Gavin and Stacey is funny. There’s nothing quite more millennial than doing a shit welsh accent and quoting your favourite lines. However. When the fiery intensity of four boozy Welsh lads who’re just as passionate about music as you are, are then squeezed into a cobble room with shit wooden benches and high-chairs. The humour of the accent is somehow lost in translation.
Gearing and ready to go in a sold out 180 capacity Shackwell Arms in conjunction with NME’s award show tour, I rallied the troops to talk about all of the trials and tribulations of being young, fun and busy as hell.
I wanna get right into it guys. It’s been a while since the last release. I guess the main question everyone is asking is, where have you been?
All the boring stuff that you don’t want to be doing as a band, You want to be touring and making and releasing music. We’ve actually been working really hard recording, doing all of the business side of things that you’ve got to do. You need to record stuff to release stuff! We needed to find somebody that can actually record stuff and we’ve got that now with Dan Austin. He’s like the fifth member. He’s quality.
You came off the back of a huge year in 2015. Glastonbury obviously being a highlight. What was that like, if you can even put it into words?
You’re sort of thrown in the deep end and we loved it really. We embraced every moment. In those moments, you can either sink or swim and we swam – and we still are swimming. We’re super tired at the moment like but we take an energy tablet and get on with it. We was only 10/16 gigs in when we played Glastonbury.
Was I right in thinking that you were asked to go on tour with Muse?
We were asked to play a show in Newport with Muse. We said that we only had a couple of gigs under our belt and obviously Muse are one of the best live bands going. It’s not that we were shit, it’s just that we wanted to learn our craft.
*** My phone starts to ring ***
Me – I can’t believe it. My mates ringing me. Well that’s ruined everything, hasn’t it?
Brad – Would you like me to answer it?
Me – Yeah, tell him to fuck off. I put a status up asking for everyone to fuck off and leave me alone for two seconds and I can’t even get that!
Right. Back to business. I can only guess there’s going to be new music on the way. So what can we expect from you guys in 2018?
The album! 100%. All new songs. We’re going back next month to finish it off. One more week and two more tracks and then it’s ready to go. We’ve got lots of other stuff that we’re not allowed to talk about, but the next single is out in the next three weeks. 2017 was more of a down year from all of the stupid nonsense. It was a sort out year to get us ready for this year. The record is finally fucking done. Everyone’s been asking “where’s the record”. We’ve had to write tour records and I think we wrote like 3.
As a band that is described as “punk rock” in a sense, do you think there is added pressure to be different? I wanna use bigger punk bands as an example like Shame with their debut album and Slaves?
Brad – I like those guys and they’re all nice enough lads and that but I think they’re a bit fake if you know what I mean?
Tom – I wouldn’t call us punk? We’re not really in it to be defined as one genre.
Jarvis – I think it’s a bit difficult to call somebody Welsh, punk. We’re too soft and nice.
Brad – I would say it’s more like punk inspired rock. It’s a big mash up of all of our different influences. It all blends into our own sound. But I would never call us punk? I think it’s wrong to give a band one genre. It’s labelling. A lot of our songs that we’ve done and a lot of what we’re putting out. The album has about 6 or 7 main genres. The best punk bands have been. They’re called the classics for a reason. We just have to take inspiration and turn it relevant again.
Elliot – I think the key word there is been
Brad – You know all of us are really influenced by what our parents listened to.
A lot of comments I’ve seen from other publications has been the whole Oasis thing?
It’s mostly what people are wanting us to be. You’re always going to be compared to something in life no matter what. We’ve heard some ridiculous things recently, like we sound like the Arctic Monkeys.
Brad – I love some of the Arctic Monkeys stuff. Maybe like, the early young stuff but I mean, we sound nothing like them. We’re two different type of bands. It’s not a bad thing. We’re just a different type of band. And it’s the kind of kids that are wearing a Stone Roses T-shirt with a Fred Perry on. When Ian Brown was 30 they’re still in the womb. I just think it’s sad that Youth Culture today only has bands to look to, not look up to in today’s music.
So I wanna end with this. You guys are still young. You’ve achieved more than most. What’s the end goal for you guys? I know that every band whats to be the best there ever was or is!
We’re not gonna say the usual. You know ‘World Domination’. We just wanna make fucking music and be ourselves. We want people to respect us and treat us with respect because we love what we’re doing. We are a good band and we just want people to appreciate our music. We love it so much. We love our own music and it’s nice to have other people appreciate what we do…
