Welcome the feature where we ask musicians or bands five really tough questions about music! Today I speak to the band Giant Killers who are opening the main stage at Shiiine On in November as well as releasing the single Who Am I Fooling that is from the album arriving this month.

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What is the hardest lyric you have ever had to write and why? 

Jamie:  This is one for Mike, as we have strict departments in Giant Killers – I’m CEO of melodies and Mike is the boss of Lyrics – it works well.

Michael: To continue Jamie’s theme, the hard thing about the business of writing lyrics is that it can be a hugely draining thing Without wishing to overly dramatize it, all the lyrics I’ve done are personally demanding  – for me I have to connect first with the narrative arc – it feels physical.

Jamie Narrative arc! He’s being unnecessarily poetic and  literary – masking the fact he’s an uneducated n-er do well from Grimsby.

Michael: Rumbled. Don’t you just hate it when someone knows you too well? 

So… for me, I have to conjure up the story I’m looking to tell first but as an ahem… narrative arc with a beginning, a middle and an end. For me, this can be a ritualistic thing. I stare at a blank piece of paper, often for hours, almost willing the story to materialise – for the words to fill the page. I’m not necessarily successful in the space of a few hours either. I often need to let the melody Jamie has created rotate around my head for days before something recognisably story like begins to emerge.

Jamie: I think what Mike is saying is that It feels like he needs to dignify my melody with something that is equal to it lyrically. He’s paying me a complement.

Michael: Quite!

What is the weirdest gift or compliment a fan has given you? 

Michael: Oh god, this one is for you buddy – it has to be the Princess Charlotte balloon incident.

Jamie: Ha ha, yes. It was not so much that it was weird as a gift, just that its execution was well staged.

Michael: Like a bargain bucket version of the Olympics opening ceremony.

Jamie: We were sound checking at the Princess Charlotte in Leicester

Michael: A fabulous, and now long gone, regular dive to play on the UK live music scene.

Jamie:  We noticed a large box between the two centre stage monitors with a sign propped up on the top – it said’ For Jamie’. We didn’t see anyone place it there.

Michael: It definitely wasn’t there when we went on stage.

Jamie: On closer inspection, there was a box opening tool placed on the top. I picked up the blade’ cut the parcel tape sealing the flaps, and as I opened it a huge helium filled love heart shaped balloon floated slowly upwards and into the ceiling, as it did so, it somehow played a very tinny version of the Bryan Adam’s soft rock ballad, Everything I do, I do it for you.

Michael: It left us scratching our heads a bit until…

Jamie: Much later, but before the show, we were at the bar, when what should come on the juke box – none other than that Bryan Adams tune. When I turned towards the source of the song, there was a women leaning on the jukebox and staring intently at me. I instantly recognised her as someone who had been to a lot of our shows, we’d had conversations with her, but she had never previously expressed any feelings for me in that regard. To add to the slightly surreal gesture, she wasn’t alone at the jukebox – she was with someone who she later introduced as her boyfriend.

Who is the best band or musician you have had the pleasure to share the stage with?

Michael: We opened for Blur on that tour they did of Victorian seaside piers way back in the 90s in support of their Country House album

Jamie: They were consummate musicians and Damon was, and remains, an impressive front man

Michael: But the bastards nicked our keyboard player after the gig on Cleethorpes Pier – that’s low.

Jamie: Mike is never one to bear a grudge for too long – 30 years is his absolute limit.

Michael: To be fair to Dianna (Gutkind – the keyboard player in question), I guess it was a legitimate career choice – she went on to tour the world’s stadiums  with Damon and co, for over 10 years.

Jamie: True, we couldn’t have offered her that kind of glamour.

Michael: I think our next gig was as backing band for  the Chuckle Brothers in Bournemouth.

Jamie: Worth a nod to Squeeze also – we toured with them at a time when we were honing our craft as writers…

Michael: Please Jamie – you are now doing what you accused me of earlier! There is something about using the words ‘honing’, and ‘craft’, together in the same sentence that makes you sound like a right pretentious…

Jamie: If that word begins with C then we had perhaps better move on.

Michael: What Jamie means is that we loved Difford and Tilbrook as a songwriting duo

Jamie: Melodically and lyrically, there was something very mature about them that we aspired too at that time.

Michael:: We felt privileged to tour with them. Although, we never told them that – the arrogance of youth!

What one of your songs has been the most difficult to rehearse for a live audience?

Michael: Billy the Kid.

Jamie: Definitely.

Michael: We wanted to make it an epic sounding track –– it’s a character study of a typically male archetype who is essentially a pile of contradictions in person form. The character could be described as a hooligan poet struggling with mid-life conformity.

Jamie:  It’s what you might call a sweeping production. It’s melodically complex, multi-layered, and we wanted the production to reflect that. It took a bit of time to get that vision right.

Michael: Which is why it’s a difficult one to pull off live – as it has to be stripped back – we can’t afford to take a mega production on the road.