False Advertising: "We were hungry to evolve and do more"
With their new album out now, the Manchester trio are ready to make a noise.
The trio, made up of Jen Hingley on vocals, guitar and drums, Josh Sellers on bass and Christopher Warr on drums, vocals and guitar, already look set for much bigger things, working with indie scene daddy Alcopop Records to cut through the noise. We caught up with Jen to find out more....
Hello, Jen! How’s life in Manchester at the moment?
Manchester is beginning to feel a bit autumnal at the moment, but the weather is still being alright. I’m looking forward to escaping for a bit soon, actually!
Tell us about your new album - when did you start work on it, and what was your starting point?
Every time we finish with a release, we always seem to want to begin writing and planning to do the next thing quite quickly. It feels like ages ago now, but we pulled this album together from various demos we had floating around at the tail end of 2017 - a year where we’d done some awesome stuff like going to SXSW and Barcelona and touring and doing some nice festivals. We were hungry to evolve and do more. As luck would have it we while we were planning how we were going to go about recording the album we were invited by our friend Luke to record the album with him at The Church Studios in London, during the studio’s downtime. Which is mad really when you think about it. We recorded all the tracks live at the very beginning of 2018 (which coincided with me leaving my job partially because I couldn’t get the time off) and then chipped away at the rest of the record over the months that followed any chance we got.
What frame of mind were you guys in while writing this one?
I think we were a bit on edge about various personal situations and frustrations in the wider world. Although we wrote it so long ago, I think the world is still the same frustrating place. Hopefully, it’ll still resonate!
Do you still identify with the lyrical themes on your debut? How has life changed since then?
There’s nothing I can think of on our debut that doesn’t still ring mostly true. If anything my writing on that album was more in touch with the wider world and less self-centred. I think we’ve evolved our vocabulary a bit for the better, but we’ve always had a bit of a desire for articulating our frustrations through catharsis. Not that anything I’ve written is particularly profound, but as we started the band when I was 26, I feel like my more juvenile writing is quite far behind me
The obvious answer to this question is that sonically it’s a big step up. This is the first proper release we’ve recorded in a real studio - and a fantastic studio at that. Having previously mostly self-recorded and produced things DIY, working with Luke at The Church was a big deal for us, and a new sort of dynamic for us to get used to where we are collaborating with a future and have so many more options in terms of how things can sound. We also recorded a lot of it live, which we’ve never really been able to do before, and really pushed ourselves to perform as well as we could.
What would you most like listeners to take away from the album?
I’d love people to feel excited by the sound. We wanted it to bring across the energy of our live performance in the way it feels. We didn’t want to over-polish anything.
How did you come to sign with Alcopop?
Alcopop have been one of my favourite labels for a long time. Before signing, we were lucky enough to receive PRS Momentum funding to release the record, an incredible luxury which gave us a cracking starting point when it came to forming a plan. We teamed up with Alcopop partly so we could surround ourselves with the right sort of infrastructure. While we would have loved to have gone fully DIY, the reality of logistically releasing a successful album is difficult if you don’t have a good distribution deal and things like that. We figured going with a label was the smart thing to do, given our lack of experience!
Have you guys started to think about what you want to write about next?
I’ve not had much time to write recently because there’s been so much to organise. But in the gap between finishing the album and having to do all the artwork and stuff, we have written a few new songs. One of mine is about wanting more personal space, and one is about that feeling you get when you do something really stupid. If 'Brainfreeze' is about complaining about people’s self-indulgence, then maybe the next one will be about wanting to disappear.
Which new bands are you tipping for next year?
There are loads of really sick bands, many who we’ve had a chance to play with or seen at festivals recently. Keep an eye on Faux Pas, Dead Naked Hippies, Calva Louise, Peaness, Gaffa Tape Sandy, The Hyena Kill and Cassels especially.
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