The Hoosiers

“We’ve worked a long time – 11, 12 years – to make it,” says Hoosiers drummer Alfonso Sharland, “and we’ve sacrificed a lot. . .” Right now, the Hoosiers are a band on the up, poised to inject some new life into the music business and definitely ones to watch. And although they only recently released their semi self-titled debut album, The Hoosiers and number one album The Trick To Life (2007), Alfonso is right about the sacrifices, one of which was a football career in America.

How he and his band buddy and lead vocalist Irwin Sparkes came to reject a life in field sports is a story in itself. Inspired by his then school chemistry teacher (who before the test tubes and Bunsen burners had been the drummer in 1970s pop band Sailor) guitarist Irwin took to heart the advice that you can’t write about something you haven’t experienced. So he and Alfonso set off on a road trip of America with Indianapolis in their sights - otherwise known as the Hoosier state. And it was at the university there that they were both offered football scholarships. Dropping the ball skills but stealing part of the state’s history in its name, they headed back to the UK and wrote some songs of experience.

Although the band was born “under the umbrella post code of Reading” as Alfonso puts it, the band have spread their wings with some dazzling music they have christened “odd pop” .
Alfonso cites his influences as Genesis, fed to him by his parents, and his first single as Europe’s the Final Countdown, while Irwin relates how his parents’ Christian leanings partly shaped his musical progress. “I was brought up in a very Christian household – and my parents had all us kids believing that Ishmael and the Glories were household names. I realised I’d been lied to for many years.” Bassist and Swede Martin Skarendahl’s musical roots go deep too: “I started by playing the recorder at the age of 8. I don’t think I was the coolest kid.” You be the judge.

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