Probing BB Mak's Head
BB Mak member Ste McNally is calling TeenMusic.com from Toronto, Canada. His voice sounds very Beatles-like over the phone (BB Mak hail from Liverpool, England) and he also exudes that acid-tongue wit made famous by the Fab Four. He and his band mates Christian Burns and Mark Barry are promoting the band's second album, Into Your Head, a recording that has generated interest in the pop music world because of its 'big guitar' sound, which is a progressive step forward for the band.
The first single Out of My Heart (Into Your Head) is doing well in the charts and is a song that particularly features the big guitar sound mentioned above. Ste and his band mates are excited in the direction BB Mak is taking, and say that Out of My Heart was the catalyst for their new album.
"We were writing stuff on the road while we were doing the tour," says Ste. We got home and sat down and one of the first songs that we wrote was Out of My Heart. We wrote it in an hour. It was one of those songs that was meant to be written. It sounded great on the acoustic guitar and that kind of relieved some pressure because we knew it could be a single. We thought, this song sounds great, let's write a couple more like this."
It's been a banner two years for BB Mak. The English trio burst onto the scene in 2000 as an alternative for boyband-weary girls enamored by three guys who sang and played their own instruments. This difference placed the band at the front of a new direction in pop—people who look like they're in a boyband but really aren't—resulting in landmark performances, cool awards show appearances, and a single that rode high in the charts for months. That single, Back Here took the Liverpudlians (I love the fact that this is a real word) from English talent shows to international fame.
The path from an internationally successful album to the money inherent goes no further than beautiful guitars for Ste. Since BB Mak made it big he's been creating the guitar collection of his dreams. He now has 15 beauties and a room in his new house dedicated to the pleasure of playing them. You can see one of his favorites, a sunburst acoustic, in the Out of My Heart video.
Oh yeah, the house. Ste bought one of those too.
"I bought myself a little house in Liverpool," says Ste. "I won't be on MTV's Cribs anytime soon. I'm never there. My brother and his girlfriend live there right now so there's always someone in the house to look after it and stuff."
The BB Mak boys are currently living their lives out of a suitcase. It's all in the name of music and promotion. It helps that BB Mak are excited about their new album and want their fans to hear it.
"It feels great," says Ste about releasing Into Your Head. "We've been in the studio for the last six months from January until the end of July finishing the album off. It was cool. We wanted to go into the studio and write some songs and record them. There was a little bit of pressure because of the success of the first album."
That's probably an understatement. BB Mak's debut album Sooner or Later went Platinum. Their single Back Here was an international hit. Top that with the fact that Into Your Head is BB Mak's sophomore album (many group's second album proves to be a dud due to the pressure of trying to match the musical greatness of their debut) and BB Mak certainly faced 'a little bit of pressure' as they began writing songs this past year. By all accounts, however, the group has succeeded in beating the sophomore jinx.
Being a pop star also goes hand in hand with some level of fame, a reality that Ste says you have to approach in a humble manner. "As a band that's never affected us much because we've had to work for it so long. It's been six and a half years at this point already," says Ste. "We're so grateful to our fans and the people who supported us on the first record and the people who are supporting us on the new record."
Was that fame due in part to the group's boyband look? Possibly. Then again, it's quite unusual for any major label artist to be ugly. Still, BB Mak's group look was so physically strong that the trio had to overcome boyband references early in their career. Adamant that they weren't a boyband for the simple reason that they sang their own songs and played their own instruments, the moniker has stuck to some extent. Into Your Head serves to stop that misleading tag once and for all.
"People see us in a picture and see three young guys and immediately think that we must be a boyband," says Ste. "But it's a misconception, if you listen to our record or you see us playing, you'll realize we're going back to how it used to be, everybody used to play, write, and sing. You can't call 'N Sync or the Backstreet Boys a band because they don't play instruments. I refer to them as vocal groups."
Happy with their lot as a successful pop act, BB Mak have overcome many obstacles in their short career. They're making a name for themselves in music and maturing with every release, while garnering critical applause in the process. In other words, their music has gotten into people's heads, which was the band's intent in the first place.
"It's a twist on the single's title Out of My Heart (Into Your Head) which is about a positive relationship. It's about when everything is great with that person, and that's what it felt like when we were making this record. It was very exciting and it felt great. We want to get the music of BB Mak into people's heads."
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