Second Chance Interview

It’s been almost a year since the last time we interviewed Second Chance. It was early days for the band back then, and we locked ourselves in a hotel room with Kris, Steve and a video camera. Throw in a bit (or a lot in some peoples case) of alcohol and the results were fantastic – and viewable on YouTube. Naturally when we interviewed them again, along with new guitarist Ben, a camera had to be involved, so we streamed the interview live on the internet. With a bunch of people in the chat and ready to watch, we prepared to start the interview when…

Someone wants to know if you have a MySpace.
Kris: Yes we do, what’s their name?
Fanny.
Kris: Fanny? Love the name!
Steve: We definitely do. Here’s my personal MySpace…

Introduce us to Ben.
Kris: He’s French.
Ben: I am French. I was born in Paris, then moved to London about a year ago. I met these guys on MySpace.
Steve: It’s true. He added us on MySpace and because we care about our fans we went to his profile and saw he could play guitar, and we were looking for a guitarist so we thought we’d have him and that was it. We decided to take on board this retarded little French man.
Kris: His name is actually Special Ben.
Steve: He’s been following us around ever since to be honest. But we still don’t have a full time bassist. We’re playing with the bassist from Stickman Army today.

The last time we interviewed you Steve, you’d just left Make It Better Later and Kris you left Hypo Psycho not long after, how have things been since?
Kris: Much better, I’m having a wicked time.
Steve: It’s been good, we’ve been on tour, [to Frankie] you saw part of the Doncaster gig didn’t you?
Yeah…
Kris: Part of!
Steve: She swanned in when there was like two songs to go, the cheek of it!
That’s how we roll at Flecking!
Steve: That’s how you roll. We’ve been recording too, the EP should be done in a few weeks.
Ben: Finally.
Steve: And a music video, that should be done soon.
Kris: I’m excited!
Steve: You’re excited? You should feel these nipples. And we’re going on tour for three weeks in May.
Kris: It’s more than 3 weeks Steve.
Steve: I’ve been corrected.
Ben: With a band called More Than Normal.
Steve: We’re playing in France.
Kris: I want to go up the Eiffel Tower and drop a penny off and see if it makes a massive creator.
Steve: Or kills someone. We’ll try it out!
Kris: It’s going to be like a science project really, to see how much I can drink. To see how wrecked we can get in France while playing really good shows. The first show might not be too good because we’ll be all excited and pretty drunk. Steve doesn’t have to do any driving this time.
Steve: That will be good. France is big!
Kris: We’re doing 1,800 km in 6 days I think.
Ben: That’s pretty brutal.
Kris: And then we’re coming back and we’re touring here. It’s gonna be fun!
Steve: Come and see us and say hello! Isn’t it great that I’m not drunk this time you’re interviewing us?
Aww!
Kris: Me either!
Steve: I couldn’t remember a thing I said the next day. I remember that it happened… I was on MSN to Frankie after and she was like ‘This was hilarious’ and I was going ‘What the…?’
That was the beauty of it! You sang quite a lot! We loved your Enrique!
Steve: You can’t not do Enrique!

Back on your tour last year. How did that go?
Steve: Really good. Except we had a dodgy van…
Kris: [interrupting] Steve drove our van into a car park that was too low for it and made a sun roof.
Steve: You would think a van roof would be made of metal so I thought it would be fine but it was made of fibre glass so it disintegrated on to the people of the back seat.
Kris: It was funny until we realised Steve was a little bit upset.
Steve: If you go on YouTube and search ‘SC tour’…
Kris: Or just visit our MySpace!
Steve: Then you can see the van I destroyed!
Kris: It’s worth watching all six parts actually, the best part is when Ben is wearing a tent as a hat because there was rain coming in to the van.

