From the Archives - The Belles Interview
from Songs to Learn and Sing Hosted by Paul McDermott
Omertá the debut album by The belles was released in March 2004 and I interviewed Chris Tolle, the band’s singer and guitarist, for Songs To Learn And Sing when they were gigging in Ireland that year. Chris chatted about growing up in a small University town in the U.S. Midwest, American novelist Wally Lamb's influence on the album's name, The Pernice Brothers and songwriting. Chris also enthused about his love of The Replacements. “I probably got Let it Be when I was maybe 13 or 14 years old,” he said. “It was definitely a huge, huge influence seeing bands like the Replacements. It made me realise that to be in a rock band and write songs you didn’t have to be Kiss or have a big gimmick, just be regular people making music and it really kind of helped to shape that idea in my head. Minneapolis was six hours drive away from where we were from (Lawrence, Kansas) so there were a lot of things that they were singing about which connected with us.” Omertá is a lovely Americana record: laidback acoustic arrangements, no-frills, great harmonies, sweet melodies and still sounds totally brilliant. http://songstolearnandsing.blogspot.com/
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