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Metro
Disposable brilliance...
metrotheatre
By Robert McMillen
unique punk... journey to stardom features Saffron from the band
Republica Picture: Cathal McNaughton
metroconcert
“I’m just mad about saffron,” sang hippy Donovan back in the 1960s
and the same is true for the masses of fans won over by the stunning
singer with rock band Republica.
Meeting pop’s latest Diva in the Hilton Hotel last week was an
unexpected pleasure no tantrums or superiority complexes, the
sweeping rush into celebrity not having inflicted any obvious
psychoses on the petite singer and with a wonderful view out over
the Lagan we sat, drank coffee and had a chat about music, Belfast
and the world.
Born in Nigeria to Portuguese/Chinese parents but brought up on
England’s south coast, Saffron talked of her cosmopolitan life
before Republica’s journey to stardom.
“My mum was born in Hong Kong though she’s Portuguese from Macau.
My dad’s English and I was born in Nigeria because my parents
worked for an American tobacco company, but when the Biafran war
stated up we had to up and leave rather sharpish,” she recounts.
Back in England, Saffron veered between the stage and music until
the latter finally won out. Along with friends Tim Dorney and
Jonny Male, the very different threesome somehow gelled and Republica
was formed.
“All the members of the band have been involved in music for about
10 years we’d all been in bands before and I had done some solo
stuff but I was very young,” Saffron recalls.
“I think you need a few years to progress to writing your own
music and also to look after the business side which is very important.”
Republica started about six years ago, with a mission to play
the kind of music no-one else was doing.
“We had come out of the club and dance scene and we got together
purely to mix dance music with proper songs and guitars because
no-one had done that before,” she explained.
“We were very lucky to get a record deal and for almost all of
the first four years we were slogging it out around the clubs
and stuff, until we got lucky.”
While luck may have had something to do with it, Republica’s self-styled
techno pop punk rock was sure to fire the aural imagination. It
is noticeable that so many of today’s bands attribute their sound
to that explosion of noise and body-piercing that was punk. Does
Republica acknowledge the link?
“Certainly there are definite elements of punk in our music,”
she says. “We all grew up in the 80s so we were sort of post-Punk,
but female-fronted groups like Blondie, Siouxsie, Hazel O’Connor
all those people who were my idols when I was growing up I loved
that punky sounding, poppy sounding music.”
Now that they are established the band are on their way towards
a lifestyle they has always dreamed off.
“I feel very lucky and grateful to be doing what I want to do.
I’d hate to be doing a 9-5 job, anything but that, at the same
time, there is a lot of hard work involved especially when you’re
on tour.”
Outside the band there is very little time for Saffron to do anything,
although she loves reading, her books mostly fantasy and science
fiction go everywhere with her.
But it is the music for her pop band that is Saffron’s over-riding
passion. The album Speed Ballads and the single Ready to Go have
opened a door to people’s affections.
“I don’t get it when people say ‘just a pop band’, ” says Saffron.
“I think being a brilliant pop band is the highest thing you can
aspire to. Pop music that’s both throwaway and something that
changes your life. That’s what we want to achieve disposable
brilliance.”
Republic’s brilliance can be seen and heard at Lanyon Place tomorrow
night, with support from Dogstar.
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