Flashback: Allergo Interview 2003

Allergo are band who have been on the lips of a lot of people lately, creating waves in and around the Dundee/Perth area with their full on hardcore metal and intense stage performances. Pretty incredible for a band with an average age of just 16. We recently caught up with guitarist Tom Mitchell for a wee chat.

Firstly a little background info on the band. How'd it all come about?
Tom: It all started around about a year ago, we had no real intentions of getting to where we are now, it all came about so fast! We used to muck about playing covers by bands like the deftones, this was all before we had a bassist, so when he joined (James Fleming-bassist), which was in February 2002, we started writing our own songs and managed to record a rough 15 track demo! It got a great write-up by Dave Arcari from the Perthshire Advertiser (www.thebuzzgroup.co.uk). That set us off for our first gig in "The Grill" in Perth, it's just been uphill since then!

You guys have got a lot of people excited about your band in a short space of time, especially for such a young band. What are you're thoughts on that?

We find that really strange cause we don't think we're anything special, it's come as a bit of a shock to us. To have people from other towns like Dundee and Arbroath talking about us before we have even played there is really cool. The fact that we're young can have an up-side and a down-side, we can use it as an excuse if we suck and it can be used as a compliment is we're good! But being banned from the Westport because we're too young isn't good though!

What are you long and short term goals?

For the mean time we just wanna get out and play as many gigs a we can, not just to get heard, but for the fun of it. We love live shows, making CD's is cool too, but we get to give a performance when it's live. We don't know what the future holds, hopefully we'll progress to take it further and maybe one day we'll hope fully get signed!

What's been you're favourite gig so far?

We had a gig at Curly Lloyds on October 17th 2002 with Segaboy and some other bands, we weren't even supposed to play and we found out that we were replacing State of Affairs two days before the night. That added to the fact that the sound quality was amazing that night, we played a strong set and some new songs, kept the crowd going and had a pit all night! Another good gig for us though has to be at the Wesport because it was out first gig out of Perth and we really got noticed by a Dundee crowd!

Are their any bands who influence you're music? Who are you're favourite artists?

It's hard to name one band that has influenced us! We have a lot of variety when it comes to our songs, but our favourite artists would have to be: SLAYER! (of course) and the Deftones started us off! Nowadays we listen to a lot of hardcore bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan and hope to get some songs of our own to sound like theirs! We basically listen to anything from: Nile to Mr. Bungle and Morbid Angel to Glassjaw!

What sort of stuff is on you're stereo just now?

On my stereo, it's a British band called Tangaroa, there amazing and so hardcore! Graham (Motion - drums) is listening to Slayer as usual, combined with his Nile and Morbid Angel! Matt (Evans - vocals) is listening to emo-hardcore like ThisGirl and Glassjaw. And James likes a bit of Killswitch Engage and Five Pointe O!

Advise us on bands to check out in you're area.

We love Project Se7en, Threshold Sicks and Cartel as fellow metal bands, we played with them all and we think they should get noticed more!

Any last words?

If you don't like us your a cunt.......