Dominic McGuinness of buzz band The Bohicas tells Tim Hughes that rock should come from the heart not the head

Big, brash and loud, The Bohicas are a proper rock & roll band.

There’s no room for posturing or intellectualising. They play for kicks and it’s all great fun.

Frontman Dom McGuinness, has no doubt what makes their music so appealing.

“It’s created quickly. It’s about trusting your instinct and not about posturing or being interesting.

“Rock is supposed to be from and for the guts not the brain. It’s not that I don’t like intelligent music, it just doesn’t connect with me; it doesn’t do anything for me.

“I could say the same thing about plumbing.”

Dom is talking from his hotel room in Sheffield the morning after an incendiary show in Manchester.

He has been recovering by watching a bad cowboy film. “It’s dreadful,” he laughs. “It’s all two-handed punches and really badly assembled tables which keep getting smashed.”

He admits to have been taken aback by the success of the shows, which follow the release of the Essex band’s debut album.

“It’s going really well,” he says. “It’s the first since the album and, for the first time, we are seeing reaction from the crowd for album tracks, with groups of lads knowing the words.

“When we did our first headline tour before the summer, if anyone knew any of the songs it would only be a handful of singles. But these album tracks are a bit more tough.

“It’s not that people didn’t like them before, it’s that they didn’t know them. It’s so good to see it all working.”

On the surface, things appear to have gone quickly for Dom, drummer Brendan Heaney, guitarist Dom John and bassist Adrian Acolatse – who seem to have emerged fully-formed.

Among the audience at their first major gig was one Alex Kapranos, frontman of Franz Ferdinand. He liked them so much he offered them a show in Ibiza.

“Our second big gig was at Ibiza Rocks,” says Dom. “But we didn’t just come out of nowhere, even if it may look like that. We had already played loads before with other bands, and worked really hard and for a long time to get everything to fall into place.”

He goes on: “The three of us met at school when we were 12 or 13 and we all played in different bands. It was when we changed the name and started to feel more confident and find our feet musically, that everything started to happen.”

He adds: “There was a lot of backwards and forwards before the Bohicas, but it’s all in the name of dodging real work – and the longer we can do that for, the better.”

And the name? “It’s a military acronym, for ‘Bend Over, Here It Comes Again’,” he laughs.

“We are not military minded in the least, but it can be used in different ways, to mean ‘brace yourself for impending doom’. There are so many bands coming out, and we are showing we have that self-knowledge.

“It’s a bit naughty as well!”

On Sunday the boys from Hainault play The Bullingdon, in Oxford’s Cowley Road. The show will be their second in the city, having previously cut a swathe through the O2 Academy, up the road.

“That was a great show,” Dom smiles. “There was a moshpit going on and someone lost a shoe, which is great.”

And what can we expect this time? “I’m not the type of person to say it’s going to be the best rock & roll gig ever, but it will be high energy fun with a strong backbone of harmony and melody,” he says.

“It’s the immediacy that rock music has that I’m trying to harness,” he goes on, before turning his attention to the spaghetti western on the telly.

“It’s supposed to be about escape. It’s about fun and entertainment – it’s not an essay!”

GO ALONG
The Bohicas play The Bullingdon in Cowley Road, Oxford, on Sunday. Tickets from wegottickets.com