Handsome Is As Handsome Does

02/09/2001 6:00 PM, LAUNCH
Sandy Masuo

Most musicians quit their day job routine as a way of punctuating musical success. But the three Liverpool lads in BBMak gave up steady work so that they'd have no choice but to make their band pay off. Ste McNally, Mark Barry, and Christian Burns spent the first year or so of BBMak's existence teetering on the brink of abject poverty before they devised a plan for taking one last heroic shot at the brass ring. In late 1997, the blokes packed their bags and (with a little monetary help from friends and family) bought three train tickets to London, where they set themselves on a collision course with the music business.

"We were very determined," McNally explains in a hefty Liverpudlian brogue. "We'd quit our jobs, we had no money at all. It was like, 'We've got to get a record deal.'"

Camping out on the living room floors of Burns's friends at night, the trio spent its days pounding the pavement in a quirky quest to get signed. Instead of relying on demo tapes and the Royal Post to infiltrate labels' inner A&R sanctums, BBMak took a more personal tack, demonstrating its music live for startled executives--a strategy that frequently involved breaching security and sometimes outmaneuvering the police.

"We didn't get in all the time," McNally recalls. "We got chased by the cops a few times, thrown out by security, but it was our life. We weren't going to let some security guy stand in our way, so we done a lot of ducking and diving, sneaking into offices."

The SWAT team tactics ultimately paid off, and before long offers began pouring in. "We didn't have a clue," McNally continues. "We just knew we were good and we could write songs and we wanted a record deal. And there was people at the week's end saying, 'We'll sign you.' We were like, 'Hold on a minute--we've taken our first step.' We were an unknown band one week, and the next week we were a band that everyone wanted to sign."

Armed with unshakable faith in their music (and the advice of a good attorney) McNally and his mates took the plunge into major-labeldom, and by the beginning of 2000, their debut, Sooner Or Later, was finished. A suite of gentle, lilting pop songs that sway between the joys and sorrows of falling in and out of love, the album fit in comfortably with the rising tide of teen-pop.

BBMak's appeal isn't exclusively musical, and once the band set out on its first world tour, audiences found the boys behind the tunes to be every bit as fetching as the hooks and harmonies they generate. McNally admits that the rampant boy band craze has worked out to his group's advantage, but he also points out that it's a trend they plan to outlast.

"It'll take people time to get over the boy band thing," he says. "You can call us whatever you like, as long as you enjoy the music. It doesn't really bother us--we're three young guys in a band, and we look after ourselves. If we were really ugly, everyone would just call us a rock band."