The Asps label

The Asps Biography, The Asps consist of P J Dourley Vocals/Guitar, keys, Jonny McGowan Drums, Tam Ferguson Guitars and Simon Price on Bass Guitar. They have just released an EP entitled ‘All the Wrong Idols’. 2009 seen the Asps supporting NewYork band Glint to a full house at Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire. It was here that Jamie Watson (Snow Patrol, Idlewild, Vaselines) from Human Condition records, expressed an interest in recording with them. What followed was the self release of an EP entitled ‘All The Wrong Idols’, through The Asps own label BigSur.

The band have been working and re-working their material over the course of the last 3 years, which has become dynamic through live performance. It has always been imperitive to The Asps , that the songs sound truthful, which is why it took so long to get the first batch of songs recorded. The Asps as a unit, simply thrash out ideas until a little piece of something occurs, then they shape it from there. If their influences come through in the songs, its merely circumstantial as they try not to work to any pre-existing formulas for music creation. As PJ Dourley explains “ Its all about feeling, and nobody is going to tell anybody how to feel…I think as humans we can figure that one out for ourselves, and its futile and predictable to construct an image of ourselves and tell you what we think we sound like.”

The Asps thrive on playing live because they can gage how their songs should be played by audience reaction. As McGowan explains “Its interesting sometimes because we have just spent months recording a track at a certain tempo, then we find a really rev’d up audience and play them at almost twice the speed, then we stick to that for a while and find it hard to get back to the original tempo’s…feeling the music and recording it are two different things!.”

The Asps recently had a review in The Daily Record (The Razz, Rick Fulton), who described them as “ Scotlands answer to Kings of Leon” and described their E.P “All The Wrong Idols” as “stunning”.

Since the summer of ‘09 The Asps have had a very busy time, they played Caberet Voltaire twice, Edinburgh’s Tree Fest (electric & acoustic sets), the first Haddow Fest also Big Sur’s label launch at the Electric Circus and recorded their new E.P “All The Wrong Idols” under the Big Sur label. The Asps are currently working on new material for their new album which they are adding to their live sets. 2010 looks certain to see The Asps move to new heights.