They’ve been erroneously compared to Fleet Foxes, handpicked to support Band of Horses and their golden-yet-dishevelled pop songs have been a staple of the nation’s alternative music backbone, popular radio’s 6 Music. So why aren’t Goldheart Assembly as big as Coldplay? We’re fucked if we know, but now, after a gestation period of suitably grandiose proportions (three years and then some), the five-piece return with their sophomore album, Long Distance Song Effects, recorded in Switzerland and awash with 11 songs of burnished beauty lovingly crafted in the classic English songwriting tradition. In a world of sickeningly instant gratification there’s much to be said for waiting patiently for something genuinely worthwhile to come along, something indefatigable, something of rare substance. With that thought in mind we chased up the harmonious and handsome quintet and asked a series of lightly probing questions to see what wisdom we could glean from these charming men. We got that, but we got more…much more. Here are the answers…

Welcome back gentlemen! It’s been three years since the release of your debut album, what took you so long and what the heckfire have you been up to?
James Dale: Has it been three years? Jesus. We were hoping to put out a record every six months when we started. We’ve been in Luzern, Switzerland, hiding in the Alps, starving, drinking, recording and falling into a Swiss abyss. Lots of fun, but we missed you two.

The album was recorded in Switzerland, perhaps most famously the homeland of Alain Menu, presumably this wasn’t merely for tax purposes?
John Herbert: We don’t earn enough to pay any tax. It was one of those occasions when an opportunity presented itself. We met Tobi Gmur, a Swiss musician and producer, whilst on a European tour. He had a studio and a philanthropic attitude towards poor British bands, so offered Jim and I the opportunity to demo in the studio over the following year. We loved the studio and city of Luzern so decided that the album should be recorded there. We went over with the rest of the band in the summer of 2011 and got the majority of the record recorded.
Sometimes it’s nice to stray out of your comfort zone, and to go to another country to make a record is quite a liberating experience, you are at once free but also very isolated. I think the collective experience a band can have in such a situation makes them tight and imaginative. There’s a sense of the unknown, which in itself is energising.

The album is being released via New Music Club. How did that occur and why is it a good fit for you guys?
JD: It was by accident really. I was trying to help our friend WALL get some industry interest so I was spending a lot of time in Kensington going to see labels and I kept bumping into Ian from New Music Club on a weekly basis. He’d ask every week what was going on with the Goldheart Assembly record and I’d keep him up to date. One week I told him that it was finished but we were struggling to find a label and he offered us a very artist friendly record deal there and then. Very nice of him.

Have you changed the way you work and write songs in the last few years? Do you and John ever write together or do you write separately and then bring the songs to the band?
JH: I’m John, so I’m gagging to hear the answer to this.
JD: Erm… I think it has changed slightly. We seemed to fall into a certain way of working on this record. John and I are complete opposites in the way we approach writing and recording. John tends to approach songs with enthusiasm and concentration at the start and then loses energy as the process goes on. Whereas I start out hesitant and grow in confidence and enthusiasm the more I work on something. We worked very closely together on the initial song ideas and came up with a large number of demos. With John’s tracks we tended to try to recreate the feel of the demos as closely as possible (Linnaeus is built from the original demo) whereas I largely went back to the drawing board and completely reworked my songs, changing every single instrument in some cases.

In This is Spinal Tap, Derek Smalls is the lukewarm water between the two fire and ice visionaries, Nigel Tufnel and David St Hubbins. Who is Goldheart’s lukewarm water?
JD: I’d like to know who’s Tufnel and who’s St Hubbins? Bowser is our Derek Smalls every day of the week.
JH: I think we find each other amusing, that helps.

You’ve toured with Band of Horses a couple of times now, how did that dalliance come about?
JH: They saw us at Reading in 2011, I think Ben was on the toilet when he heard us and was interested enough to interrupt his business to come to the side of the stage. Almost the next day an offer came in to tour with them around the UK. Very nice of them, I guess they just like what we do, which is flattering.
Jake Bowser: We met them at Reading festival where we shared a love of Jameson’s special reserve. A bond that was rekindled in Dublin where those guys ordered in a big case of it. John and Creighton ended up in a fight. Not in a mean way. In a homo-erotic way.

One thing that must have variously amused and frustrated you when you originally started was the comparisons you got to Fleet Foxes, when you’ve always been a very English classic pop/rock band – like a younger and wiser Beatles… so, if you could give any words of advice to Macca now, what would they be?
JH: You’re a musician not a painter.
JD: How long do we have?

• Refrain from the use of “dude” and “man” in every day conversation (advice I’d give to any 70 year old man really).

• Retract the painful, meaningless percentage splits in Many Years from Now and admit that it doesn’t really matter.

• Write that play that you’ve been banging on about for 45 years.

• Play the drums more.

• Call Denny Laine and tell him you love him.

• Give back your detective badge. You’re a musician not a detective.

• Laissez faire.

