[Published in Latitude Lookout magazine in 2016]
Everything You Need To Know About Circa Waves
Whist working at the Liverpool based music festival SoundCity in 2013, frontman Kieran Shuddall met members Sam Rourke (bass), Joe Falconer (guitar) and Sian Plummer (drums) with the intention to return a year later and headline the festival, but after an extremely successful EP release they have comfortably surpassed all expectations.
On the Road
The four piece have just wrapped up an intense tour that took them across Europe and the UK supporting both The Libertines and The 1975. Straight after they ventured out on their own headline tour in the US and hit the UK once again. Considering life on the road isn’t all glamour and the reality is that you’re stuck in a van for most of it, fallouts are to be expected. Falconer gave an insight into tour life, describing the arguments as “petty sh*t, like people taking the back seat in the van… again. It’s such a small space, it’s not actual beef, it’s just sh*tty living conditions”. Fortunately these Liverpudlians have found a way to keep morale high, Sian put it in a nutshell, saying “If we’re not sleeping, we’re playing Tiger Woods in the van”. They clearly have their down time in good check.
Expectations
Many critics have related them to acts like The Subways, Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes, but Falconer felt this was a shallow judgement. He reported, “It’s quite easy to relate to those indie bands in the UK, but actually I think Keirans songwriting is influenced more by the classic 1970’s singer/songwriter stuff, he really loves the form of it. We’re all into punk music which is a bit more scrappy, so I think that those sort of comparisons are fair, but if you dig a little deeper you find a lot more to it.” I certainly agree, they do indeed fit the stereotype of big names like The Strokes, but they have definitely found a niche groove that clearly many have taken a liking to.
The advice
Considering how hard it is to break into the music industry, it seemed fitting to take the opportunity and ask what the band felt the key to success was. Sian delivered a motivating response, stating that the best thing was to “…practice and play loads of gigs, and always listen to your audience, I think thats key.”
Well, your audience loves what you’re doing and we’re all very excited for next year. Expect festival dates, more touring and, fingers crossed, some new material…
An Interview With COASTS
[Published in Latitude Lookout magazine in 2016]
Hey man, Hows the tour going so far?
Chris: Yeah it’s been awesome man, really really good! We’ve had some great receptions. We started in Brighton on Saturday (22nd) and finish on December 7th… The last show is in Manchester.
Cool, Whats the biggest show on the tour?
Chris: This is the biggest show on this tour, and probably the biggest headline show we’ve done so far!
What influences the summer sound you have?
Chris: We have vast influences from so many different genres of music, and we listen to so much varied music; to pin down a particular artist is really hard. I just try to read a lot and soak up a lot of that because I mainly write most of the lyrics and the melody.
Do you find it easier writing upbeat songs? Most artists seem to find that more difficult…
Chris: I guess so, I naturally veer towards those sort of songs. It’s really enjoyable when you write an upbeat song and it just works, and then you play it live and the audience reacts off of that, especially at festivals.
In the song Golden City, you sing about leaving your heart in London. What’s the link there considering you’re from Bristol?
Chris: So, I’m born and bread in Bristol but I now live in London. At the time I wrote the song I was living in Bristol and my girlfriend was in London, so it’s about having to go away and leave her.
I watched your ‘A Rush Of Blood’ video and it was insane! How did that idea come about?
Chris: Cheers man! Basically, the lyrics are all about when I went travelling and it was about being away from my girlfriend. So when we came to getting a video for it I just wrote what the song was about to me and sent it to our label. Loads of directors pitched in a bunch of different ideas and that one was the one that worked the most.
Where is it filmed?
Chris: It’s filmed all across America, theres a group of people that travel all around and essentially live off the land; they don’t have jobs and skip trains and stuff. That was something that hadn’t been documented I think, load’s of young people doing that.
You’ve got an EP release soon! What can we expect?
Chris: It’s out at the end of January, we’re properly releasing it then but most of the songs are up now. We’ve experimented with some stuff on this record. It’s a bit of a departure away from certain aspects of what we’re about as a band, but it’s still Coasts, it’s still a Coasts record.
Cool! 2015 is set to be a busy year for you guys, it’s already confirmed you’re playing Coachella and Lollapalooza. Are there any more festivals announced?
Chris: So we’ve got SXSW that’s been announced. We’re hopefully doing most of the festivals, or thats the plan anyway!
Are you playing Reading or Glastonbury?
Chris: Umm… Yeah I hope so! We have a few that we know about that we haven’t announced yet but we just want to do every festival man, they’re the most fun shows!
I’m assuming there will be another UK tour next year?
Chris: Yeah, I’d imagine so. We haven’t announced any of this but we’ll be touring every now and then over the course of the next year. We’ll probably be on tour for about the next year and a half…
You excited about that?
Chris: Yeah! Live shows are the best thing about being in a band!
Finally, any chance of an LP release?
Chris: Definitely! It’ll most likely be in the summer. We haven’t set a date but this summer definitely man.
Thanks Chris!
Lonely The Brave: An Interview
[Published in Latitude Lookout magazine in 2016]
Hey Mark! So, the album you just released came out on the 1st September. How’s it going so far?
