Advertiser interview with Dan Hipgrave

Dan Hipgrave seems very happy. But when you think about it why wouldn’t he be. He plays guitar for Toploader who over the last six months have emerged from nowhere as one of the leading lights in British music.

In the past few months they have played at most of the major British Festivals as well as playing at the Fuji Rock festival in Japan. Add to this a double gold selling album, two top twenty singles and the claim of being the last British band to play at Wembley when they supported Bon Jovi and you have quite a success story.

However it does not surprise the group. “The thing is” claims Dan “We expected all of this and much more. What surprised me most was how hard it was to actually break into music. I never realised there was so much politics involved in getting radio airtime or your video played on MTV”
The claim of not being surprised might come across as arrogance on the bands part. But this criticism would be unfair. What Toploader are, is extremely confident in their own ability add to this a fierce determination to succeed in the long term and you pretty much sum up the attitude of Toploader.

It all really started to get going for Toploader when they were signed by Sony’s S2 label back in 1998. “This is actually when we started working on Onka’s Big Moka (Their debut album)” says Dan “People think we made it in the last eight months but we actually started to write it two years ago”

Their album was released earlier this year to a mixed reaction from Critics. In an era when the likes of Coldplay and JJ72 were releasing their Radiohead influenced albums Toploader released something different. Where as a Coldplay were doing the angst ridden lyrics and raw emotion Toploader’s album was very upbeat, a bit rock and a real good time album. It made a refreshing change.

This seemed to baffle the critics, as there was no one obvious that you could compare them to. Comparisons were made to everyone from Jamiroquai to The Rolling Stones. “Everyone seemed to want to pigeonhole us.” Explains Dan “ I would like to think that we are different from other bands” Lead singer and keyboardist Joseph Washbourne has been quoted as saying that ‘The way our band works is you got an amazing keyboard player and singer, an amazing drummer and bass player and two dodgy guitarists. And it makes us great’ Dan laughs at this comment “Being one of the guitarists I would have to disagree. What he means by this is that both Joseph and our bassist Matt Knight are classically trained musicians. Where as me and Julian aren’t.” The comments made both by Joseph and Dan do make a serious point. Where as most modern bands have a lead singer who plays guitar Toploader are different in the fact that their main creative man is a keyboard player.

Following the success of their album which went gold within two weeks the band have played successful sets at most of the famous British Festivals including playing in front of a huge crowd at Glastonbury in June. They followed this by playing to over 50,000 people at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. “Fuji was cool,” claims Dan “It was completely different to the British festivals. The fans are very polite. Where as British fans would scream and shout when they like you the Japanese just clap very quickly. You really had to be there to believe it.”

If all of this wasn’t enough Toploader then supported Bon Jovi on their European tour. This included going down in History as the last British band to play at Wembley stadium. “Playing Wembley was fantastic” admits Dan “One of the best days of my life so far.” Dan is also full of praise for Jon Bon Jovi. “He was so cool and sweet. Anything we wanted he provided. Some big groups get a bit A***y about there support groups, but Jon was fine. We even got to have a few beers with him.”During all of this Toploader have not lost their sense of fun. In a recent Interview with NME they claimed that they would eventually be bigger then the Rolling Stones. “We say a lot of s**t to the media and don’t actually mean it” Admits Dan “The other day we told German MTV that Julian lives in a commune and travels around the country. They actually believed us.”

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