How did you go down with the fans?
Ben: We did really well actually.
Kris: A couple of the shows we booked while we were on tour, and it was surprising because a lot of people came.
Steve: One gig where the crowd really didn’t like us was at the barfly in Camden, we were on with a bunch of metal bands. After the first song they were like ‘Oh yeah fine’, after the third song they didn’t even clap!
Kris: The girl who booked it was like ‘You’ll go down really well’ but it was like ‘Why have you booked us with four metal bands?’
Someone watching the live show just asked to see your cock…
[interested the whole band ask who?]
Someone called Mark…
[Steve, Ben and Kris all backtrack at the obviously male name]
Kris: [to the camera] You show me your cock!
[We wait for a response]
He just says ‘please’.
[laughter]
Steve: Well that’s very polite…
Kris: Ask them who’s they want to see.
They must be thinking about it…
Kris: Steve, you know you want to show them.
Steve: I’m far too sober for that.

Do you have any more cover songs for us?
Kris: Actually we’ve got a good one for you! And it’s not Sean Kingston.
Steve: We might do Sean Kingston tonight.
Ben: No, Steve please.
Steve: OK we might not… we’re playing a cover song called Keep On Moving by Five.
Wow!
Kris: I actually really like playing it.
Steve: It’s a tune!
Kris: And we’ve got a new song. We would play two but we didn’t get enough chance to practice.
I was just going to ask if you had written any new stuff…
All: Yes!
Steve: We’re going to write some more stuff as well, we want to have an album out at the end of the year.
Kris: We’re going to see how the EP goes, give it to people who can help us rather than sell it for a profit.
Steve: It’s basically us saying “Hi we’re Second Chance, book us!”
Kris: We’ve got some good stuff coming up. I can’t say anything about it, but keep checking the MySpace.
Steve: You heard the boy!
Kris: [to the camera] Ask us questions people!
Steve: What are they all talking about?
Someone just says ‘Big dick?’
Steve: Never doubt the Irish.
I just saw something about cheese…
Steve: Nob cheese?
Noooo!
Steve: I’m sorry, I just lowered the tone horrifically.

That’s OK! Tell us about the music video.
Steve: It’s gonna be amazing and it should be out soon. It’s going to be on the MySpace, on YouTube, hopefully on TV somewhere.
Kris: We should just go to MTV near where I live and give it to them!
Steve: We should attach the CD to Frisbees and throw them through open windows.
Kris: And then get billed for thousands of pounds worth of damage.
Steve: We look quite funny in the music video, we’ve got make-up and stuff on.
Kris: I had eyeliner on because the make-up lady was having a laugh, even thought I wore sunglasses for the whole video.
Steve: He looks like Pete Wentz in the video.
Kris: I want a beer, who else wants a beer?
Steve: I want a beer but I’m not drinking until our set is finished, as soon as it’s finished I am going to be downing them!

How’s the internet been treating you?
Kris: Good!
Steve: It’s good! The internet is a great thing.
Kris: The MySpace is getting hit up!
You Tweet now too!
Steve: We do. I’m a Tweet addict. We’re on Twitter, if you search ‘Second Chance UK’.
Kris: I signed up but I haven’t been on since.
Steve: I know because Second Chance UK are following you and you haven’t followed back, you bastard!
Kris: We’re on MySpace a lot, you have to go on there and talk to us because we will reply. We even reply if you add us and you haven’t sent a message.
Steve: Even if you tell us that you don’t like us we will still reply.
Kris: We’re almost at 60,000 plays after almost a year of proper banding.
Steve: Our first gig ever was last June.

Mac or PC?
Kris: Mac
Ben: Mac
Steve: I’m a PC, just cause I happen to have one and I don’t really care. It does the job. But I have an iPhone which is Apple.
Kris: He can’t make up his mind!
Steve: No, I like my PC for my PC stuff and my iPhone for my phone stuff.
Kris: He didn’t know what the Apple key did, it confused you Steve and it made you feel insecure.
Steve: Well… the majority says Mac.

Do you have any guilty music pleasures?
Steve: Yeah I like Katy Perry!
Kris: You love The Saturdays.
Steve: The Saturdays are quite nice, and they’ve got some tunes. [Steve starts singing Up by The Saturdays] but I’m not embarrassed about this stuff, I like pop as much as I like metal.
Kris: I’m not a fan of random chart stuff that’s produced, I like talented singers.