Unless our eyes have deceived us, there has been a change in personnel in the band since Wolves & Thieves, how did that happen and how has that changed the band’s dynamic?
JH: Good spot, the combined talents of Tom Hastings and Dominic Keshavarz have been synthesized into our new member Kyle Hall, the added bonus being that he’s also very good at fixing and building things, a Tommy Walsh without the gut. It hasn’t changed the dynamic all that much, we spend less money on per diems that’s all.
JD: We had to sack them, they were costing us a fortune to maintain. Kyle Hall works below minimum wage and isn’t a union man.

Rumours were afloat in 2012 that Long Distance…was going to be a double album, how many songs did you have to pick from and was it hard whittling it down to an album’s worth of material?
JH: It was about 22. We like to be ambitious, and though I imagine all bands think they can do a ‘double’, I maintain that there was a decent double record in there. Maybe because so many people were telling us not to do it the energy for it seemed to fade after a while. Certain songs fell by the wayside as we needed to concentrated fully on others that we were sure would be on a single record. It was a shame to leave off songs like Tulla, Slowing Down, Defaulter and I Won’t Be Tied, but I suppose these things are dictated by time as well. We may have been fiddling and mixing until 2015 to get it ‘just so’.
JD: Our poor beautiful double album. In tatters because of the cynics. You know who you are.
JB: It was going to be a double album because we had loads of songs and wanted to make something really substantial this time around. We also felt that the collection of songs was very eclectic and would have fit perfectly into the lengthy and meandering double album format. But then we changed our minds. On a whim.

Steve Lamacq recently wrote an article about homegrown talent getting ignored. Is this something you agree with? If so what’s the answer to getting more good music out there to more people?
JH: I think talent in general gets ignored. People who care about music though are savvy to the industry’s marketing bullshit. I think they are pretty good at discriminating between bands and artists that are cynically hyped up to take advantage of some fatuous trend or ‘movement’ and those who offer something honest, interesting and worthy. A lot of the time it’s these fans that are unheard and ignored. Those omnivorous, receptive music fans are the ones that make the whole thing industry evolve by giving new bands a pair of ears and a platform to work from.
JB: Wish we knew. Steve Lamacq plays an admirable role in trying to do this but it’s tough.
JD: It’s true but it’s no surprise really. Everything is fragmenting and disintegrating and not just because of the internet, even though that’s played the key role in shifting the way people interact with media. There are more platforms for new artists than there have ever been before but because it’s so saturated out there it means that no one institution has an overriding sway over what enters the public consciousness (only Cowell clings on by his teeth with the X Factor). So people like Lamacq have seen their influence diminish considerable over the last few years, which must be really frustrating. For better or worse there are now thousands of taste makers and influential bloggers out there so people don’t need to listen as closely to the same sources and institutions anymore. I still think 6 Music is the best radio station out there pushing the best new music so maybe supporting 6 Music is the answer but I don’t think things will ever be the same again.

A long, long time ago we shot you in the as yet unreleased/lost in production hell Goldheart Assembly mini-golf documentary “Birdies on a Chain” in Brighton – how have your handicaps improved and how is Kyle fitting in on the course, sartorially and competitively?
JH: If I remember correctly we all achieved nigh on scratch scores on the mini-golf courses of Brighton, I don’t feel our handicaps could possibly improve. I think a national inter-band mini-golf tournament would succeed in proving that. Kyle is an extremely competitive man, occasionally aggressively so, and since his joining we have explored a large number of sports. He always looks the part but despite his huge sporting potential his results have, by his own admission, been lacklustre.
JD: No document left of that famous victory; almost like it never happened. My putting has never been as good since. We don’t get out much so John is king of Wii Golf these day.

This album contains some heavier moments that we haven’t heard from you before – John plays racy electric guitar – was that just part of the natural progression of the band or is it just John’s inner rock god coming out – or are these in fact the same thing!?
JH: Well we like a lot of music, and some of it is very noisy. One of things we get a kick out of is using noise as an expressive thing. I think So Long St. Christopher from the first record would be half the song it is it without the middle noise section. From my point of view I think I just started to become more interested in playing the guitar as an accompaniment thing as opposed to just writing with it. I don’t think I’m very adept at it but electric guitar is far more expressive, and I think with the limitations I have I usually just want to be as loud as possible.
JD: We’ve always listened to a lot of Tom Waits so there’s always going to be that distorted and industrial side to our music. It was there on Wolves and Thieves too but we’ve gone a bit further with it this time.

You’ve taken the album title from the novel, The Tin Drum. What inspired that choice?
JH: We stopped growing aged 3.

One of the many highlights of the new album for us is The Idiot. Is this your long awaited political song? If so, which of the many terrible human beings in politics is it about?
JH: Sorry to disappoint, it’s about relationships. In particular an unnecessarily destructive member of one who thought they had it all worked out.

Some people may know about the potentially unfounded ‘working at a zoo’ rumours, but may not be aware of John’s secret cricket talents – many good judges once called him the new David Gower; with a big summer for cricket ahead in the form of the Ashes, what are you predicting for the series score, and what players are you expecting to turn in big performances?
JH: I think Vic Marks will summarise with aplomb and give odds of 14-1 that Jake Bowser will be the first streaker of the summer.

