Interviewing Britain’s best new bands

Luls

This young London-based trio were a breath of fresh air. I sat down with Adam and Shaun to talk to about shit.

How did you meet?

S: I met Adam who was playing for a friend of mine… cheeky smile towards Adam

You guys love each other.

S: How’d you know?The secret’s out… So yeah Adam was playing for a friend of mine. He looked a bit aggressive on stage, well that’s how I found him initially…

A: But it turns out I’ma massive win.

S: Yes, and I actually met Ben in a similar way.

So where are you from?

S: We’re all collectively London, almost. Adam’s been living in Camden, I live in Dalston and… uh… Ben’s from Narnia. No just joking, a little known place called Isleworth which I thought he was making up.

You could write a song about that.

A: Yes! A Led Zeppelin-esque ode to Isleworth…

What kind of sound of are you going for?

A: I guess in the early stages we were quite inspired by bands like Yeahs Yeahs, and TV on the Radio. We were trying to take the energy and the kind of vibes they had and make something of our own.

S: We feel we’re quite strong on the vocal side so we try to play to our strength. How have you found the other bands you’ve been touring with?

So it’s been us Spector and Swim Deep, we were going to one show with Splashh but unfortunately we got stuck in mammoth traffic, this was in Manchester.

So what do you think of Spector?

I like Spector, we like them, they’re a good band and we also like them as people

What do you think of Fred MacPherson?

I think he’s a lovely person – a kind, warm human being.

Are you looking forward to tonight?

Yes we are, we’ll be performing first but we wish we were performing later. We’re just going to take it as far as we can, and we’re really quite open to where we’re taking this.

You guys are going to be awesome.

S: Aww, thanks man. A: YES YES! High fives

Swim Deep

A short and sweet interview with dream-pop band, Swim Deep during which Austin desperately shuffled around the room for a bag ofLemsip.

Where does the name Swim Deep come from?

We just felt it just went along with everything we were doing with our music, as well as the imagery in our music videos. It just fits.

What influences your music?

We’re influenced by how we feel and like our surroundings.

How did you guys meet? I know one of you really likes strip clubs.

Me and Higgy worked in Morrison’s and we decided to start a band. We met Cavan on the dance floor and we saw Zach coming out of a strip club.

Nice. How has the Spector tour been so far?

Spector have been great and we really enjoyed playing with them. We’ve had loads of great experiences.

Splashh

London’s newest darlings were a chilled out band with a relentless rhythm propelling them along How did you guys meet?

Shasha (guitar): We’ve all have knowneach other weirdly through different mutual acquaintances. I’ve been friends with Jake (drums) since I was a teenager and I met Toto (vocals) and Beal (bass). J: I came over to just to join the band, crazy move. I am came all the way from New Zealand. It was a long trip. S: He went straight to band practice... J: Yeah, we had our first gig two days later.

What kind of equipment do you use?

S: It’s always different; we take what we can get at the moment. We’ll basically write this song and Toto will record it and turn into what it sounds like now. He’s a bit of a wizard on the production side of things. Heedits our music videos as well. Our creative hub!

What are your plans for the future?

S: Maybe an EP. We will put some songs out there for sure within the next few months. We are going to put loads more songs out there for sure. Last week we played in Dalston, it’s basically the grimiest place in London. We also played at the Old Blue Last.

You are kind of an East London band, do you know of any other up and coming bands that you’ve performed with recently?

Wolf Alice are cool. They were the first band on this Japanese promo and there was something very good about them. They are playing with us at our headline show at the 100club, that’s our first headline show in London. Our goal is to sell that one out.

S: We went and saw Tame Impala, they’re probably one of our favourite. There’s loads of healthy guitar music coming out these days.

T: Tame Impala are doing something real though, as well as being completely throwback what I reckon is that they are trying to appeal to all the people that love the Beatles and love Zeppelin. They’re the real deal man.