There are a few rumours flying around about the squeaky clean nature of Atlas, but on my date with lead singer Sean, I got him to dish the dirt.

Instantaneous yes, inconsequential no - a general theme that seems to reappear in his later, more juicer stories. Sean doesn’t have the best track record for keeping out of trouble, with the trashing of a hotel room on a recent tour to vouch for it. There were no TVs thrown out the windows, but an ensuing “bed fight” in which they practically threw the beds around at each other, suggests that it was anything but tame.

On another fateful night, Sean also found himself nearly getting arrested. Testament to the ‘don’t drink and drive’ campaign, Sean got behind the wheel after he became worried about a friend who had also taken off after a few too many. He got a bit down the road before finding that his friend had been pulled over by police, a fate he too was then to face. Whoops - at least his heart was in the right place.

In another bizarre story, Sean managed to recently set his hair alight. Twice. A review of his MySpace page brought up many questions surrounding this little incident as well as making me concerned about how many little groupies my date has following him - it was time to get down to business...

How did you manage to set your hair on fire?
We were in Whakatane. We had just finished a gig, great crowd - they were fun and they were so supportive. After the gig I went up to the hotel room and sneakily, not supposed to be doing it, stuck my head out the window to smoke a cigarette. My hair was hanging down and I went to light my cigarette, and it caught this [his hair] and it went [insert noise of hair catching on fire here]. My whole head was engulfed, luckily I haven’t lost much hair. Even worse, and this is gonna make me sound dumb, I did it the next night and I’d only had one beer! I can’t even write it off to say I was drunk.

Ever hooked up with any of your MySpace groupies?
No I have not. I’ve met heaps of them. MySpace is such a great facility to really get to know people. The fans, they’ll write you comments and ask you questions… so when you finally get to meet those people and they come along to the shows, it’s wicked you know? It makes for great conversation, you get right into it - you’ve already done the ice breaker and it’s great. I love it but no, I have not hooked up with any of the girlies on Myspace yet.














So what should they do to get your attention then?
Think that I‘m funny?! What should they do to get my attention... smile. My favourite thing is when you see an attractive girl who gives you a good smile. That beats anything and if that smile can be backed up with good conversation, then they’re a winner.

Do you have a type?
Stylish, have to have great taste in music - that’s essential, but also willing to let me teach them a thing or two.

What's your definition of good taste in music?
Willing to experiment and find new music is immediately great taste in music. Other than that if you know the old stuff - that’s great taste in music. A lot of people that I meet know just what’s out now and it’s quite nice when you meet a girl who knows that the stuff they listen to is inspired by older stuff. That’s so important for me because I’m so inspired by all these older bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin. So if a girl comes up to me and says, ‘The Beatles’ or ‘Led Zeppelin’ - I’m in! I’m ready to have a conversation and chat about that.

I was impressed. After his musings on New Zealand as “a great place for creative people” and his affinity to good taste in music (which is as good as sweet talking me), I vowed to drag him into the mosh pit for Rage, should I see him at the BDO (romantic second date perhaps?).

Fun guy and good times (as the somewhat crazy photos attest!), Sean is not half bad to grab a beer with.

Liselle