The Rifles

Locked, Loaded and Lagged

'How sexy can a Scotch egg be?’  asks lead singer Joel incredulously as he looks at the  ‘Sexy Scotch Egg’  option on the menu in front of us.  ‘Well, it’s not really turning me on to be honest,’ says drummer Grant, who plumps instead for the  ‘Sexy Sausage Roll’. The two guitarists – Luke and Rob – aren’t keen on any kind of kinky undertone to their food, and opt for the more conservative club sandwich. After much deliberation, Joel finally chooses the sausage roll – then orders the Sexy Scotch Egg out of curiosity. 

The setting for this bizarre exchange is not some food-obsessed strip club, but The Holly Bush, an old-fashioned English pub, tucked away in the backstreets of Hampstead, north London. A pub that Joel has picked, not on the strength of how sexy its food is, but on the basis it sells hot apple and cinnamon – a drink that all of us are happily sipping, albeit with the addition of either vodka or scotch, out of tiny glass mugs. It’s not quite the rock’n’roll antics I’d expected from a band who sold out Brixton Academy the previous Friday, but for London four-piece The Rifles, Scotch eggs and hot apple will do just fine.

I join the band, and session pianist Deano, the morning after the last night of their UK tour, which is promoting second album, Great Escape. Technically, they should be utterly destroyed and staring at each other across the table with post-tour loathing, but they’re not, and are happily laughing with each other about their respective fantasy football teams. 

‘Woodgate fucked me up at the beginning,’  says Rob.  ‘And all my players are injured. There’s £200 up for grabs but I’m about 16th so I’ve fucked it off now.’   The others are faring no better, with Joel languishing at the bottom of his mates’ league, and Deano being beaten by a girl who picked her team based on surnames she liked. Only Luke, who neither knows what fantasy football is, nor cares, is free from all football-related frustrations.

‘Football has never interested me,’ he says.  ‘As a teenager I used to play snooker in Camden on Delancey Street. There was this sweet old boy called Fred in there who gave me a fiver when I got my first century break. He tapped me on my shoulder and said,  “There you go boy.”  I’d just turned 16 and was going to get into it, but then I thought it looks better walking down the road carrying a guitar rather than a fucking snooker cue.’ 

So five years ago, he and the other lads formed The Rifles in Walthamstow.  Though all of the chaps have now left there and live in different places these days,  they have fond memories of their former stomping ground.

‘We used to go down The Standard quite a lot,’  says Grant.  ‘It’s a venue renowned for its cover bands. We saw a Madness gig there once – One Step Behind. And we supported UB4T.’

‘Who’d want to be in a UB40 tribute band?’  I ask.  ‘Who’d want to support one?’ Joel laughs back. He then tells me how gutted he was when Walthamstow dog track closed.  ‘I worked there three times – as a potboy, a cleaner, and as a dog! Nah, I was a cleaner twice, and I was working there just before we got signed.’

Since getting signed, they’ve released debut album No Love Lost, been adopted as the house band for Soccer AM, and recently toured with their idol Paul Weller. Despite this, they remain stoically down to earth and insist they’re still just normal lads having a laugh, whether that’s making music, watching Andrew Dice Clay DVDs, or playing video games together.

‘We spent the whole tour playing Fight Night on the Xbox,’  says Luke.  ‘We’ve been battering each other all night. Grant is unbeatable.’

‘Tiger Woods probably gets played the most though,’ says Rob. ‘We played it so much we broke it. I don’t even like golf but that game is the bollocks.’ 

We start talking about other games that they’ve been addicted to over the years – Sensible Soccer (‘the ball didn’t stick to their feet’) and Kick Off 2 (‘it has the gayest sounding ref ever’), before Joel excitedly pipes up,  ‘Ah, you know you can buy those control pads with games built in? There was this platform game called Burger Time.  You’re this little chef and you’ve got to run over the top of a bun, then the next level’s a bit of lettuce, and then there’s a burger at the bottom. You’re being chased by a gherkin and a fried egg, and the only way you can get rid of them is to throw salt in their eyes to stun them. It’s the best game ever.’

I remain unconvinced but the others nod their heads in agreement, so I tell him I’ll check it out. As another round of hot apples is brought in, I decide that now could be a good time to move swiftly on from wierd fast food-inspired games to favourite films.

‘I want to put Brewster’s Millions on the table straight away,’ says Luke adamantly. ‘Richard Pryor and the Hackensack Bulls… I love that film. All John Hughes films are pretty good too – The Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains And Automobiles, Home Alone…’

The others name theirs – Dazed And Confused, No Country For Old Men, Goodfellas,  Stand By Me, even the films by Spirited Away director Hayao Miyazaki get a mention. No sooner has Luke started enthusing about the  ‘beautiful Japanese animation’  though, and the others are off discussing a different type of film appreciation – that of nudey women.

‘Porky’s was the one for me,’  says Deano. ‘No, no, Kelly LeBrock in Weird Science,’  says Joel.  ‘What about 9½ Weeks?’  Grant offers. As we all sit back, goggle-eyed trying to remember those magical moments, Luke suddenly springs into life, yelping,  ‘No, no! Trading Places when Jamie Lee Curtis gets her tits out! They’re fantastic.’

‘Yeah, that’s a film where you had to hit pause on the  VHS!’  says Grant. 

‘What? She’s got a short back and sides!’ laughs Joel.

‘Yeah, she looks like a bloke!’ says Rob.

With the four band members split right down the middle, the food finally arrives. The Rifles stare at the food, then at each other, and although nothing is said, an unspoken mutual compromise is reached – Jamie Lee Curtis with her tits out is a lot sexier than one of The Holly Bush’s Sexy Scotch Eggs.