The wonderful Stephanie and the Ferris Wheel segueing into the equally beautiful Linnaeus is another album highlight. Tell us how that little musical masterstroke came about?
JD: Thank you very much. Legendary mastering engineer, Tim Young, described that as “almost a piece of music history”. Nearly good. It was actually an accident. We’d decided that we wanted a lot of the songs to run into each other Sgt. Pepper style but we didn’t realise how perfect this transition would be until we tried it. Stephanie and the Ferris Wheel was originally far more upbeat with a full band in (PLUG: as can be heard on our limited edition bonus CD Long Distance Side Effects available exclusively through Rough Trade). Once Jake had laid down a wonderful Martha My Dear-esque piano over a key change section before the third chorus I decided that I liked the piano so much that I didn’t want anything else left in. So we scrapped everything and started again, building up from the piano. To make the piano sound sweeter and to make the vocal higher I varisped the track affecting the key and the tempo of the song only to find that by a pure coincidence we had moved the key and tempo perfectly into the same key and tempo as Linnaeus. The result is that lovely transition.

Long Distance Song Effects is released on 1 July. The exclusive limited edition 2 CD version mentioned above is available from Rough Trade, here.

Goldheart Assembly

I once nearly got run over by a tram. That’s not just a true story, it’s also a tenuous link to a band whose name has nothing to do with the overhead-powered retro transportation vehicle. We do like trams though. And we really like Traams, Brighton’s latest FatCat signing, who celebrate their rumbustious post-punk sounds at their Ladders EP launch event this Sunday.

The three-piece, who hail from Chichester, recently supported Parquet Courts, and like those Texan slacker-punk darlings, bring a fresh dynamism and melody to the punky thrust of their garage-raw, face-slapping tunes. Genuine tightness and a controlled sinewy power make the trio the sort of live band that send ever escalating, muscle-twitching electrics through a crowd. Head over to soundcloud and check out the epic krautrocking clout of Klaus if you want to take a ride on the megawatt groove train for yourself.

The band’s Ladders EP is released on a super-limited edition 100 copy cassette run on 10 June, and we can’t recommend it highly enough – this is a band going places. The EP launch is a free entry 4pm – 10pm tear up, with Warm Brains, Royal Limp, Bayy, Fake Laugh, Pimms, hotdogs, sweat, DJs, summer lovin’ and – unless we’re very much mistaken – the sort of next day headache that your old mother warned you about.

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Traams soundcloud

San Francisco’s the Fresh & Onlys burst out of their collaborative local scene with a string of early albums that owed plenty to the dynamics of the burgeoning new garage scene in the city, but over time their evolving sound has brought in smitten new listeners across the UK and Europe, culminating in the textured, sun-frazzled grooves of Long Slow Dance. One of the most refreshingly unpretentious bands out there, and with a rare UK show in Brighton on 17 June, we were lucky enough to catch the thoughts of band founder Tim Cohen on the varied subjects of circus acts in Dorset, the wonder of Kurt Vile and the unstoppable rise of Denver. Well, kinda…

So, you guys are shortly back in Europe touring, which is great news. We kind of first discovered you (belatedly…) at End of the Road festival in 2011 – you were playing an early set in a big top tent when it was beautiful outside and it all felt kind of weird like those festival early sets do, but you blew us away. Do you remember playing there, and how was that tour? Are you looking forward to heading back to the UK?
I remember playing in Dorset as one would remember being roused from a deep drunk sleep and dragged into a circus tent, wherein one is forced to put on clown makeup and train a Siberian tiger to the amusement of several hundred casual observers, That is basically the true story of what happened, except for the part about the makeup, the tiger, and the word “several”. Actually we played in London the previous night and attended what turned out to be the best house party ever. We were supposed to be sleeping in what I would equate to a crack house, complete with cockroaches and everything, and I think the idea was to stay awake and out of the house as long as possible, which turned out to be until just prior to driving to Dorset the next morning. I remember that day for two reasons – peacocks and Tinariwen.

Before that you’ve got some dates with Kurt Vile in the US, which is a hell of a combination. Have you spent any time with his new album and what do you think of the explosion in his popularity over the last year or so?
There has always been a strong connection between Kurt’s music and ours, if only because Shayde and I bought his Constant Hitmaker CD when it was only available in a cardboard sleeve – we bought the only two copies at Amoeba records back before we even started the Fresh & Onlys. It was one of those little reasons to which you can attribute our band’s existence. It hit us in all the right places. Everything he gets as far as popularity and familiarity is well deserved, he’s the real deal, and his bandmates too. I plan on picking up the record on that tour, I’m excited to hear it live for the first time, put myself in that place of being a fan, having the full experience, because it’s nice to know that still happens, the magic of hearing something the first time, almost by mistake.

Bands quite often come to Brighton and liken it to San Francisco in the sense that there is a very artistic scene here, lots of musicians, artists, a really collaborative and laidback vibe. You emerged from a specific San Francisco scene that was very much the foundation of who you were as a band – are you still very much tied to the city, do you all still live there and do you still work day jobs there too? What makes it such a great place to be?
Of course, we will always be tied to the city. I have moved to the desert in Arizona for a spell, I’ll probably return in 2014. San Francisco is an amazing place. I would compare it to Brighton except it doesn’t feel as much like a beach town, and there’s not as many kids in school uniforms. As for jobs, eh, we kind of just slip in and out of the next thing, some of us bartend, odd jobs, etc. It’s getting really expensive again. It may be that Denver is the next great city. Why do I say that? I may move there.

