Turn Interview	n/a
Rock Sound	June 2000

"I think if you have that much expectation on top of you people just want to tear you down" says Turn's Ollie Cole, about bands being hyped. 'Next Best Thing' and 'Best New Band' tags are lazily thrown around these days but Turn are one such band where the moniker well and truly sticks. In his day job at Dublin's Factory rehearsal studios, Ollie Cole mingled with the stars but he had a dream, he wanted to be a star. Playing in bands in Dublin, with friend Ian Melady, had its pitfalls. "We were in a band together but we got badly stung - bad management and everything," reminisces Ollie, in his Celtic Brogue. "That was the end of that and I didn't really want to be in a band again for a long time. I was writing loads of song but I had no band. I was just writing and recording at home on a four track." After meeting Gavin Fox, who was doing work experience at the studios, things began to come together. Call it psychic intuition, or just plain madness, but Ollie knew from the moment he clapped eyes on Gavin that he'd play a major role in the bands future. "It was just on of those things" laughs Ollie. "I just knew the first day I saw him that he was going to be a big part of something. I kinda have this thing - It always happens to me - I see people I've never met them before, but I just know they're going to be friends." So Turn were three and several other Dublin Bands were no more. "When our band started we subsequently split up three other bands, everybody left to do this properly so the other bands fell by the way-side. Jesus! We lost an awful lot of friends, in fact that's all that Turn were good for and that was makin' enemies." Working in the studios gave Ollie the chance to meet plenty of bands and learn plenty of lessons about the music industry from watching bands getting signed, get big, get small then get dropped to learning about recording techniques and sound. They began their days on the gig treadmill, and with the addition of Ian's sister, Fiona, on keyboards, immediately began to gather a flock of devotees with their infectious rock sound. "We were very focused from the word go," says Ollie confidently. "We were like 'OK we're going to get signed.'" After a London date with Snow Patrol, the prophecy was fulfilled, and the band were snapped up by Infectious Records. So where did the dream begin Ollie look directly into my eyes, we're going back in time. "Growin' up my brothers were into heavy metal bands, the first record I ever bought was AC/DC's Highway to Hell, I was into Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and all that stuff. One of the first gigs I ever saw was Thin Lizzy and I just wanted to be a Rock Star. I was just watching everyone going mental and cheering" But the metal phase didn't last and by the age of 12 or 13 Ollie had lost interest. So what next - a sick day from school... "I was lying on the couch and I had seen The Pixies for the first time," enthuses Ollie. "They played three in a row on the chart show, 'Velouria', 'Monkey Gone To Heaven' and somethin' else and that just absolutely blew me away. I'd started writin' songs already by then but that put a serious kink into the way that I was writing." Stylistically, Turn's sound is an amalgamation of the exuberance of the Pixies with the edgy angst of Nirvana producing in-yer-face slabs of sheer sonic beauty. Ollie remains open-minded with his musical tastes though. "I used to think I was into one kind of music - I pigeon holed myself. There's a lot of brilliant music at the moment. If you hear a record like Moby's album, there's lots of different styles. With Turn we make rock albums, we try and cover so many styles, we're not like head-down 4/4 rock." With a UK tour already under their belts and a debut-mini album hitting the shops about now Turn, certainly have a bright future ahead of them, Tune in, Turn on now!