If you weren’t in the band what would you be doing?
Steve: I’d be whoring myself out in Soho.
Kris: Slowly ending my life.
Steve: I’d probably be some kind of engineer.
Kris: That wouldn’t be fun.
Steve: Well I do have a degree in electronic engineering which I hope to never use because it’s boring.
Kris: Well I dropped out of uni to go on tour because I’m a bit silly, I should have just finished and then gone on tour.
Ben: I never went to uni, sorted.
Kris: If you went to France you’d be clever, it’s crossing the Channel it just goes wrong.
Ben: Thanks.

Do you have any party tricks?
Kris: I can juggle.
Steve: He can juggle.
Is that the bands party trick?
Kris: Get your own. When you get Steve drunk it’s very funny.
Steve: When I get drunk I just hug everyone.
And transform in to Enrique Iglesias.
Steve: I do that.
Kris: Actually turning in to Enrique.
You’re not double jointed to anything?
Steve: Well yeah but that’s not exciting.
Kris: What can do you Ben? He can swear a lot in French.

Have you got any non-musical talents?
Kris: I haven’t got any musical talents yet!
Steve: I can solve a Rubik’s cube in under 5 minutes. My secret other talent is that I’m a geek!
Kris: It’s a secret? You don’t tell anyone except all the people on the internet.

What would your Spice names be?
Steve: I’d probably be Lazy Spice.
Kris: Ben would be French Spice.

Is there anyone you’d really like to kick?
Kris: In the whole world?
Steve: I’d really like to kick Sarah Palin.
Kris: I’d really like to kick Ben but I can’t cause he’s right here.
Steve: He’s here so you CAN kick him!
Kris: In the UK I’d like to give Gordon Brown a good kicking. Who would you like to kick Ben?
Ben: You. But you’re next to me, so I can’t.
Kris: We might just have a fight.
Ben: I’m not that mean, I wouldn’t kick anyone.

Aww! One of the people watching you wants to know what you’d rather lick off a person, peanut butter, condensed milk or gravy?
Kris: That’s a tough one.
Steve: Peanut butter.
Kris: Hmm.
Steve: I like me some peanut butter.
Ben: Gravy definitely.
Kris: Is it good gravy?
I mean if you were to do it you could probably bring your own gravy so…
Kris: Yeah gravy!
Steve: Clearly condensed milk would be the worst!
Kris: It would get everywhere! You’d have to chase it!

What celebrities have you been compared to?
Kris: Many emo band singers because I have long hair and a beard.
Steve: I’ve had Ed Norton or Justin Timberlake.
You do actually look like him!
Steve: I am JT. If he was Irish. And uglier.
Kris: Ben looks like the one of the guys from Alkaline trio.
Ben: Or the singer from Avenge Sevenfold.

What is your secret weapon to lure the opposite sex?
Steve: My penis!
[laughter]
Steve: I just whip it out and it’s done! I would say my Irish accent is probably my weapon.
Kris: I think Ben’s is free alcohol! Actually that’s probably mind as well!

Getting girls drunk is your secret weapon! Would you eat human flesh for money?
Kris: How much?
It doesn’t say…
Kris: Give me a figure!
A million!
Kris: Yes!
What’s your lowest? A tenner?
Steve: A beer.
Kris: A place to sleep.
Steve: I’d do a lot of things for a beer!

Sum the band up in 3 words!
Kris: Awesome awesome awesome.
Steve: We’ll each do one! Up-beat! Ben? Just think of any word in the dictionary.
Ben: I’m trying to think.
Steve: We’ll come back to Ben. Kris?
Everyone says energetic!
Steve: Yeah well we’re lazy!
Kris: We’re energetic on stage but as you can see when there’s a bed in the room we’re like this!
Steve: Friendly!
[laughter]
Steve: Stop belittling my suggestions!
Kris: Go on Steve, you do all three!
Steve: Fuck it, cheerful, friendly and…
Kris: Fiddly!
Steve: Fiddly!

Where do you see the band in 10 years time?
Kris: Still talking hopefully.
Steve: Still in a Travelodge, with Flecking Records!
Kris: Fiddling! Flecking records will have taken over the world by then.
And we’ll still be hanging out in Travelodges!