Numbers are out of place, and that's just the way they like it.

Scene 0, March 2003

"I think, yeah, we’re kinda doing our own thing," says Romeo, his accent slipping between glottal-stopped West London tones and a soft mid-Atlantic burr. "I think we are out on a limb, but we don’t feel like it’s a treacherous place to be," says Sean, and the two girls nod in agreement. Michelle and Angela were brought into the Magic Numbers fold after years of making their own music: it all came together one night two years ago at London’s tiny Betsey Trotwood venue. "Luckily it was so small: we had no-one there, but it looked full!" says Angela.

"We felt so comfortable on stage with each other, we knew each other's capabilities, and it just felt completely like the right thing," Sean explains. "It just made sense when both of our sisters joined," says Romeo, "with the harmonies, and also just feeling comfortable." It had been a frustrating journey to that point: "Y'know, two years in a band, still playing the Bull & Gate – I’m outta here!"

Sean agrees that "it was just fate, really. We'd been in a band but we'd had people come and go, friends and stuff – they wouldn't necessarily drop out, it was more like they had other commitments, it wasn't their fault. We were always left on our own, but we'd decided not to do anything else with our lives." Romeo explains: "We've got a little sound-proofed room where we'd rehearse, and we'd always call Michelle from upstairs – and then Michelle, myself and Angela would sit there with and acoustic guitar and sing." Angela laughs at the memory. "They never wanted girls in the band, especially not their little sisters!"

"It was weird," says Michelle, "Romeo was doing his own thing, and I was doing mine, and we never really completely crossed paths." But Michelle was persuaded to switch from guitar to bass – "It's a lot lower, and I like it!" – and that was that. "When we started playing as The Magic Numbers, it just took off in terms of the response we got. In my eyes, this is the first band," claims Romeo, pinpointing the new Year Zero.

Since the Heavenly deal, The Magic Numbers' release schedule has been, some would say, unorthodox. Again, out of step with the current trend for bludgeoning the public to death with countless TV appearances, whoring songs to agencies to be used on adverts and so forth, The Magic Numbers have so far released just three songs. The first two, "Hymn For Her"/"Oh Sister" trickled out last November on a harshly limited edition 7"; the record now commands up to £35 online. The third, "Anima Sola", made up half of an even more limited split 7" with fellow arch-melodicists Hal and was given away on the two bands' recent co-headlining tour. They’re now gold dust as well, understandably.

Scene 4, May 2005

This shrewd drip-feeding strategy is worthy of the most ruthless drug-peddler. Once you see The Magic Numbers once, you have to hear those songs – "Long Legs", "Which Way To Happy", the absolutely breathtaking "I See You, You See Me", rollicking finale "Mornings Eleven" – again, and the only way to do that? Buy a ticket, chum. But finally, that’s about to change. Galloping live favourite "Forever Lost", arguably the first Magic Numbers single proper, receives a full release at the end of May, just after the band's biggest UK tour to date.

At The Magic Numbers' enchanting Bush Hall headline show in January (they'd previously played there in 2004, supporting The Webb Brothers – starting to get the picture now?), the band were joined, remarkably, by yet another brother-sister duo on harp and violin. Was that deliberate? "No!" insists Angela, giggling. It turns out harpist Rhodri had played some acoustic shows with Romeo, and while he was busy honouring some orchestral commitments, he suggested his violinist sister Angharad could fill in. "It really was something special," says Romeo of the Bush Hall show. "Just thinking, three families! They felt it as well." "We only work with siblings..." says Michelle, mock-menacingly. The country/soul Mafia's in town.

Scene 5, June 2005

The Magic Numbers album, as-yet untitled, is now finished and will be released in June. If you've seen the band live, you'll know pretty much every song, but some tracks are older than others. "The oldest song is 'Which Way To Happy'," says Romeo, having first accidentally let slip that there may in fact be a hidden, equally vintage, hymnal track on the LP. More resourceful, web-savvy early adopters may have already found a number of Magic Numbers tracks online; Romeo insists that they’re demos, but seems quietly pleased that the demand is already there.

"Initially, when I found out that people were downloading songs, I was worried to see what songs they were – but they're things that we did at home that I’m really proud of, which potentially will come out as b-sides or whatever. There’s a 'Long Legs' original version..." – "That is a great version," Angela chimes in – "but I’m just worried about the album leaking out. People have been taping the shows and selling them..."

But how do they feel about this groundswell of interest at such an early stage? "I think it’s cool!" says Romeo, with Angela agreeing that "we couldn’t ask for anything better". "We didn’t do it on purpose!" insists Sean. "From the offset, after Heavenly we got all these support slots, and we slotted in recording times in between the live schedule – because we had to make the album," Romeo gives this final point all the emphasis his laid-back temperament can muster. Romeo produced the album – "who knows the band better than me?" – with what he resignedly calls "some interference" from the label, and he is absolutely sure that The Magic Numbers' debut is "a classic album. I think it’s amazing."

Scene 6, The Future

I'm not sure how they manage it, but the four Magic Numbers – perpetually excited Michelle, shy Angela peeping out from under her fringe, laconic Romeo, and paternal, more circumspect Sean – succeed in convincing me that there is not a shred of arrogance or cockiness in such a proclamation. Is Romeo a perfectionist? "Oh yeah – we recalled the recall!" he freely admits (to peals of laughter from his band-mates), having sent the album to the label and then had second – and third – thoughts about some niggling detail or other. "You have to be happy with it, y'know," Angela says supportively. "Ultimately," concludes Sean, "We're the ones who’re gonna have to live with the record."

The Magic Numbers have seen the transforming effect their euphoric, love-filled songs have on every audience they’ve encountered in the last 12 months. They’ve heard a pin drop in the stunned silence which greets every performance of the jaw-dropping "Hymn For Her". They’ve witnessed, at once shocked and delighted, as fans sing the words back at them, words to songs they haven’t even recorded yet. ("It's just been like a dream," says Romeo.) They think they’re onto a good thing. And they're absolutely right. Former Heavenly label-mates Saint Etienne, whom the Magic Numbers supported at a triumphant New Year’s Eve show last year, once asked "Do you believe in magic?" Well, do you? Join their club.

"Forever Lost" is released on 23rd May through Heavenly, with the album following in June. The Magic Numbers are on tour in the UK throughout May: see www.themagicnumbers.net for details.

originally published in The Fly magazine, May 2005 issue