The Hoosiers are a band that have achieved far more with their careers than many musicians who begin their journey in the quieter parts of England could ever hope for. With hits like “Goodbye Mr A” and “Worried About Ray” still lodged in the public consciousness and a consistent output since 2007’s The Trick to Life, they rarely get the credit they deserve for their longevity, songwriting and work ethic.
Irwin Sparkes, the band’s lead vocalist, is one of two remaining original members from the days of “Ray” and “Mr A”, alongside long-time friend and bandmate Alan (Al) Sharland on drums.
“Me and Al met 31 years ago in rival schools in Bracknell and Reading. We weren’t friends to begin with but took each other more seriously when we started making music together. We were happy making music with our friends and nothing gave us a thrill like that.”
And they’ve been around the block.
“We are from a generation where the music industry worked slightly differently. We put on our sixth form leavers’ suits and go around to record companies and knock on their doors and ask for a meeting. Chrysalis Records were the only people that gave us the time of day. They gave us a can of Coke and told us why our songs weren’t good enough. Nothing but respect for that. They asked us what we were, a Blur rip-off? ‘This one’s 8 minutes, Radiohead had to earn that right.’”
Sport played an equally important role in the origin story of the band and led directly to their name and first taste of necessary failure.
“I was looking at a gap year working in a cinema and doing band stuff. We decided to do a sports scholarship to Indiana, US colleges had too much money and they’d seen videos of us playing. The air played with my asthma and the hard ground hurt Al’s feet. They called us Mr Wheeze and Mr Glass.”
“People think we’re from America, but we aren’t, we just failed in America first. That failure formed us there in the Hoosier State, gave us resilience too, which I’m still learning.”
“We came back to London for uni and gradually got better, especially when we met Toby who helped form Jamiroquai. Toby Smith originally produced us, both late and great, and he did our first two albums and is a huge part of our sound.”
Back in the early days, before success properly took hold, things were more chaotic and uncertain.
We had laid waste to the Reading toilet circuit. We played the Alley Cats live. We used to hear things like, ‘Blur will play there as a warm-up gig before R&L’. It was exciting. The Purple Turtle would never have us, but they’re still there. We did that for ten years of bothering people.
Would they go back?
We have in a lot of ways; we have played local venues a lot. We believe grassroots venues are crucial. You don’t learn from getting things right, you learn from getting things wrong, and being in a band you need to expect things to go wrong. This next year is our 20th anniversary; you need to learn to navigate a smaller audience before getting to big ones. Black Box Thinking, a book by Matthew Syed, reframes failure to an excruciating degree and is influential on both me and Al.
That experience of failure that comes from playing, or not playing, smaller venues is something Sparkes still carries with him and he channels into the band.
“With this album, Compassion, the point of the album is bigger than the music. I know that’s bad marketing. Compassion is so huge and necessary now. It’s why we teamed up with Music for Youth, which tries to put instruments in everyone’s hands. We were lower middle class and were lucky to have the opportunity to play instruments. This charity does that regardless of background. They put on a show at the Albert Hall which blew me away, those kids are better than I’ll ever be. It’s about being collaborative with the youth.”
“The concept of the album has been challenging. We did something online slagging Spotify. Someone replied saying, ‘I’m on Apple and they pay more, not that you get any cos I don’t listen to you, you’re shit!’ I wanted to reply so badly but thought: ‘we are in the swing of an album called Compassion’. I just thought that person should go and tell the people they like that they like them, rather than telling us we are shit. They thumbed up, which nearly made me weep. That felt like a victory, to get a thumbs up from a troll.”
“That was the micro inspiration for our album. The macro was: how can we practice what we preach without hectoring the audience? This led to Al and I being far more switched on about our responsibilities. We weren’t outspoken when we were younger, but we have got more politicised as we get older, an urge to be on the right side of history. Our fans can take some credit too, as we are cis-gendered white boys from Reading with a huge LGBTQIA+ audience who teach us so much and show us so much love and acceptance, and how can you not reciprocate?
Their broad and diverse audience informs their values which, in turn, affect the music and atmosphere of a Hoosiers gig.
Beyond virtue signalling online, it’s important to create an accepting space for everyone when on stage. It’s a joy to fill people’s cups up as they fill ours up. The world’s on fire, but if everyone’s got a full cup maybe we can make a bit of a difference, and what a way to make a living.
And it filters through to the band’s families too.
Al and I have come up with a triumvirate of albums, Confidence, Compassion, and our third album will be Curiosity. We have kids: what would we wish to imbue in our children? It’s those. Have compassion and curiosity for other people, and you’ve got the components of a good person
Despite their reputation for making noughties indie hits, their music has never lacked substance.
We’ve always had a predilection for writing a pop song with meat on the bone. ‘Ray’ is about an existential dilemma about falling in love and fearing loss. In the great timeline, you will lose everything you love and dealing with that. ‘Goodbye Mr A’ is about losing wonder and the magic of life. It’s partly about our old bassist, who was so scientific and pragmatic in his approach.
I want beautiful melodies telling me terrible truths, to quote Tom Waits. The intricacies of our songs always catch our new group members. Al always says when writing: ‘It doesn’t surprise me. Surprise me.’ Striving and struggle is inherent to good songwriting. I’ve had three years in therapy. Al too has a relationship with poor mental health. We didn’t want to be alpha. We wanted to be open very early on. Vulnerability is key to our journey. Al and I spend most of our time in the van, sharing our lives together. We talk about our parents a lot. We have better tools today to talk about these things. In ‘Ray’, we dealt with psychological issues. We have a song called ‘Everything Goes Dark’ which is about being your own enemy and not letting things go dark. A sadness runs through it, it’s very much a heart-on-the-sleeve song.
It seems that, having been this way since their inception as a band, this is quite a progressive approach and one that feels ahead of its time.
It moves us and it’s what we are like as people, having deep and meaningfuls. We have Bradders (Brad Bryan) and Leighton Allen. They’ve been with us over a decade now. If you came on the van, we have the biggest laughs, and we cry, and we have raw emotions. We are there for each other for all of it. The laughter always outweighs the horror, but we don’t hide from the hard stuff. The four of us share life, and that’s rare. We get to choose our microclimate. Lewis does our sound and is the tour manager. Miles and Ellen, they are our staples and go-to guys. We have a “no arsehole” policy.
Sparkes is clearly influenced by a philosophy towards life that centres on positivity and openness. This energy is a give and take with their audience. His passion for the band and their intentions shines through.
Aside from those ideals, what music makes them tick?
Al’s answer is Genesis. I had a religious upbringing; I was listening to Christian rap and barbershop sextets. I had a lot of catching up to do, I feel like I’ve been catching up ever since. Ben Folds Five. Weezer’s Blue Album. The Cars. That makes sense, thinking about them, where we ended up. ELO, Supertramp. I had the pleasure of playing with The Zombies at the Barbican two years ago. Paul Weller was playing with them, which was a wild evening and it made me very nervous and it was very much out of my comfort zone.
The Hoosiers are still very much on the road, but Sparkes is wary of how easily bands get filed away with the era they broke through in rather than what they are doing now.
We have a show with Scouting for Girls next year. My wife says we are grouped with them. We are different with what we do in our songwriting, but there is something about people loving to compartmentalise. You get grouped in over time. They are the loveliest guys. Lovelier than us! We are rat bastards!
It’s delivered as a joke, but it also hints at something more persistent for a band whose identity is often fixed in the late 2000s. Sparkes is relaxed about it, though, more amused than frustrated, and more interested in staying active than correcting the record.
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