The Friction are an up-and-coming band from Manchester who aim to revive Britpop with their debut album "Strange Happenings". Their singles "Friday Night" and "The Streets" achieved top 10 success unexpectedly. The band members discuss their album, which they believe contains 3-4 potential top 10 hits and possibly a number one song. They hope to one day become one of the biggest bands in the world, playing to stadium-sized crowds, and to have their music remembered for decades to come.

1. Article
The Friction are the latest big thing to come out of Manchester’s prestigious music scene. The
confident, slightly foul mouthed, witty and outspoken teens aim to re-ignite the Britpop culture and
finally get rid of the ‘The X-Factor shit’. But will the new found fame get to their heads after some
high profile praise? We speak to lead vocalist Luke Finlay, drummer Luke Owens and bass/guitarist
Jack Ogden in this incredible interview ahead of the release of their debut ‘Strange Happenings’.
Your two singles ‘Friday Night’ and ‘The Streets’ were both massive success’. Were you surprised at
how well they did?
LF: Erm, yes and no really if that makes any sense at all. We knew they were good tunes so in that
sense we aren’t surprised but we didn’t think as many people had heard of us and knew about us.
LO: We knew we were quite popular around the Manchester area but we had no idea how big it was
outside of that.
JO: I mean to get our first two singles in the top 10 is fucking amazing. It’s just gone crazy since
Friday Night was in the charts.
LF: We’re pretty confident the hype and the success will continue.
So you’re debut album is nearly out, tell us about it
LF: Well as you can imagine we’re so excited about it and we love it. It’s a great album
LO: When we first hear it back we thought. Wow this is gonna be huge, we need to release this
ASAP.
JO: We reckon there are three possibly four potential top 10 hits.
LF: Definitely a number one in there as well.
LO: Yeah definitely.
LF: To sum up it’s the best album you’ll hear all year
Coming from Manchester are your influences the huge ands to come out of it?
LF: Yeah definitely. Oasis, Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Joy Division all of them lot.
LO: We’re mainly fans of the ‘Britpop’ artist like Blur and Pulp as well.
JO: Even further back though like The Jam, The Beatles.
LF: To be honest we’re fans of a lot of artist as long as isn’t manufactured pop or X-Factor shit we
hate that massively. I don’t even know how stuff like that is so popular.
JO: It’s cos all the brain-dead 12 year olds are the only ones who actually pay for music. Most people
download them for free don’t they and that’s how they get all their sales.
LO: They’ll realise how wrong they were in a few years and listen to proper music like ours.

2. You mention your hatred of manufactured pop. Explain
LF: The main reason is their music. It’s piss poor but still gets loads of support. And their fans oh my
god they’re a pain in the arse them. They worship them like gods and say they’re the best thing since
sliced bread, behave love sort yourself out.
LO: People like One Direction are all spoon fed by Simon Cowell and his record label. They hire
people to write songs for them then add there extremely average vocals to it. No effort what so ever
they don’t care about music, just fame and money.
JO: Like we started the proper way, playing at pubs and gigs in front of about 50 people and working
our way up, writing songs along the way, it’s how all the best bands started. The proper way.
When you write your songs are they based on a subject in particular?
LF: Yeah actually most of our current songs are about being brought up in Manchester and goes on
and our experiences around here. None of that soppy cringey shit about our ex’s, although I reckon
he (points at Luke O) will go down that path soon.
LO: (Sarcastic laugh). Behave lad not at all. To be fair the things we see round here we could right 3
albums worth of stuff. Some proper freaks and crazy shit happens where we live.
JO: Yeah and we went to school and college with most of them. They were some bad times.
LF: We were actually mates with some of the freaks as well. What we were we thinking.
LO: There’s a lot of strange happenings where we live. Hence the name of the album.
LF: Out April 10th
JO: Nice plugging
LF: Cheers mate.
LO: Going back to the song writing subject. We don’t have a main songwriter like most bands we all
chip in and come up with our own songs which makes us slightly unique.
LF: We sometimes mix the songs together like we’d take a couple lines out of Jack’s song and put it
with mine and then add some of Luke’s lyrics. We’re just amazing like that you see.

