The Magic Numbers - Michele Stodart Interview

Beginner’s luck? A slew of award nominations and a prime opening slot for U2 later, two sets of brothers and sisters totaling The Magic Numbers enjoy their charmed debut as they embark on a spring tour and ready to follow up their successful self-titled album.

The Magic Numbers enjoys platinum status in the UK where the band, Romeo (vocals/guitar) and Michele Stodart (vocals/bass/keyboards) and Angela (vocals/Melodica) and Sean Gannon (drums), first formed in 2004. Nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, Mojo (winner of best new band 2005), NME Awards and the Brits, it’s safe to bet this sibling reverie will continue to add up to more than chance.

Romeo and Michele moved to New York from native Trinidad during their teens and later made England their home. Destiny introduced the Gannons.

“The first time we started making music together we never really pictured ourselves as a band,” says Michele Stodart. “It kind of fell together accidentally. Eventually we couldn’t stop fighting anymore and we realized we had to be in a band with our brothers and that was it (laughs)…It works out well. Being on the road is hard at times so traveling with family and friends you’ve known all your lives relieves that.”

The band’s formula sparks with chemistry, but at the end of the day, it’s the music’s spell that lingers. Even members can’t help but become fans.

“His writing just makes me cry sometimes, to be honest,” says Michele about Romeo’s songwriting. “It really moves me and sends me somewhere that I like to feel. It can make me happy and it can bring me down. There are songs I can’t listen to. ‘This Love,’ on the record, is particularly a hard one for me to hear because of the words. It’s one of my favorite songs of his and one of the best written songs, I wouldn’t say ever, but definitely close to. To be related to someone like that and to be in a band with someone like that, it’s pretty special and it’s an amazing feeling to do this thing together.”

There’s brilliance in songwriting that kicks around life’s darker emotions whilst leaving you uplifted, a sense many absorb from The Magic Numbers’ harmonies. Michele feels it too.
“I think when the four of us come together, we bring a new element to the songs, and to the band in general,” says Michele. “There is a sense of hope and a sense of happiness and the music adds to it. When you put the two saddest emotions in the world, ‘sadness’ and ‘happiness’ together, you’re left not really knowing how to feel or what to draw from. But it’s something that everyone goes through and I think that’s why the record is so honest. I think that’s why it’s very personal to us.”

The road’s been faithful to The Magic Numbers and they reciprocate. The members “spend most of their days in the nighttime” lately, according to Michele, and even when they’re on their last legs, they’ll take another gig.

“I think we’ve been through a pretty mad ride so far,” says Michele. “We forget somehow all the craziness that’s happened to us over the years and we’ve made certain dreams come true that we weren’t cheeky enough to even imagine.”

The Magic Numbers perform March 28 at Webster Hall.

Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly (3/22/06).

The Magic Numbers perform "Love Me Like You."