There’s been a real sense of evolution with the band from one release to the next. You’ve talked about how in the early days you wanted to keep releasing music and keep evolving and improving during the good, most creative years of a band’s life. Where do you feel you’re at now as a band after releasing Long Slow Dance and have those original views changed with time?
Those original views still hold true, I wouldn’t necessarily change what we have done…but we’ve tempered ourselves a bit. I still feel as though I’m peaking creatively. But I have much more patience now that I can look back and see our past shortcomings and mis-steps. I think we once had the idea that it was cool or okay to evolve and improve before an audience. But now I’m not so sure; I think that’s what rehearsal and communication between band members is for, neither of which is our strong suit. The idea now is to do our best, we’ve already done the rest. What’s exciting is getting to the end of a project and thinking it’s the best thing we’ve done, that beats spitting out a few tunes a day that you will cringe about three months later.

Newcomers to the band might be a bit overwhelmed by the band’s discography at first glance. Do you feel the best way for them to discover the band’s music is to start at the beginning and work through the albums/share the band’s journey?
Definitely start with our current release (Long Slow Dance) and work backwards. We are a band that has improved dramatically, I believe. A lot of bands tend to go in reverse. “You should really hear their first album”. Nah.

Similarly, I’ve heard you discussing the band’s evolution before and you were very open about how you felt about all your releases, what you felt worked and what you wish you’d done differently. Looking back from where you are now, how do you feel about your body of work and the journey you’ve been on?
Like I said, I wouldn’t change anything. We have written our own story, with the immense help of our supporters and several strokes of good luck. It’s not a rags-to-riches fairytale, it’s a true story with real people. The thing is, Shayde and I never set out to accomplish anything, no fame, no fortune, no critical acclaim. So if we never achieve any of that, it’s not like our big dreams are shattered. The type of ambition we have, it’s more like we are intoxicated by the challenge of making music that is timeless, or that we could compare to other bands we love. We’re just two regular dudes who like guitar music and drinking beer and we started a fun little art project. We never imagined we would be in Brighton, England or Finland or North Carolina playing our songs. Sure we have written some terrible tunes, but all in all, to use a cliche, everything happened for a reason, and if we called it quits today, we will still always have been a necessary part of the ‘culture’ of San Francisco’s early 21st century talented lowlifes and miscreants.

Long Slow Dance is definitely a departure from previous releases in terms of the sound. It’s very layered and textured and (perhaps this is an English thing) is at times really reminiscent of some of the great indie British bands of the later ’80s, shades of the Smiths and Echo and the Bunnymen coming through for example. Did you write the songs differently, or did they evolve a lot in the production process – similarly did they end up very different to how you expected them to?
Starting with Long Slow Dance, we knew we had a full studio at our disposal, it wasn’t just “doing the best with what we have”. That wasn’t going to work in a fully equipped state-of-the-art studio. So we had to make sure we had the songs. It took a bit longer to write enough songs to be able to pick the ones that had staying power, and from the demos you could tell they had a long way to go. Working with Phil Manley was a boon, because he made the transition from demo quality to studio quality very easy. Microphones, for one, make a huge difference, the arrangements didn’t change much from the demos, that made the whole process move rather quickly. Everyone came pretty prepared. But I was more than pleased with the final results, which felt like big, bold paintings of the charcoal sketches that once were.

Do you feel like there’s any sense that you’re musically mellowing out a bit as you get older as a band, or are you more interested in the subtleties of your songwriting and that’s what drives the band’s development?
I don’t consider subtlety one of my ’strengths’ as a songwriter. I’m pretty much concerned with melody, rhythm, and interesting lyrics. Kyle is not a subtle drummer. I leave subtlety to Wymond and Shayde, when it comes time to record the songs. What I should say is, any subtlety in my songwriting is accidental. If I don’t notice it, then I guess it’s all the more subtle. As for mellowing out, I think from here on out, recording in real studios, we probably won’t intentionally re-visit the demo-quality foggy/fuzziness of our first recordings. I don’t think that’s a symptom of age, it just means we are painting on bigger canvases, and spaciousness (not to be confused with mellowness) is a good thing to avail oneself of when recording. I can’t quite change my stripes as a songwriter. I wouldn’t try. I consider every song a gift from somewhere, it’s not just something I do, it’s something some force is telling me to do, and I would never squander the gift. I guess I’ll just do it until I stop receiving it. As for the live band, we are not and will never be mellow. We just don’t thrash around as much as say Ty Segall or the Oh Sees, but it’s in service to the music we are playing. Every note should be played and heard. I’ve never been that good at flailing around and playing guitar and singing at the same time. I get dizzy.

