From legitimate indie icons to new thrilling upstarts all over again, 86TVs might be a fresh concern, but they bring a whole lotta history with them, too. With their debut EP 'You Don't Have To Be Yourself Right Now' out today (26th January), check out the latest cover story for our New Music Friday playlist edit, The Cut.

Words: Ciaran Picker.
Photos: Shireen Bahmanizad.

In the summer of 2007, Bloc Party toured around the USA, taking young indie-rock upstarts The Maccabees and Noisettes with them for the ride. Unbeknownst to anyone, it would prove a formative experience and ultimately lead to the inception of 86TVs, whose debut EP 'You Don't Have To Be Yourself Right Now' is out today (26th January) via Parlophone.

To the outside world, 86TVs came out of the blue, with each band member having carved out their own paths over the last fifteen years, whether in the form of a cricket podcast, creating Yala! Records, or collaborating and producing with artists like Jamie T and Stereophonics. For the boys in the band, namely strikingly resemblant brothers Felix, Hugo, and Will White, and brother-in-arms Jamie Morrison, it was a long time coming. "It's been about seven years in the making," Hugo explains. "It just feels incredible to have a body of work out finally."

The word to describe 86TVs is organic, both with regard to the band's formation and music they produce, but also the way they've worked their way back onto the scene. "We never had a conversation where we went, 'Should we make a band?' It was just a really natural force that brought us together," Hugo recalls. Felix agrees, adding, "Because it's what we've grown up doing, it's kind of an instinct to start a band. Dynamically, though, we're in a better place than last time."

Their younger years saw Felix and Hugo be a part of guitar-rock heavyweights The Maccabees, who called it quits at the pinnacle of their career, having secured their first Number 1 album with their swan song LP 'Marks To Prove It' in 2015, and signing off with a farewell at Alexandra Palace two years later.
Thinking back to those days, Hugo remembers their gruelling schedule that probably contributed to the band's split. "We'd have eight-hour long, really intense rehearsals, and by the end, you inevitably came out of the room absolutely hating each other." Felix applies this same feeling to live performances, "If ever you came off stage [in The Maccabees] and you made a mistake, it would feel like the end of the world. Now it's like, 'Oh, did that sound shit out the front? That's hilarious!'"

The band is drenched in a positivity that none of the boys have experienced in music before, with the addition of Jamie being a key piece of the puzzle. A renowned session drummer, as well as a founding member of Noisettes, he brought a vibrancy to the music and the band more widely. "Looking back at that Bloc Party tour, Jamie was just this legendary figure," Felix beams. "Partly because his hair was bigger than the venues, but also because he's a musical genius who takes joy from even doing the simplest of things."

Jamie has clearly found his nirvana in 86TVs, with an undying gratitude oozing from him, represented by the vibrancy of his drumming on this new EP. "You can't control vibes in a band; it's all-natural, and as a drummer, I'm just reacting to everything around me. I've been waiting for moments like these for a long time, to have that addictive, joyous feeling, so if my drumming sounds different to stuff from the past, then that's the best compliment anyone can give me.'

The EP itself, featuring the already released 'Worn Out Buildings' and 'Higher Love', is unlike anything we've heard before from any of 86TVs, individually or collectively. In returning to their roots, the gang have achieved a DIY feel to this four-song offering. The aforementioned organic feeling of the band translates into a very natural EP, sometimes literally – 'Spinning World' features the lads experimenting with tracks of birdsong, for example. Most clearly, though, the almost-inevitability of the band's beginnings is best represented by gang vocals between three brothers that come together to sound as one.

The band still describe their sound as guitar music, and their indie-rock past is certainly present, but with more nuance and technicality to the work, whether in the form of the timeless, almost folky love ballad 'Dreaming', or the funkier toe-tapper 'Higher Love'. Jamie's refusal to use a snare or to only have one crash cymbal on his kit during recording "cut all the fat away and meant we could just find that hook or beat – it's just such an addictive feeling, man!"

The unique sound that 86TVs have achieved was also deeply important to the band, pulling from traditional nostalgic influences but not wanting to rehash old ideas. "The intention is to always be individual," Will remarks. "It's kind of taken as an insult if you show the band something that you've made and spent all your time working on, and they go, 'Oh yeah, that sounds like The Strokes' or something."

The clearest difference in their music now compared to their previous bands, however, is in the lyric and sentimentality of the EP, which cascades throughout the release. It is a body of work that zeroes in on acceptance, joy, and communion but still grapples with self-doubt and insecurity.

"I think it was conscious," Felix states. "We knew that if we came back, we had to have a joyous record." Hugo nods, "Yeah, it felt like this was art that we were making, and we wanted people to hear it and kind of be exorcised by it." Will candidly admits, though, that "there is definitely a lot of internal struggle on the album. Like I don't know how I want to be perceived or who I want to be necessarily. It's good that it's kinda feel-good, but we still wanted to dig into some personal experiences."

Being that bit longer in the tooth, the context surrounding the band is as important as everything going on internally. Where their lives could revolve around being in a band ten years ago, the added responsibility of family life and maturing into their thirties has changed their perspective and made for a healthier experience.

"We're more accepting of how life flows, like if we have to cancel a rehearsal or whatever, we don't see it as failing, just living," Felix levels. He smirks and adds, "Also, life's made me realise how fucking stupid being in a band is!" Hugo laughs in agreement: "It's a miracle to have a band work once; to be able to find it again is so rare that we're just floating along in it; it feels as valuable as the first time we did it."

The boys have, in one way or another, spent a lot of time working with younger artists and watching the industry change. In this way, they've been able to avoid some of the pitfalls of the modern-day music business, focussing heavily on live shows. Felix knows this first-hand through his work with Yala! Records, whose impressive output includes Willie J Healey and Egyptian Blue.

"I think that a lot of younger, more modern artists are musically more mature than we were, but then you see them live, and it just doesn't correlate because everyone's so focussed on streams over shows. Being on stage, especially in smaller venues, brings you together in a way that you can't fake and forces you to learn about who you are.

For that reason, 86TVs launched their ship in the roughest of waters, starting their journey with a performance at Brighton's Great Escape festival (alongside The Pretenders, no less) and a main support slot for long-time friend and indie powerhouse Jamie T.

"It was amazing for Jamie to put so much faith in us, given we had no songs out," Hugo laughs. "It felt like such a flashback, not hiding behind a hit song, but also knowing that we weren't coming off that stage until we'd won the crowd over."

The release of this EP beckons in their next round of headline shows, with the lads playing venues including Bristol's Thekla, Glasgow's King Tuts, and a homecoming show at London's Lafayette. All of the boys are chomping to be back on the road, with Hugo putting it that, "I think the Jamie T tour showed us that the band and the music were as resilient as we thought they were, and smaller shows are beyond amazing, so it'll be good to get back in front of a crowd that knows our songs!"

Seven years on from the first foundations of 86TVs, this is still only the band's soft launch. 'You Don't Have To Be Yourself Right Now' is barely even the first chapter in what the boys have to offer, with the promise of a full album later in the year very much something to look forward to. "We want this year to feel like the end of last year did: like we're flying without even thinking about it," Felix states. Jamie steals the show, though, when he sums up the band as "wonderful bottles of red wine that have aged and matured so well." Hard to disagree, really.