We caught up with Joel, Joff and Theo from the band Wolf Alice to hear what to expect from this tour and which new bands they think are going to rise up the ranks in 2015…
How did you come about creating music from the very beginning?
Joel: In the beginning there was Joff and Ellie
Joff: We started writing together about five years ago, we started writing songs with an acoustic guitar, pretty chilled, and kinda went from there really. We got more people involved until these two (Theo and Joel) came and stayed and we joined forces to make Wolf Alice what it is today.
Over the past five years would you say your music has changed and grown in any way?
I think from our early beginnings, even when it was the four of us it was quite scrappy- punk but melodic-and i think we’ve really discovered the art of song structure. It’s fun to try and impress each other with a new lick. It’s not always got to be so straight forward and that’s really fun. It’s like Fluffy off our first album
Massive tune man, i remember when Zane Lowe first dropped that
Zane’s played all our songs actually, he’s really supported us.
Do you find with the writing process you’re getting more time to be creative in the studio than in practice rooms?
You come out with different stuff, Heavenly Creature was done in a rehearsal studio and that’s more of a jammy kind of thing while some things on the record we did more in the studio and they have more of a polished, studio vibe…so they’re different…
For people who are unfamiliar with your music, how would you describe it?
We’re so bad at describing it; we’ve taken to not describing it till our album’s out as you can either let people down or build them up in the wrong way. We should just start a new name for a genre that doesn’t exist, like Frindie and people will have a nightmare. It’s like on a dating website and you see someone’s description of themselves…
You’re touring around the country over the next couple of months, have you got any new material in the pipeline?
The album has 10 new songs on. We’ve played a few of them quite a lot live so for some of our fans they’ll have heard them before and be familiar with them. Some of them they’ll never have heard.
It’s nice to get the new material out, even if it’s to fresh ears. You’re being supported by The Magic Gang and Crows and The Bloody Knees, was it yourself that made the choice?
Yeah it was, we’ve chosen all the support on all our tours, and it’s something we take a lot of pride in. In May last year we took on tour Superfood and Gengar and they’ve both gone on to do great things and it’s nice to have had that month to all play music and hang out, and it’s the same this month really.
You’ve toured a bit and done some festivals like Dot to Dot, what’s been the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you on tour?
There’s not much we can say, we went to a strange party the other day… the strangest thing for us was when people actually started coming to the shows, we were like ‘who are you? i don’t know you?’ so that was kinda weird, but weird in a great way. I mean today and yesterday are sold out and these are venues we’ve passed through as a support band.
Yeah and now you’re filling out a 400 capactiy venue on a Tuesday night, i love the fact that more and younger people are going to gigs now and using the internet as a tool for finding up and coming bands. if you were to be in any particular era of music what would it have been?
I would have been with Nick Drake and John Martin and David Graham and all that lot in the 70s and rolling around in my own filth playing acoustic guitars
I probably would’ve chosen 90s boy bands, i would’ve tried my best to be in one of those ridiculously stupid bands. I would’ve been like Jose in the Backstreet Boys who wore dungarees a lot.
There’s a lot of that 90s vibe going around now
I wish i was the first one to have done that!
I’ve always wanted to go back to punk with all the psychadelia
To be fair, we could be in a 90s hardcore band
Which song do you love performing live and why?
Giant peach is sick because it’s such a great song! I’m only joking, it’s shit but it’s well fun to play live. Circle pits are fun! Get the circle pits tonight because there were last night!
Last but not least, who are your favourite new bands at the moment? and who do you think will be big in 2015?
I reckon Teishei, she’s super pop and quite buzzy and I really like production on her stuff.
I think it’ll also belong to this guy called Shamir, he’s one of the best things I saw at SXSW. And Miley Cyrus, I think she’ll have another corker.
By Joe Zain
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