By JOANNE RAENA RAJ
alltherage@thestar.com.my

I grew up dreaming of being able to spend a whole day hanging out with someone from a band I really liked, and that dream came true last week – with Jed Cullen, the guitarist for British indie rockers Spector.

R.AGE ran a competition allowing one lucky guy the chance to have a RM500 Topman shopping spree with one of the Spector boys as his personal stylist. And guess who R.AGE chose to follow the winner? Me! =D

Gary Hor, 24, was the winner of the contest, and all he had to do was send a photo of him imitating Spector’s trademark retro-hipster style to our Facebook page (of course his style had to look good also lah…).

The funny thing is, Gary isn’t even a fan of Spector! Well, he probably is now…

Spector guitarist Jed Cullen (R) playing stylist for once with R.AGE contest winner Gary Hor.

Anyway, Jed, 23, was the band member assigned to style Gary. So while Gary was busy trying on clothes Jed had picked out for him at Topman Suria KLCC, I was having my dream fulfilled, chatting away with Jed about the most random things.

He made me feel really comfortable around him because he answered all my questions, no matter how stupid they were. I even ended up helping Jed pick out a pair of shoes for himself!

Gary was pretty cool too and the three of us got along really well, which made the experience so much more fun.

UK Indie Band Spector: (L-R): Christopher Burman, Thomas Shickle, Fred Macpherson, Danny Blandy, Jed Cullen.

But even before the shopping experience, R.AGE had assigned me to do a video interview with the band. The entire band.

Lead singer Frederick Macpherson was the most talkative, as most frontmen are. He just went off tangent over and over again, but he was fun and really friendly. The other guys, Danny Blandy, Thomas Shickle and Christopher Burman were a little more quiet at first, but they all opened up once we directed some questions at them.

Still, the best part of the whole experience for me was having the band recognise me at the autograph session after their concert. The guys played last Saturday night at The Stage, Avenue K, in Kuala Lumpur.

British indie rock band Spector having a laugh during a video interview with the BRATs.

Since they started playing together 18 months ago, Spector has been gaining fans all around the world. They have been compared to the likes of The Killers and The Strokes, and they definitely didn’t disappoint their Malaysian fans. But then again, after hanging out with them for a whole day, I’m probably biased.

I was also kinda-sorta bribed by drummer Danny after the concert. As the band was leaving after the autograph session, he came over to give me a hug, and before he could go I asked if he could give me his drumsticks.

To my surprise, he told me to stay where I was, and that he’d be back real soon. In a couple of minutes, he came back out with the very sticks he played the show with, and gave them to me!

All in all, having spent time chatting with the band, interviewing them, watching them in concert AND shopping with them, I’d have to say: “dream realised”.