3. What are your aims as a band?
LF: Eventually we want to become the biggest band in the world. Sell out stadiums. Have a hundred
thousand people watching us at Heaton Park. Having all them people singing your song would be a
buzz.
JO: People have said it’s a bit ambitious but if you don’t want to the best what’s point in doing, I may
as well go back and work at Quality Save asking people if they want to pay 5p for a bag.
LO: We want to be up there with likes of Oasis and Blur. We don’t want to be compared to them cos
we’re The Friction and no one else.
LF: We want our music to be loved and still played. 20 or 30 years later. We want to have god or
royalty like or something like that. I’d love that.
JO: We’re quite grounded aren’t we?
Have you met any other artists yet?
LF: Yeah we’ve met a few actually. It’s fucking mint. We recently met Miles Kane at the studio and he
talked about working with us. I think that’s what he said anyway he’s scouse isn’t he so I couldn’t
really understand what he was saying.
LO: I thought it was Leighton Baines the Everton player I was about say how good his goal was the
other day.
JO: We met Paul Weller as well in the studio as well.
LF: Oh yeah that was sick that.
JO: He playing some of new stuff and it sounded so good his talent has no limits.
LO: We was supposed to be in after him but we didn’t want to cos we would’ve sounded shit in
comparison.
LF: We got invited to the BRITS as well but we got so wasted we don’t remember any of it. So we
don’t know who we met.
JO: We all woke up still in what we was wearing that night.
LF: Sign of a good night that is.
LO: Shame we don’t remember it. Might have been shit but we don’t know. We don’t remember a
thing.
LF: We’re still not convinced it actually happened.
JO: We’re not sure that day actually existed.
LO: We’ve only just all turned 18 so we took advantage of it big time. Can you blame us?

4. Has the recent fame got to you yet?
LF: I wouldn’t say we’ve changed that much.
JO: He loves the fame him (points a Luke F).
LF: Yeah I love being in the paper me. I find it funny hearing all these ridiculous stories. According to
The Sun I supposedly went to Harry Styles’ birthday party and caused like £15,000 worth of damage.
I was actually in 5th
Ave. in Manchester with these lot so I don’t where they got that bullshit from.
LO: The paparazzi are annoying though. They’re fucking everywhere. I’ll be in Tesco or something
and they’d follow me about. I’m only getting some beer what do you want! Does my head in.
LF: Just give them the fingers and threaten them and they soon go away.
JO: But at the end of the day the more times we’re in the paper the more records we sell so bring on
the paps I say.
LO: It’s quite strange having people you’ve never met or even seen before coming up to you asking
for a picture or something. Not got my used to that.
LF: Like sometimes people will be taking pictures and the paps will take pictures and I’d be looking
around going oh wow who’s here, who they taking pictures of then I realise oh it us.
JO: The flash on some of the cameras the paps have is blinding. I go blind for a week when they’re all
out.
Do you get any abuse when you’re out and about?
LF: Not so much when we’re out but on Twitter we get hate off a lot of 12 year old One Direction
fans. It’s not exactly scary. They’re all like ‘How can you hate on One Direction they’re so talented
and so much better than you’ etc. It’s like behave love do me a favour and shut the fuck up. To be
honest I find it weird getting recognised in the street by people you’ve never met or seen before.
LO: There was this one lad in Manchester that was like ‘You’re shit, you have no talent’ and all this.
We don’t mind it but we were like, you need to be careful what you say here mate cos at the end of
the day there’s three of us and one of you so the odds aren’t in your favour are they.
JO: We just usually give the standard reply of ‘let’s hear on of your songs then’ they soon go silent
after that.
LO: But we don’t expect everyone to like us cos it’s all about opinion isn’t it so we don’t really care
about we just care about the fans and people who actually buy our records because without them
there would be no ‘Friction’.
JO: We can all take banter though so it doesn’t affect us that much really.
LF: Most of the time people say nice things to us which helps increase the ego, not that needs
boosting, but it’s always good to hear compliments on our music.

5. So next time we interview you where will The Friction be?
LF: On top of the world. Watch this space.
JO: Or we could end up back at Quality Save if things don’t go to planned.
LO: Don’t be saying that be positive lad.
LF: We’ll have just come off doing our world stadium tour.
LO: That’s the spirit.
The Friction’s debut album ‘Strange Happenings’ available 10th
April