There’s a sense that as you’ve gone on you’ve enjoyed handing over some of the production duties when you hit the studio. How do you feel about the recording process these days and how the way you work has changed, and would you rather be out on the road playing live or at home working on and recording new material?
I’m still as excited as ever to record and to tour. Mostly touring in Europe, it’s ten times better to tour over there. We are recording a new record right now, it should be tracked by the end of May. We have a perfect foil in Phil Manley, he now understands our dynamic and is with us step-for-step toward our musical visions. So having him as an engineer, as someone we can trust, frees us up to tinkle around in the studio and get our hands on whatever we can. So far it’s worked well. The thing is, ‘producing’ is a loaded term. We as a band still generate the ideas and the performance, but having a ‘producer’ usually means someone who is sitting there telling you what to do. We have found a collaborator who happens to have skills behind the board, who works as quickly as we do, and who after being stuck in a studio with us for weeks on end, actually almost knows what we are thinking before we have to say it.

While the album seems to have softened the edges of the band’s music, the whole thing also has a kind of love-centric feel to it. How did the lyric writing work on the album, do you always write the music and then write specific lyrics to it or do you do it the other way round? And did you approach the record with a thematic idea, lyrically?
For me, the melody comes first. Then the chord progression. Then the rhythm. Then the arrangement. Then the lyrics. Always. This album is no exception. There is a ‘love-centric’ theme to most of what I write. Mostly it errs on the darker side of love, the stuff about love that’s not overt in the expression “I love you” or the exchange of chocolates or flowers. Love is an all encompassing emotional spectrum. It is capable of the highest highs and the lowest lows. In some ways, you can say that is where all music comes from, somewhere along that spectrum, right?

How do you feel about the music industry for independent bands these days? Are you happier in the world of DIY bands, do you think it kind of empowers bands more than the days of big advances and record deals?
Well truth be told, we are not a DIY band at all so I can’t answer that question. We have never paid to put out a single release. We have worked hard, but received a lot of help form a lot of people. I mean, bands on Sub-Pop are still considered ‘independent bands’, right? But they are not the same as independent bands on Volar records. It gets pretty confusing. The one major downfall of the music business is in terms of blogs, the internet, the idea of the blind leading the blind. I have no problem with people’s opinions, or other people’s right to honor said opinions, it’s just that I feel there’s a lot of crappy, lazy music getting blown way out of proportion because a certain source called it the best thing since sliced bread, and a lot of great music that is going unnoticed or panned because of one or two people’s taste. However, I was never one to be deterred by negative criticism or lack of popularity, I just continued to work. Not that its gotten me all THAT far, but at least my head’s in the right place. So my advice to young bands trying to break through an invisible ceiling – the sky is still the limit…

What’s next after this bout of touring for the band – will you be heading back into the studio before the end of the year and have you got any ideas where you want to take the band’s sound or what kind of material you’ve got up your sleeves?
Our album will be done by the time we leave for Europe. Should be out in the spring, 2014. It’s dark and anthemic and romantic and snarky. God, I sound like such an ‘arse’. No it’s good, I think you’ll like it. Bye!

The Fresh & Onlys play The Haunt on 17 June 2013, tickets here or Resident records.

The Fresh & Onlys

It seems fitting to end our run through of bands to watch at this year’s festival with a Brighton band – which quite frankly only left one choice: the Physics House Band. This incendiary trio are a discombobulating thrill ride of genre-melding styles from across all the most exploratory and technical elements of the music world: from freeform jazz and progressive rock, to classical and metal. That all these disparate elements are flung into the mix and emerge as an addictive, thrilling blend that seems to appeal to a multi-generational selection of fans, is not only a tribute to the never ending allure of popular music, but to the virtuoso electricity that Adam (bass), Sam (keyboards) and Dave (drums) deliver in their live shows. Oh, and did we mention their songs are all instrumentals?

If all that sounds off-putting on paper, it’s actually an experience that’s both exciting and visceral. Afficionadoes will absolutely find plenty to pontificate about at their own leisure, but you’re as likely to be swept into an adrenalized dance party by the band’s natural exuberance and chops. The boys can play but you know they want you to enjoy the ride as much as they are. And when you’re writing songs as ludicrously extravagant in title and substance as the metallurgically-limbed Abraxical Solapse, or the shapeshiftingly lunatic Teratology, how can anyone resist? And for all its hipster rep, we can’t think of a better band to represent the city at this year’s Great Escape than three brilliant musicians ploughing a seemingly unfashionable furrow and in the process creating some of the coolest sounds around.

The Physics House Band

Photograph © Agata Urbaniak

Wildly entertaining, anthemic and a barrel of fun, Houndmouth are exactly the kind of band that can light up a festival, so their appearance at this year’s Great Escape is set to be a real highlight. Hailing from Indiana, the band were signed up by that most quintessentially English indie label Rough Trade, an unlikely sounding but spiritually perfect home for the four-piece’s liberating and harmonious roots rock. Drawing from that very American musical intersection of country, folk and rock, Houndmouth’s musical bloodline runs from the Band’s storytelling and harmonies (and facial hair) to the juiced-up, singalong street style of Felice Brothers. The songs on their upcoming debut record From the Hills Below the City are simple-yet-robust yarn-spinning singalongs to be enjoyed at top volume and with a stiff drink to hand. It’s a bonafide belter and quite an achievement for a band who have only been around for 18 months, so ahead of Great Escape we had a chat with bass player Zak Appleby to find out more about the Hoosier state’s hottest new band.

