Mr Shiraz - Renegades of Funk Metal

I first met the Leeds based band Mr.Shiraz way back in 2000 whilst on tour with my own band. We played together in Leeds and hit it off like a house on fire, great bunch of people, our own age, and hungry for the scene. They were a crazy ska punk band with a guy in the band that did fuck all but dance, awesome ness. You can read much about them (and even BY them as Mike the singer contributed quite a bit) in my book "Second Place Heroes".

Since they were called "Mr.Shiraz" and my band was called "Mr.Zippy"...wow that was it, bezzies for life. After that day we have played together many times, stayed at each other's houses and if I remember rightly one day when I was on the road playing Merch-Monkey for the sadly missed One To Many I invaded a club in Leeds to surprise them.

Singer Mikey is still my matey on the ol' Facetube and played me some of their new tunes last night - shit the bed hands down awesome. Remember how Faith No More were right at the end, well...imagine that they didn't break up and were a little bit less wussy and there you have how Mr.Shiraz sound today.

Very awesome stuff, and really like, something fresh and original to listen to that I can't really pigeon hole...and that's just good!

Check them out and get the new album when you can.

http://www.myspace.com/mrshiraz