Credit: Found On Internet

We’re talking about ‘The City of Dreams’ yes friends, Coventry is back on the musical map in the shape and beautiful form of The Ripps. For those of you who thought The Specials were the first and last great thing to come out of Coventry, think again, The Ripps are currently bouncing off Coventry’s city walls and weaving their own brand of guitar driven power-pop til we’re ready to call it a day let alone a night. Their new single Vandals is forceful, fizzing and in yer face and we’re loving it.

Formed over a greasy breakfast at the Reading Festival, Singer Patch suggested to good friend Rachel that she came over to jam with him and his brother Raul
 
‘She was moving to Brighton to live the following week, so we didn’t think anything would come of it. We rehearsed the night we got back from Reading and as soon as we played we knew it worked. We rehearsed all week. She didn’t move to Brighton. Thank fuck!’

So who’s the ‘vandal’ in the band then? ‘You could make a case for each of us. Rachel cus she hangs around with mods and as we all know, they’re always fighting rockers. Raul cus he hangs around with rockers and as we all know, they’re always fighting mods. Me cus I’m well cool’.

It seems Coventry can be a tad quiet at times, but that doesn’t mean this three-piece ever seem to shut up  ‘There’s nothing to do but get pissed so you’d think the city would have a long list of bands but there ain’t been owt since the Primitives. It’s difficult to pin down how Cov has inspired us because we’ve always lived here, our friends and family are here, it’s our home. Therefore we’ve written about our experiences in this city, some good, some bad.’  However, they don’t subscribe to Coventry being a shithole ‘Anyone who wants to run this city down should come and spend some time here.  We’d show them how to have a good time!  Cov is the city of dreams.’

Raul and Patch, are brothers whose parents escaped the political persecution from General Pinochet in Chile, so where will the political and musical influence take shape  ‘Well some of our songs have Spanish lyrics so that’s an obvious one. A lot of latin folk is very political so that’s been influential. I think the main influence has been our dad’s collection of pan pipes! The next album is gonna be full of em!’ You can never have enough pan pipes – that’s we we’re always saying. ‘We have opinions and we’re not afraid to share em. No doubt we’ll write some more politically motivated stuff but we’re not just about that. Whatever’s affecting us that’s what we write about.’