First up, you guys are from Indiana. It’s kind of apart from the south but some of the same influences feed into it. So how does being from Indiana show itself in the band’s sound do you think?
Our sound doesn’t really reflect any specific place. We write slightly too absurdly embellished stories about our experiences. There’s also a nice river culture here with the Ohio River nearby and the steamboat history.

Things seem to have happened really quickly for you, though you all played in other bands before you got together as Houndmouth. So how did you go from being a new band in Indiana to being signed up by a classic English indie label like Rough Trade?
We were really fortunate when we made our first run down to SXSW. We met our booking agent there, as well as Geoff Travis from Rough Trade – he came to one of our shows way off the beaten path based on a tip. We talked briefly at SXSW and kept in touch for the next few months. From there our relationship grew and things really took off.

A couple of things are noticeable listening to the album: firstly the big harmonies and gang vocals – the music sounds like an everyone-join-in party from start to finish. Secondly, it’s a big sound, much more anthemic than most folk or roots bands. So did those things come about naturally when you started playing together, or did they just evolve as you grew as a band?
We really haven’t had too much time to evolve as a band yet. We’ve got a ton of songs written and sitting on the shelf now, so we’ve kept busy because we enjoy it. We don’t like the harmonies tucked back in the mixes. The bigger sound comes from the harmonies being out front.

We already mentioned the big sound, which is big, but not cluttered, and gives the album loads of energy. What was your approach when you came to recording the album – were you looking to capture a live feel and consciously not overthink the sound? Was it tempting to smooth the edges?
We didn’t give any thought to smoothing out the edges.  The songs were written how they were and we recorded almost all of the album live. We aren’t into elaborate tones or instrumentation. (Maybe in our future drug induced years)

So you’re playing Great Escape, and it’ll be great to have you here in Brighton. You’re playing a 1pm set out in the open on day one and the next night in a club at 1am. Are you planning to adopt a different approach, given that at the first everyone might be sober and at the second everyone will definitely be howling drunk?
The performance is going to be the same for both shows.  If the crowd isn’t drunk at 1pm, its their own damn fault.

Are there any other bands you’d like to check out at Great Escape if you get the chance in between playing?
We are really looking forward to seeing a hologram of Tupac Shakur next to us on stage. If you could put in a good word to the hologramist for us, that would be great.

The success of Alabama Shakes last year in the UK has hopefully opened some more people’s ears to some of the great Americana music out there. You don’t really sound like them but have an equally appealing big sound – so, have you prepared yourself for the possibility of being constantly asked about the Shakes in interviews yet? And do you think its easier or harder for your music to get heard at home or in the UK?
What the Shakes are doing is great, not only for a certain style of music but for music as a whole. I am not sure about the statistics of ear size for either continent, but I would think they would be able to hear us just fine in either place.

Speaking of who your sound references, among others there are definite elements of the Band’s style and storytelling and multi-vocalists approach and perhaps some of the boisterousness of the Felice Brothers. Who are the bands you love listening to and most admire, new or old?
We admire both of those bands. We also enjoy J Roddy Walston and the Business and Dawes. As far as older influences, Randy Newman, John Prine and Little Feat, right now, to name a few.

The songs have a strong storytelling element to them. Are you big fans of classic American storytelling and if so, whose work do you enjoy?
We have passed around Eli P Digby’s “Falling Slowly from Great Sorrow” many a times. It made the west won.

You come with a reputation for being a real good time band live, do you love taking it out on the road and how did you find English crowds compared with your homeland?
We have a good time anywhere we go. The English crowds have been just as amazing as back home.

It would be remiss of us not to mention beards while we’re talking to you, since even the women in our household sport beards. Has Shane any plans to clean shave again?
Shane’s beard refuses to take any questions at this time…

Houndmouth

What with all the fun to be had at Great Escape, generally revolving around drinking, singing and dancing, it can be easy to forget to eat. Great news then, from the Canadian prairies, Manitoba to be precise, in the shape of Del Barber. The singer, who spent his younger years out on the road working whatever jobs paid his way around America before the call of music lured him back home, will not be cooking for you at the Blind Tiger on the Saturday of Great Escape, but he will be singing you some songs from his new album Headwaters, at an event promisingly called Prairie BBQ. That’s right folks, country-tinged folk from one of Canada’s best young artists and as much moose meat as you can force down on the third day of a festival. We’re all over this.

But – more of Barber first. Headwaters is actually the singer’s third album, recorded with producer Sam Kassirer, and is a further progression of the singer’s craft after the Juno-nominated Love Songs for the Last Twenty. Acknowledging the influence of luminaries like Townes Van Zandt and John Prine, Barber’s narratives are steeped in country traditions, rich in romantic wanderlust, from the straight-rocking Can’t Turn Around to the small town pathos of the Waitress. His stories are straight out of the lexicon of American songwriting and storytelling; free spirits wrestling with isolation; the lure of the highway; the eternal quest for enlightenment; the regret of youthfulness lost. From Kerouac to Carver, the themes are familiar, while the singer’s increasing confidence instills the songs with a hearty conviction.

