Nick On Oi Rude Boy

What with album art, tour booking and moving house, Nick's been pretty busy of late, but all the hard work's been worthwhile as 'Oi Rude Boy' is finally on the shelves. We had a brief chat with Nick about the single and the inspiration behind it:

In 'Oi Rude Boy', there's the lyric, "Madness took the beat and made it something special" - is that a reference to your influences?

"Yeah, I'm just name-checking them really, you know? Those were the bands that were around at the time of the guy in the story. I'm obviously a fan of them too. I just thought it was a nice way of getting them in there; you get that, and the song makes more sense. There's the pork pie hat reference too, which was how they dressed: that and the skinny tie. I've just used them so you get an image in your head - I'm trying to paint a picture of the guy in the story."

So what's the story?

"Well, it's the story of this guy who came up to me when I was wearing a pork pie hat a while ago and said, "I used to have one of those hats, I used to be a rude boy back in the day," and he just kept talking to me about it and saying how he wanted to get one of those hats again and start wearing the same clothes he used to wear. That's what the story's about really - just this guy who's clinging on to his past and what he used to be about."

How representative is the single of the album?

"Well, I think I have similarities to the dude in the song. I think when I was younger I was a bit like that - I was going to be a ska punk kid till I died! I was never going to listen to any other music. I think, in a way, that ties in with the album. There are references throughout the album to what I listen to and that's where the similarities lie. Does that make sense?"

The video's a lot of fun, where did you shoot that?

"Camden I think. I'm not sure where exactly, We played the song 30 odd times! It's cool though, it was good fun - you get more and more relaxed in that situation and better stuff comes out."