The Basement

John Mullin, Lead vocals and guitar
Mark McCausland Guitar
Graeme Hassall Bass
Declan McManus Drums

'If you listen to the first line of Subterranean Homesick Blues there are four good band names in there already. We just took the first one.'

Ah, if only everything were as simple as choosing a name. The Basement boast members from either side of the Irish sea and reference points back to the first half of last century in an attempt to flip the future upside down. Having met at the tender age of 15 in Omagh and in the words of front man John 'sat about a bit’, The Basement slowly grew into a coherent entity. John, Mark and Declan had hung around together since their mid-teens and decided to carry the nucleus of their project forward. Graeme was recruited having been 'found sleeping in a ditch': a rock and roll choice of dwelling if ever there was one.

Life in Omagh gave the band a focus they might not have developed in a more urban environment. The pressures of small-town life are well documented and much maligned by those wishing to escape them, and The Basement were no different. 'It's pretty small and a really good place to grow up in, but when you're about 14 you start to have ideas of getting away. I came over to Liverpool in summer 2000 and that gave us a big advantage really, we had to cut ourselves off from home and concentrate on getting it all right. I think some young bands get sort of tangled up in their own city. We were lucky.'

Rather than pick up the Britpop baton of yesteryear John would rather flick through Dad's collection of dusty LPs. 'We skipped most of the 90s, music-wise. There were some good bands but there was something about that period that didn't appeal to us, even though we sort of grew up through it'. Thus the seeds of The Basement's interest sprang more from the roots of the fathers of blues and soul.

(Official Biography by The Basement)