Barber’s dulcit tones should provide the perfect start to Saturday’s Great Escape fun, but if you can’t face the thought of food on Saturday or are still languishing in bed, the singer is also playing the Dome headline show along with Billy Bragg on the Friday at 7.45pm.

Del Barber

Parquet Courts are a band heading for a kind of critical critical mass at the moment, with publications falling over themselves to heap praise on the Texan foursome, while the band themselves do everything to distance themselves from the buzz with an insouciant swagger that may or may not be pre-planned. But here’s the thing: it really doesn’t matter. Why? Because their album Light Up Gold is a genuine cracker, and the band can back it up live, as witnessed by their recent Audio gig.

There’s no need to go into the album’s pleasures here, much has already been written about it. The songs sit in a happy place between post-punk and slacker-rock, deserve playing exceptionally loud and repeatedly, and collectively constitute a brilliant debut record. When the band passed through Brighton recently on their first UK tour, there were pre-gig mutterings that they were travelling with pretty much no equipment, but when they hit the stage they seemed to have a right-on-the-money set up (funny that) and proceeded to deliver a perfect sounding set while dripping oodles of attitude at the audience in time-honoured fashion. It was great.

Turn the clock back six months and information on the band was scarce, but anyone who did seek out the US only release of Light Up Gold realised they had a good thing going on. Songs like the incandescent moshpit-baiting Yonder is Closer to the Heart and Borrowed Time were matched by the cool drawling of Careers in Combat and North Dakota, though Stoned and Starving combined both sides of the band’s character perfectly. Pretty much through word of mouth, the band now finds themselves in huge demand. Recently hugely offending a journalist from the Fly for not playing ball, not wanting to have their photo taken and generally coming off as arrogant and slightly hypocritical, it reminded us of Dylan’s more entertaining dealings with the music press. Remember: this is meant to be rock’n'roll.

So, by a combination of great songwriting, electric live sets and a mouthful of attitude (and occasionally tacos) Denton’s bad boys turn up at Great Escape with every chance of being responsible for the most oversubscribed gig of the festival. Watch this space! Or maybe just start queueing…

Parquet Courts

Image © Michael Ast

If you fancy some erudite surf-pop in your Great Escape diet then look no further than the Elwins. Fusing together what sounds to these ears like some magical intersection of Little Joy, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and Brian Wilson, the Canadian band’s mastery of style, substance and oodles of melody on last year’s debut album And I Thank You, was both peerless and enchanting.

It doesn’t feel like there are a whole lot of bands making this sort of music at the moment, which makes the Elwins emergence all the more pleasurable, and very few bands turn out an independent first album entirely devoid of filler or missteps. But check out the juicy joys of Behind My Eyes and you’ll be filled with a helium-heeled euphoria that’s impossible to resist. Or groove along to the shimmering pop-haze of Forgetful Assistance and be beset with a knee-swinging desire to wax a surfboard you don’t even own and head for the nearest sun-kissed beach.

But truthfully, all this talk of sea and surf is a little misleading, because the Elwins are just the sound of all things good rather than all things nautical. Perhaps the reason is that the four-piece, in an effort to make the best record possible, wrote and demoed a song a week before deciding on the final listing, and judging from the quality of the final ten, we’re intrigued to know what didn’t make the grade. Clearly, for the Elwins, this songwriting business is just a breeze. Go and check out Propinquity if you don’t believe us – if it doesn’t make you twirl around the front room giddily like a lovesick teenager, then you’d best have a quick poke around your chest cavity – if there’s a blood-pumping organ missing it was probably stolen while you snoozed last night.

If there is one band you may not have heard of to go and watch at Great Escape, the Elwins would be our choice. Devoid of publicity hoopla and bursting with vibrant songs that are just begging for some Brighton sunshine, here’s hoping they can draw the crowd that their super fresh debut album richly deserves.

The Elwins

Fast evolving and seriously thrilling, Brooklyn’s Woods are one of the real standouts at this year’s festival. What started as a folksy solo project for singer Jeremy Earl back in 2005 has steadily grown into a full band blend of sunny west coast melodies and huge dynamic, bouncing anthems with some psych-rock trip-outs thrown in for good measure. If all that sounds a bit much to fit into one four-piece’s set list, fear not, it makes perfect sense on record and is even better live, loaded with both energy and some surprisingly acute pop nous.

A band very much of the garage revival school, recording fast and frequently, the output of the last five years includes four albums, starting with breakthrough Songs of Shame and ending with last year’s exceptional Bend Beyond. The creative juices of the band just keep flowing, and on Bend Beyond the band has captured some of that live dynamism on record. Take Size Meets the Sound, for example, a monster riff propelling last year’s finest anthem, the sort of song that has such a pleasurable physical effect on you that somewhere between deciding whether to shake your head, dance, jump around or sing, you find you’re already doing all four at the same time. Perhaps it’s the Californian solar-powered Cali in a Cup that did most to draw in new listeners though, three minutes of surfy, playful pop, propelled along as always by Kevin Morby’s puppy dog bassline.

