Where's Joe Strummer?The Gravity Searching for The Ground: A Brief History of The Rubys
We play Dry Bar for the first time with Designer Magazine as the Promoters. We’re looking forward to it. Its the first date on a short UK Tour to promote the album, and its always special to play in our Home Town. We’ve covered a lot of distance, and we’ve got a lot more to go; a great point to reflect on how –and why- we got here.
Its easy to forget why you got into a Band. Easy to forget the Band that you want to be. Its important for The Rubys to protect its hard centre; music & our audience is at the Centre of all that we do.
Joe Strummer is an example of this gravity. A grounded centre for a band with undiluted and outspoken authenticity. A distinct centre of personal and creative integrity. Driving “the song” and the Band to be greater than the sum of its parts. Never forgetting that the Band is there to serve its audience, not the other way round.
It was difficult to speak of notions of integrity when we were a “baby band” – searching for a direction that we wanted to go on together, having a greater sense of what we didn’t –rather than what we did – want to be.
The temptation is to mimic others – follow the Zeitgeist. When I think back, there was a constant child-like quality to our behaviour. We were reaching from our earliest beginnings, looking to grasp onto some degree of musical agreement of why were all there. A desire to follow fashionable or sonic trends never came into our (perpetually freezing) rehearsal room.
Once we all agreed on the music we wanted, the next stage was to commit others. Generate engagement from others, to believe in our merry little Band. This process for The Rubys started in an unspoken commitment to each other in the Band to do better, with every note, every rehearsal, every gig, every new song idea. And this pushed on, to gain commitments from Friends and Family to join us on this journey. And then onto others we didn’t know, couldn’t know, but wanted to know.
To come to our gigs. Download our songs. To give us airtime. To print reviews. To broadcast. To engage.
These needs remain our continuing challenge – we hope they never go away. Every band seeking to make their way playing their own music needs to remain credible and continually challenge and excite their audience. Open the box, bring something bright & new to the Table all the time, every time.
The Rubys are no different to the core than any other Indie Band....apart from the never-fulfilled appetite to do it bigger, better, brighter next time. For us, Too Much is Not Enough.....but always with the same grounded centre that gave The Clash and The Mescaleros a compelling grit.
The Rubys are never better than when they play to people. Playing to an audience, talking to the people that spend their hard-earned on coming to see & hear us, meeting the same people that come time and time again to our performances, the people that tune in to hear us on the radio, watch us on YouTube, read our Social Media posts, check the website daily.....our audience is our Gravity that keeps us –and will continue to keep us – on the ground.
Joe said it best;
“Greed, it aint going nowhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people, you’re nothing. Thats my speil”.
God bless you, Joe.
Much love from The Rubys x
http://www.facebook.com/THERUBYS69
http://twitter.com/The_Rubys
Catch The Rubys at Dry Bar on Sat 26th Jan 2013
Tickets available - http://www.seetickets.com/Event/THE-RUBYS/Dry-Bar/683111
© 2000-2013
Designer Magazine unless otherwise stated.
All Interviews by Alex McCann unless otherwise stated
NB: Please seek permission before using any articles within this siteContact us: designermagazine@hotmail.com
