Andy Cairns from Therapy? checks in

Therapy? just finished the Mainland European leg of their tour in support of Cleave, their brilliant new record and we caught them in Paris where they played a blistering show and completely annihilated La Maroquinerie, the sweaty venue where they were booked.

We hit up singer/guitarist/songwriter Andy Cairns and he was kind enough to send us his thoughts on the band's seminal record Troublegum turning 25. We very much appreciate him taking the time out of a hectic schedule to check in.

Hi Eric, 

Thanks for featuring Therapy? (on) Electric Eye. Glad you enjoyed the Paris gig, it was personally one of my highlights of the tour. Great to see so many people smiling and hear their voices. An amazing night of warmth and passion.

I’m in the middle of travelling at the minute and (...) I am very proud to finally be a member of the Classic Rock club on the back of our well known album, Troublegum🙂

I don’t know where the time has gone. It’s strange. Sometimes it feels like a different era and time and other times it feels so close, as if it only happened yesterday. 

Between the formation of the band and the release of Troublegum in 1994 the rise of the band was very organic and took place on release-by-release basis. Troublegum was our second album for the major label we had signed to and as Nurse had sold 110,000 copies worldwide there was an expectation from them that this one should sell more. This didn’t bother us as we’d decided to make a melodic album anyway. Chris Sheldon helped our focus by stripping away and overly long section and giving the ideas laser-like accuracy. All the vocal melodies were created to be direct and memorable, like the punchlines from jokes and the whole sonic space was given a make over so that the sound of each individual band member shone through.

People around the globe took to Troublegum very well and we did three world tours in 1994 alone. It was exciting and exhausting in equal measure but something that helped the band to establish themselves in the musical landscape.

25 years later we’re still writing, recording and touring and enjoying it more than ever. The band and crew has a great dynamic and we really relish each day we are able to do this thing that we do.

Our recent album, Cleave, is almost like a returning, working melodic, hard, material with Chris Sheldon only this time with a 21st Century Sonic update.

We’re still angry, we’re still frustrating, we still rock and we still give a shit. 

Some things are just worth doing and Therapy? is one of them. 

Best of Luck,

Andy Cairns