Earl’s falsetto delivery works particularly well in the context of Woods’ music, the soaring counterpoint to the thrusting rhythms and glimmering melodies. On 2011’s Sun and Shade, it was Earl’s vocals over some of the band’s most accessible tunes to date that really caught the ear, Pushing Onlys’ euphoria matched by Hand it Out and What Faces the Sheet’s groovy ’60s shuffle, but arguably overshadowed by the brilliant trippy psychedelia of Out of the Eye and Sol Y Sombra, a desert-loving, mescaline-sounding nine minute wonder-work.

Simply put, Woods are one of the best bands out there if you like your riffs, your wig outs and your pop all rolled into one visceral melange. From imperious heatseekers aimed straight at your loins to hypnotic psych-outs fired straight at your inner lizard king, Woods are set to be a real highlight of GE 2013.

Woods

Sometimes the best music happens almost by chance. That’s the way it was for Wall, originally an experimental side-project for singer-songwriter Lyla Foy, but one that rapidly took on a life of its own after Foy wrote a beautiful little song called No Secrets. That song, understated and intimate, struck such a chord with listeners that before long the singer and her band had signed to Black Cab Sessions’ BCS Records and played a string of high-profile support slots, before heading out on the road in Europe. There’s always been some magic dust in Foy’s songwriting, but in the form of Wall, the singer has seemingly found the perfect expression of her art, stripping away the layers to deliver music of fragility and vulnerability, but equally of resilience and heart. With their lovely Shoestring EP newly released and an album slated for later in the year, we caught up with the singer for a chat ahead of the band’s Great Escape debut…

So, Wall.. where did this project start for you? Because of the lo-fi production it feels like it came about very organically, as if you were just making some demos and realised ‘wow’, this sounds great…
You’re right, it wasn’t preconceived. I had an urge to write something a bit outside of my comfort zone and No Secrets popped out. That was the first song, the only song.

On a similar note when we heard the Supremes cover we also thought wow, she’s onto something here, was that the song that triggered all this?
It was about the third or fourth I think. I didn’t set out to do any covers, but I didn’t have a song in me that day and wanted to work on something. It was fun changing the feel and making the chords more melancholy.

The music industry is crazy, frustrating, sometimes surprising. You’ve been a great performer/writer for a little while, so have you been taken aback by the response to Wall?
I was mildly amused/surprised by the response, yes. But I think there’s always a number of factors that have to come together all at once to make something work.

We’ve touched upon it already, but in terms of the production and sound of Wall, does it take more work than you would think to create such a minimalist sound?
Nope, it’s just like how you hear it. I record everything quickly, I never labour over a song for too long and the tunes are supposed to be emotive more than anything. That’s how I’m working at the moment, it was an experiment, but it’s turned out to be the way I work best.

Do you feel like your voice has become the central point of what you do with Wall compared with previous projects?
Putting down my lead vocals is one of the first things I do now when recording these songs, so the majority of the track is built around the lyrics and the main melody. So yeah, yeah.

You recently shot a video in Brighton – tell us more!!
I’m sorry, it doesn’t exactly feature Brighton, I’ve let you down! We were looking for a cheap location, and there was this disused youth hostel somewhere near Lewes. It was a little surreal but an interesting day. Things must be so boring with a big budget.

You’ve played in Brighton a few times before. What are your favourite things about the city, will you get to spend a little time here during GE?
What’s not to like? Bill’s is a must. We’ll stay and catch some music definitely.

Tell us a little bit about the band? Is Wall very much a solo project?
It’s my vision aided by a live band. I like that the recordings are pretty solitary, but we’re a bit more energetic live. It’s important for me to have singing boys that are sensitive to delicate arrangements. So there are three of us, me, Dan and Oli, and we all switch around between keyboards, guitars and bass. We do our best.

What are the plans for an album and is the trademark Wall sound likely to remain the same or evolve and expand on the record?
I’m working on an album at the moment, but I’m not rushing it or putting any pressure on it. The new Shoestring EP was released last week and we’ll probably drop a summer single. The debut will retain all of the things that people like about the current recordings. It’s album two that’s going to get messy.

What are Wall’s hopes for 2013, personal or otherwise?
To have as many weird times as possible, and keep it clean.

What’s on the Wall tour iPod at the moment?
I don’t care about anything except Foxygen right now. I have fallen really hard for them.

You’re on the road in the tour bus, you’re peckish, what food emporium would you most like to see appear in the distance and what would you order?
We’re all a little obsessed with European supermarkets. I just want everything, it’s all so foreign and tropical looking. I just bought a huge thing of extra virgin olive oil in Milan. It was annoying to travel with but I made the best salad in our hostel so I really don’t care about the consequence of oily equipment when it leaks everywhere in the van.

You’ve done a great night for ages called Murmur Box – is that going to carry on with all the new commitments?
Murmur Box is the best. I’ve met loads great bands from my night. It’s not over, just on hiatus for now – it’ll be back.

Wall are scheduled to play St Mary’s Church at 8.45pm on Friday 17 May and Komedia at 2.30pm on Saturday 18 May.

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Photograph © Patrick Macleod