The Arts & Culture Journal

Just a couple of months ago, two inebriated musicians stumbled into each other in Brighton. A lucky bump it proved to be as it began the Ol’ Yellah and the Happy Accidents – an excitingly talented group of misfits of drastically opposing musical upbringings and styles.

Fallyrag caught up with lead singer Joey Daley (with hangover now cured) to discover more about the band.

How did the band start?

I’d been playing solo since I was 17 and was getting really frustrated that my songs were so limited to me on an acoustic guitar. It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. Sam Guy (guitarist) and I had been sort of doing drunken jams. We did a few and I really enjoyed them and we started fantasising about having a band. Sam instantly got what I was doing with my songs and the way I play. Anyway, we did and started talking seriously about writing together and getting a band. I started talking to an old friend of mine, Thom Browning who plays the drums. He’s an absolutely awesome drummer but plays with metally/prog bands so I didn’t think he’d be that interested. He really was though so we planned a band jam. He said that his friend Dave was a really good bassist so I said to bring him along. The first practise we had was absolutely mind blowing. We all gelled really well and my songs sort of jumped out of us all.

Where does the name come from?

Well, my favourite childhood film is Ol’ Yellar. About a dog who adopts a boy then gets rabies and has to be shot. The boy’s dad makes the boy shoot it. It’s a bit like Of Mice And Men) but about dogs and boys. So that was the first part. And then just after our first practise I was drinking with a friend and was saying that I had no idea what to call the band. I don’t know how it happened but we came up with The Happy Accidents bit. I wish I remember how we got to that. I don’t remember a lot of things. But anyway I thought the two ideas sounded really nice together.

From who was the band spawn?

All of us in this band have such wide sporadic tastes. I have always loved old school jazz like Sidney Bechet, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Django Reinhart and Billie Holiday etc. My favourite band ever is Neutral Milk Hotel.

I wanted a band who could do dynamics. I don’t like just LOUD. Songs need to be like a complete tapestry of volume and tone etc.

I really like that “community” music thing. Where everyone gets together and learns from one another. You look at like France, Italy, Mexico etc. Everyone gets together and teaches and learns from the roots. It’s really amazing. I want to go out to Mexico and do a Zach De La Rocha and hang out with Mexicans and learn to play guitar properly.

Tell us story behind I Rip the Sky.

I wrote I Rip The Sky during a particularly alcoholic phase in my life when I worked in a shit bar full of drunks. I became one of them. I remember writing it sitting on my bed looking out of the window of my bedroom, drunk, on a really stormy crap day at about 11am and everything just looked bloody miserable. The song starts off all moody and apocalyptic and then turns nice. I think it’s because I got more drunk and wanted to sing about nice things. It’s sort of about things being a bit hopeless, but having someone who can make you want to fix it.  To sort yourself out.

www.myspace.com/olyellahandthehappyaccidents