be impressed with how they went about achieving their goals, observes, ‘His parents took Ed very seriously. Because of their background in media and promotion, they were already treating Ed like a celebrity – quite extraordinary really.’
Part of the necessary process of celebrity was to take Ed out of his comfort zone in Framlingham and into the wider world. He continued to hope that contact with Nizlopi would prove the answer. They were firmly established as his favourite band but he was having no luck in engaging their attention. Ed was among the collection of fans known as the People’s Republic of Nizlopi, who knew the words to every song. Damien Rice was not forgotten, but Ed wanted to meet the duo from Royal Leamington Spa who offered so much more than one hit record. While he was enthusiastic about Gary Dunne’s looping at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Nizlopi moved him. He was spellbound by the way they engaged with the audience and made everyone at the venue feel involved.
Nizlopi were two old school friends – Luke Concannon, who sang and played guitar, and John Parker, a beatboxer and double bassist. Like Ed, they both have strong Irish connections. John’s mother is Irish and Luke’s grandparents were from Kerry and Roscommon, while his dad, Kieron, is an accomplished musician and keen piper. The boys grew up playing in folk-music sessions and festivals, singing in pubs and busking in Ireland. Luke explains, ‘It was very relatable for Ed. Our families are really quite similar.’
They also had a musical heritage that Ed could appreciate: ‘We had two strands of musical influence. We had the singalong stuff like The Beatles that we used to hear and play in pubs in England, as well as having some rare old times in Dublin. But alongside that, there was also this thing about being a modern young person listening to and playing hip hop. We had to figure out what our music was and so we called it folk hip hop.’
Their background was almost identical to Ed’s. He, too, had absorbed the classic Beatles tracks his dad played in the car, loved Planxty and The Chieftains during his trips to Ireland and had embraced the music of Eminem and Dr Dre. Later, when Ed would describe his own sound, he called it ‘acoustic hip hop’.
Luke and John needed to find a name for themselves. One afternoon they were sitting with their then band in the kitchen at Luke’s home when his mum mentioned to her son that a family friend, Di Nizlopi, was popping around on Sunday. One of the band misheard and asked ‘What’s a dinizlopi?’ thinking it was some weird dinosaur. Everybody laughed, and there and then they decided to call themselves Nizlopi, a Hungarian name. Luke liked the idea in particular because he had a ‘lust’ for the family’s daughter, Nina.
When he left school, Luke studied English at Sussex University and after he had graduated invited John to join him in Brighton. They spent time gigging around the town while writing and rehearsing much of their first album, Half These Songs Are About You
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