Scaling the Alps
Sunday 16 March 2008 (Michael Bugeja - The Sunday Times of Malta)
“One, two, three, four…”, the band kicks into a hurried warm-up jam that lasts but a few minutes, and just as the guitar amp towering over my shoulders stops booming, Nick Morales, singer and guitarist with Nosnow/noalps, turns to me and says, “that’s a new number…still not finished.”
It’s a cold Sunday afternoon, and though it’s relatively cosy inside the band’s rehearsal ‘studio’ in Marsa, I opt to keep my jacket on. Darko, retired pro-football player and the band’s rhythm master, complains his hands and fingers are still stiff, and yet he still whips off his thick jumper once he’s behind his drum-kit. I sit in on a rehearsal of the set that the band will eventually perform a week later at the launch of their debut EP, (just rock). This includes all of the six songs on the CD plus a couple of covers that the band isn’t sure they should retain, discard or rework. But there’ll be time to discuss all that later; for the time being it’s the rehearsal that matters. “One, two, three, four…”.
As they plough through their upbeat set, I’m reminded of the band community that used to inhabit the Tigne area in the 1980s. Not much has changed by way of studio décor, it’s all about having your gear set up and ready to go. This is something Nosnow/noalps do with a certain ease, particularly because they are old hands at this. Nick and bassist Flambo both were in Dripht and Darko has been involved in music for as long as I’ve known him (i.e. a long time). Keyboard player and singer Sarah (who I didn’t recognise because her MySpace pic has her face half hidden by a hat) is the only novice here, although she fits in quite comfortably into the line-up like she’s done this for ages.
I start by asking about the band’s rather curious name. There’s usually a story behind a name, and sure enough, all four of them try to come up with original but conflicting (and nonsensical) explanations. Joking apart, however someone (I can’t remember who) explains that the name came to mind during a flight. “Looking at Malta from high above”, I am told, “the one thing that strikes you is that there are no mountains on the island. So we thought – no snow, no alps! That sounds like a good enough name for a band. And it clicks well with the name of the EP. No snow, no Alps – just rock!” I must agree that it does have a nice ring to it, and at least it sounds like a believable story, which is more than I can say for the other attempts they tried to run by me.
As I write this article, the band’s lead single, Taking My Time has been gracing several radio playlists, even topping Bay Radio’s local Top 10 chart, which is quite good for a ‘new’ band. Of course, for Nick and Flambo, it’s all deja-vu, as their previous band Dripht scored a few ‘hits’ of their own., and I do sense some common ground – particularly some Ska rhythms - between Dripht and No Snow No Alps in terms of influence. “Of course”, Nick explains, “I love Ska to death, so it will always crop up in my music.” That said however, the slick dance groove of Taking My Time is more akin to the likes of Bloc Party rather than say, The Specials, something the band themselves acknowledge, but are keen to point out it doesn’t stop there.
Indeed it doesn’t. I’m reminded of so many bands as I sit through the rehearsal that it drives me crazy to try and remember them all. “It’s really a mixture of different influences”, Darko adds later, “each one of us has diverse influences, the common factor is that they are basically all alternative. Our sound is essentially the mixture of all that”. It’s an explanation I often hear when I interview bands, but I am always curious to hear how the band describe their music. Darko’s statement was as close as I was getting here, although a few names, such as The Clash, The Police and even The Pixies, were mentioned along the way.
They all agree that Dig Into is perhaps the most mainstream track they’ve written to date, which is also why they didn’t release it as their first single. Personally, I think that Taking My Time is just as catchy a tune; come to think of it, all of the tracks on the EP are! Truth be told, each song has a separate infectious quality, and while they all bear a familiar skanking rhythm, the melodies carry them down different paths. “That was something that killed me in the recording studio”, Nick reveals, “With Dripht I just needed to be loud. This time David (Vella, of Temple Studios) made me actually sing”.
Given that the band only got together just over a year ago, the fact that they have already released an EP and performed in Denmark hints at a lot of collective energy and ambition on their part. “The gigs in Denmark were a bit low-key actually”, Nick tells me. “The first one wasn’t our best gig, but the second one was better attended and we got a good reaction from the audience”. The visit wasn’t without incident, but aside from a minor entry visa hiccup (drummer Darko is Serbian) and an over-eager Danish fan who owns a Maltese national team football shirt (?), they all agree it was a great experience. “Most definitely”, says Flambo, with an impish glint in hi s eye and a great big smile that resonates on the faces of the other three members.
The rehearsal was pretty much a clean sweep, bar a couple of false starts. Oddly enough, I thought they sounded better in their studio than on the night of the gig, although I suspect that all was not well in the sound department stage-side. “So, what did you think? Honestly?” Darko asks me nervously after their performance. And – honestly - I replied that it could have sounded better. He tells me it all sounded great during the soundcheck but something must have gone AWOL during the performance. I put his mind at rest by telling him that the crowd jumping about at the front and the ones shuffling their feet at the back didn’t seem to mind. He smiles back, feeling a bit better, I assume.
The band will be supporting Beangrowers on Saturday 12 April 2008.