Taking Flight

They were handpicked by Jack White to support The Raconteurs on their first tour of the UK and Arctic Monkeys are amongst their growing number of celebrity admirers but those are not even the most remarkable facts about truly international act, 747s, whose eagerly anticipated debut album appears next month amongst a growing clamor among the Irish and UK media. Their latest single, 'Night & Day', has been hailed as a potent blend of Beach Boy harmonies and straight up rock n' roll but they are as likely to incorporate elements of jazz, reggae, folk and punk in their music in their quest to find their vision of a perfect song. They have been compared to everyone from The Strokes to Bowie, giving you some idea of the variety on display in their music, but it is in how they formed that the band stands starkly apart from most.

Singer/guitarist, Oisin Leech was raised in Navan, Co Meath, where he grew up with his violinist father and a mother who sang on a regular basis. After a brief period when his parents sent him to take cello lessons - when he would hide in the bushes until his mother drove away then scarper - he decided to take up guitar and attended a jazz lesson whilst going to college in Dublin. Standing out because of his bright red guitar and even brighter green hair, Leech attracted the attention of another student, Ned Crowther, who hailed from Oxford in the UK. After meeting at a Morrissey gig a short time later, the two became solid friends and even began busking together, regularly seen taking up their resident spot at 1am outside the landmark Bewley's Café on Dublin's Grafton Street. As music took over more and more of their focus, the pair moved to Italy the following year under the auspices of studying. When they arrived in Naples, they were almost immediately drawn to the city's natural vibrancy and took up residence in a 'centro-sociale' or socialist cooperative where residents held monthly meetings on everything on how to run the building to the state of global politics, which would inevitably involve the consumption of large amounts of wine and cheese. Eventually, their propensity for spending more and more time out busking meant that the two were fired from their jobs and forced to make busking their sole source of living. Another feature of their home in the cooperative was a large space dedicated to music, where musicians from different places and backgrounds would associate freely and share out instruments. It was here that the two met their future drummer, Massimo Signorelli, and the three began to play together under the name Idruidi Fluidi (The Fluid Druids). Even their first proper gig was noteworthy when they performed to over 5,000 people gathered in Naples to protest the G8 summit. 18 months later the three decided to move to Ireland and continue their music careers, stopping briefly in Liverpool to attend a rave. When authorities eventually shut down the subsequent festivities, the trio pulled out their musical instruments and entertained revelers with a mix of cover versions, their own tunes and a healthy dose of ad-libbing. The formula worked and the delighted partygoers presented the band with a painted stone, which the group threw into the sea before departing to Ireland, in a quasi-serious ceremony that served to bond them further.

For the next few years the band continued to play as The Fluid Druids, racking up impressive support slots with artists like Shane MacGowan (who described them as 'far too good'), whilst also occasionally going back to Italy for gigs. On one such trip, the band were returning to Dublin from Naples, when a small gas powered generator that they carried with them for busking purposes began leaking fuel throughout the jet's cabin, forcing the plane into a frantic emergency landing in Rome. The band were led off the airliner at gunpoint and accused of attempting to firebomb a passenger jet, which seems a more plausible charge on the behalf of Italian authorities given the fact that the incident occurred on September 11, 2002. The band were eventually freed after hours of questioning and although the incident occurred on a Boeing 737 jet, the episode would eventually lead to the band's new name.

Frustrated at their lack of progress, The Fluid Druids eventually called time on the band and took a brief hiatus out to decide upon their next move. In 2004 they discovered a hugely talented German guitarist busking on the same Dublin streets that their own musical odyssey had begun. Anxious to expand into new musical directions the band saw Freddie Stints as the missing link to their new incarnation as 747's and the four members made the further decision that any future for them in the music industry lay in the UK. Given their history with the city, it was hardly surprising that they chose Liverpool as their launch pad into the British market.

The band's canny lyrics, organic sound and innovative live shows soon drew the attention of locals and within weeks the four-piece were practically adopted by the Liverpudlian scene, which had produced such acts as Zutons and The Coral. Within just four months the band were signed by Ark Recordings and began working on their first album in a local studio. The choice of recording venue proved to be fortuitous when it was used several weeks later by Arctic Monkeys, who listened to a couple of 747s' tracks after they asked the engineer if he had any other material that he was working on. The Sheffield outfit were so thoroughly impressed with the 747s' sound that they chose one of their songs, 'Rain Kiss', when they guest-hosted a national radio show. In the past few months the relationship between the two bands has become even more tangible. Whilst on a recent tour of the US Arctic Monkeys frontman, Alex Turner came across an obscure, decades-old track, 'Baby I Am Yours', which he decided would make the perfect B-side to his band's upcoming single: 'Leave Before the Light Comes.' Turner further added that the 747's were the only band that he was interested in doing a cover version of the song with.

Already, 747s have toured with acts such as The Thrills, Futureheads and some of their Liverpool contemporaries, whilst they have also graced the stages of some of this year's summer festivals and watched their media profile grow steadily. Next month they will finally get the chance to show us exactly what they are all about.