It’s time to start getting excited, Dear Reader. We’re just a few months out from the unofficial start of our summer festival season. That May Day Bank Holiday weekend means one thing – Live At Leeds. Packed with (literally) hundreds of the best new bands on the planet, it sees one of the country’s most vibrant creative cities turned into a mecca of buzz, hype and awesome live music.
To celebrate, we’re holding a special Live At Leeds takeover. Over the course of the day (28th January 2020, in case you’re coming to this late – Ed), we’ll be bringing you all kinds of stuff from and about the acts playing this year’s event. If you’re going, it’ll help you plan out those all-important spreadsheets. If you’ve not yet picked up your tickets – well, what are you waiting for? You can grab ’em here, right now.
It’s probably safe to say you won’t have heard a band like Noisy yet this year. Breaking out from Worthing’s pubs and skateparks with a hybrid of hooks, beats and goodness-knows-what-else, singer/rapper Cody, guitarist Connor and producer-guitarist Spencer have quickly become a must-see live concern – and this Friday they drop their debut EP, too.
Hi Cody, how’s it going? Having a good 2020 so far?
What’s happening? Having a sick 2020 so far… we just shot our next video, and before that, we were away in Amsterdam writing.
What first got you into wanting to make music, then? Did you grow up in a musical household?
My parents got me a guitar one Christmas, completely out of the blue. I thought it was rude not to give it a go. Since then, I was hooked really. Dad used to play a lot of music around the house; he had this mad sound system, so anything just sounded amazing. I remember finding his Prodigy Breathe single, falling in love with it and thinking, I want to be in a band one day.
Then I met the lads.
Tell us about your first two singles, ‘So What’ and ‘Do It Like That’ – what led you to drop those first?
They were the first tunes we wrote that really felt ‘NOISY’ to us. So it just felt right to put them out first. I feel like we’re miles ahead of them now in terms of the sound, but we wouldn’t be writing like this without them having happened. They are the NOISY foundations.
Do you have many songs recorded and ready to go? What are you working on right now?
Honestly, we have about 50 tunes nearly ready to go. We’ve been writing non-stop over the past year. Just wanted to get a large catalogue of music down before putting ourselves out into the world. Right now we’re finishing up the biggest tune I think we’ve written in a while, I’m gassed!
What do you most enjoy writing about, generally?
Our everyday lives, man! I like to be really honest in my lyrics; there’s usually a lot about the night before and songs about mates. Maybe one day I won’t write so much about nightlife, but right now it’s what’s happening.
How did you figure out what you wanted Noisy to sound like?
It’s evolved over time… from writing with guitars in loud rooms in bands when we were young, to now writing into a computer where the possibilities are endless. We needed to explore first to get to where we are now. For us, that meant writing pop music. At one point, we were writing tunes that sounded like Rihanna or something, but then we found our lane, and it instantly felt amazing. I remember being in Spencer’s kitchen, he was playing a beat on his phone, and I started rapping over it. We quickly made it into a song, and it just felt right. ‘So What’ was written the day after.
How’s Worthing for up-and-coming bands? Is there much going on?
Not enough, man, we need more venues! There’s a sick new place called The Factory which is next door to our studio. Hopefully, it encourages more people to start making music and form a scene down here.
Music aside, what do you guys do for fun?
Sounds cliché but we just live for the weekend. Friday night is our vibe. There are some decent DnB clubs around Worthing and Brighton. We’re attempting to start our own club too which we’ll perform at and also have mates DJing and shit. We did one last year, and it went great so definitely going to plan another soon.
Finally, tell us a secret about yourself?
I went to the pub last Tuesday, and I’ve been telling everyone I’m smashing dry January…
I haven’t, haha.
Live At Leeds will take place on 2nd May, visit liveatleeds.com for more info.
