The Answer are a Northern Irish hard rock band from Newcastle and Downpatrick, County Down, Northern Ireland, UK. They have achieved success with their debut album Rise selling in excess of 30,000 copies in the UK and Europe, 10,000 on day one in Japan and 100,000 worldwide.

The Answer were formed in 2000 by guitarist Paul Mahon, whose father was a jazz trumpeter and member of seminal Irish showband The Freshmen, who released three albums on CBS and toured with the likes of the Beach Boys. Aged 18, Paul knew he wanted to put together a rock band and mentioned it to bassist Micky Waters, an old school friend who had been in numerous cover bands around Belfast.

James Heatley, who had played as Ash's stand-in live drummer in 1993, was recruited to be the drummer for The Answer. Paul called him up only to find that he was about to take his finals at University, so the trio waited whilst James completed his degree in Psychology.

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