Mark – Yeah, it’s been amazing really. If you had told me a year ago that we’d have an album that’s sitting at number 14 on the UK chart and number 1 in the rock chart, that’s bonkers, I wouldn’t have believed you!
Awesome, really happy for you guys! You played Reading last year didn’t you?
Mark – We played Reading this year as well. We did Reading and Leeds two years in a row, Download two years in a row as well, I mean Reading was a special one for us, it is probably the one we’d be going to anyway if we weren’t playing it because we all used to go to Reading so to get invited back two years in a row is a real honour.
Would you class yourself as a festival band?
Mark – We love both, it’s amazing to be able to go and play in front of 10,000 people and then go back to the smaller, more intimate shows so it is amazing, we like both of them.
How did the name Lonely The Brave come about?
Mark – We were all in different bands in and around Cambridge and when we decided to become the band we are now we had to take some pretty strong action in terms of leaving the bands that we were all in and we figured some people would be pretty upset with that but it was the right decision and the right thing to do for all of us, and we knew that would isolate us from some people we knew as well. It sounds a bit cheesy but it came from there, we had to be ‘brave’ to get on with it because it’s what needed to happen. We also like the idea of names meaning more than one thing, one of our favourite bands are called Poison the Well, which has a similar feel to Lonely the Brave, so it’s cool that it means more than one thing.
And you recently got signed to Columbia, is there a lot of pressure from the label as a band?
Mark – No I don’t think so, I mean there in it for the long haul as far as we’re aware. They’ve been great to us and they see it as a building process, so we’ll go from there really. It’s our first record, the first thing we’ve ever released apart from our EP so hopefully they’ll stay on board with us for a while and keep putting records out.
You’ve been on the road for a while now, what’s a day in the life like?
Mark – It can be quite varied, actually it’s not, it’s very much the same, over and over again! So generally you get up at silly o’ clock and get in the bus, play Fifa for about three hours whilst in the van, stop, pee, probably smoke, get back in the van, Fifa for another three hours, soundcheck, show, repeat. Touring is really good fun, I’m not going to say it’s not, it’s a great time and not only with the guys in the band, you know, we’re all really close, but with our crew as well so it makes it so much better.
So who’s the Fifa king?
Mark – Thats probably Dave, yeah he’s big time into his Fifa, I’m getting better but, Dave’s the guy.
Who are your influences?
Mark – It’s a really weird one. We’re all into really different music, which I guess comes through in our sound and there’s only a few artists we all agree on. So the ones we actually agree on would be Deftones, The Boss, can’t beat a bit of Springsteen, The National, Pearl Jam, a band called This Will Destroy You that we really like. There are a couple of new bands that we really like too, like Defeater. That’s probably about it though because we’re all into such different music so they’re about the only ones we can agree on. I guess a lot of them could be seen as influences, but we’ve never sat down and thought about how we want to sound, I just don’t think you can help but be influenced by the people you listen to.
Your lyrics can be pretty dark, would you say that’s a fair judgement? What’s the inspiration usually for the writing?
Mark – Life, life is the inspiration! I don’t think they’re all dark I mean the album is called The Days War, which I guess if you look at it that way you know, life isn’t always easy, we all have stuff to deal with. It’s kind of funny when we write, we always think we’re writing really depressing songs but when we listen back to them there’s always this really strong element of hope in there so, you know, there is some dark subject matter, but I don’t think they’re actually that dark, there’s just layers to them, some of them are really obvious as to what they’re about, others not so much, the message is probably a bit more hidden.
What’s the best venue you’ve played so far?
Mark – Oh god, that’s a difficult question! We’ve been really lucky man, we’ve played some incredible places, I mean we played Paris with the Deftones, that was incredible, and generally in mainland Europe you get looked after so well so to say one venue over another is really hard. We really like Koko, thats amazing. This place is also pretty cool, we’ve played here a couple of times and it’s good fun. We played Lockersee festival in Belgium with Neil Young, that was pretty awesome, we got really looked after. But in terms of venue, you know, it’s hard to pick one.
So what’s 2015 look like for Lonely the Brave?
Mark– Well at the moment we’ll just be touring for the foreseeable future, might be lucky enough to get out to the states next year, there will be at least another headline UK tour, we’re literally playing everywhere! We’re also going back to the studio next week as well just to start recording some ideas down. In terms of firm plans we’re just playing and playing, so we won’t be home much for a while!
Last question, do you have any advice for aspiring musicians?
Mark – Man, it’s the cheesiest answer in the world but it is the gospel truth, don’t ever give up. Mate, if you believe in what you’re doing just don’t give up, we were the same and we came close you know, we were going to self release our record at one point because no one wanted it but you know, our manager got Hassle involved and they got Columbia involved and now we’re all over the world you know, number one rock album, so just don’t ever give up, if you believe in what you’re doing just keep at it and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because you’ll do those gigs to one person and his dog if you’re lucky on a Thursday night four hundred miles from home, it happens, but just keep going. If you believe in it, you will do it, that’s all I can say… And don’t be a dick!