The illuminating power that is Amplifier crash land into Wolverhampton on 7th December at The Slade Rooms. They are promoting their seminal release Octopus, a mesmerising breath of fresh air to the current scene of regurgitation and banality. For those of you unfamiliar with Amplifier, this is a golden opportunity to embrace and rejoice in one of this country’s greatest bands.  Hailing from Manchester, the band comprise of Sel Balamir (vocals/guitar), Neil Mahony (bass) and Matt Brobin (drums). They have been in operation since the late 1990’s and have released two previous albums - the self-titled debut and its follow up Insider. In preparation for the tour Midlands Rocks (MR) managed to seek out Sel and interrogate Amplifier’s leader.  A strange but enlightening conversation ensued...

MR: I saw your Sonisphere and High Voltage sets (easily the weekend highlights) and there appears to be much more cohesiveness around your stage presence, with a hint of George Orwell 1984, will we see this continue on the upcoming tour?

Sel Balamir: Greetings Planet Midlands. Absolutely. It's all about The Octopus these days. It's a real unifying icon. That's the cohesiveness thing you're talking about. I see pictures of the olden days when we used to just mooch on to stage in jeans and tee shirt and I think, "That really doesn't work". You need to project your message.

There is a hint of 1984 in The Octopus, yes. That’s for sure. It's not specifically intentional of 1984, but I guess it's the overwhelming abundance of Octopi at our stage show that feels akin to being brainwashed at a cult meeting. That, however, is completely intentional. It's a kind of tried and tested trick. A German journalist told me that this look was "Old Fashioned".  Welcome to the future!  

MR: You must be very pleased with the reception The Octopus has received since its long anticipated release.  As a fan when can we expect the follow up?  I understand you need to play live, but you must, the world needs Amplifier records.

SB: Well I can tell you, exclusively, that right at this very instant, the next Amplifier album has started being mixed.  I would always prefer to mix a record myself as I did with The Octopus, but we're just too busy these days for me to have the time, so we've got my old friend Chris Sheldon (Amplifier, Oceansize, Biffy Clyro, Foo Fighters) on the job.  I will say no more than that, apart from that there is still a lot of mileage to go with The Octopus.  That is why it is gargantuan, to give us as long a run as we need...

Actually, we don't mess about.  When we wrote The Octopus we simultaneously wrote another album at the same time.  Fans will know this.  It is called Mystoria.  It's very different to The Octopus in terms of vibe.  It's a joyous and uplifting album, definitely the next classic Amplifier album.  We recorded some of it at the same time we were in the studio recording The Octopus, and there are still a few more songs to go back and do.  I'll be looking forward to doing that at some point in the New Year.  When will it be out?  When it's ready of course!  Although I can say that it won't be a 4 year gap like between Insider and The Octopus.  We'll keep you updated at www.amplifiertheband.com/news.php

MR: What can we expect to hear, given you will not be constrained to a 30 minute set?

SB: Well, we're slowly working our way through all the songs on The Octopus, we've covered about 75% of it now.  The idea is that after we've got a few tours under the belt we can blast through the whole thing.  We've been working on The Octopus tour movie over the past year so don't be surprised to see Charlie Barnes scrabbling around with handycams.  Now that we are a multimedia "experience" we have to record everything to try and scrape every last morsel of opportunity out of every thing that we do.  One of these things is to make a tour movie.  Every band wants to do this.  It's a way of reliving your former glories when you're fat and old, and seeing as how that is probably not too far away we figured we'd better get a move on.  Obviously, seeing as it's Amplifier it has become another gargantuan task that will probably be finished next year at some point - or possibly will never ever end!  Anyway - expect that - and also we'll be bringing along our traveling Church Of The Octopus.  It's basically a chance for us all to testify.... 

You can expect predominantly The Octopus. You can expect some old favourites too. You can expect a good long show. Not 45 minutes. Also, you can expect Mojo Fury who are a young band from NI.  They supported Oceansize before they split up.  We were impressed with them so we invited them to come....

MR: Included in the CD of Octopus were some rather neat stickers, with instructions to put them in unusual places, how did the sticker campaign go?

SB: The sticker campaign is still ongoing. Slowly. Surely. The Octopus stickers are being stuck up all around the world.  From Moscow to Santiago, from Adelaide to Helsinki, one by one they are being put up. For those of you who don't know what this is about, when we released The Octopus, we dispatched about 70 thumbnail sized stickers of The Octopus logo with each copy.  People just stick them wherever. We can't afford big international marketing campaigns so this is our effort. We've sent out over 750,000 stickers now. That's a lot of wall coverage!

On a personal note, I have seen them several times - 2 times on bank machines, and also on the tube.  It means that I am now on someone else’s turf...  People have told me about seeing them in various places.  I leave them as a kind of breadcrumb trail so my wife can find me... If you want to get involved just send us your address in an email to informer@theoctopus.info with the word "stickers!" in the title. We'll send you them for free - You stick them up

MR: How do you feel the addition of Steve Durose has changed the dynamic of the band, if at all?

SB: Well, Steve is ace.  Obviously we've all been good friends for years, so it's not too weird.  To be honest he hasn't changed the dynamic of the band at all.  We were arguing blokes before and we still are.  In fact, Steve managed to install himself with absolutely no ripples whatsoever, and considering we've been a three piece for over 12 years prior to that, that is an amazing fact. What's really great is that I now get to go in the middle.  Being stuck out at the side is a bit lopsided from the audience's perspective....

MR: It must have taken so much out of you mentally and physically to produce Octopus.  It must have been a very cathartic experience to have all these ideas and to finally get them out there. Is this the way forward for you as a band?

SB: Absolutely.  It was a life changing and affirming experience to take control of your own destiny.  I recommend it.  There is one pitfall -and that is you can't rely on anyone else to bankroll you, so you have to be prepared to earn the money for yourself, but that's no different to any other creative job really, is it?  I tell you what though, everything takes on much greater significance when you have to battle for it.  In order to make The Octopus we had to make enough money to pay for recording and releasing it.  So we released Eternity on our "made up" ampcorp label, (which is now a very real label btw), in order to pay for it.  We did a little mini-tour to supplement it, which also introduced me into how to be or how not be a promoter.  If you do stuff you learn skills and very quickly you'll catch on.  Whatever odd schemes we can come up with, we now do.  No restrictions.  Take for example our last photo-shoot.  In a drunken banter at the pub some months ago - we decided to do it underwater.  So we did.  We had to work out how to do it and then overcome logistical and legal problems but we managed to do it. Life's too short. Try and fulfill your crazy ideas...It's fun and no-one drowned...

MR: What can we expect from 2012 for Amplifier?

SB: Well, to be honest, we have to hustle 1 month at a time, but hopefully it will involve massive touring, platinum record sales, fame, fortune and helicopters; and me appearing on Parkinson and sharply answering Parkie's questions in my Octopus garms wearing a papier mache Donkeys Head... But a happy and creative time will be acceptable also. Until then, best Wishes, Sel Amplifier

Amplifier playing Octopus, now how on earth can you miss that? So take my advice and head on down to The Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton on 7th December for a joyous experience. Believe us, it’s one gig not to miss.

Click here for info

Or, now that the gig has come and gone, you could just read Russ's review of the gig here...