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Even though it’s most logical starting point for anyone looking to classify what they do, it almost seems unfair to lump Tristram in with the whole folk thing.
The brain-child of a Brighton-based singer songwriter transplanted into Hackney’s art-spaces, this group have taken the traditional folk structures based on confessional acoustic guitar strumming and have took off down the same trail blazed by Simon and Garfunkle , Belle and Sebastian and even the Beach Boys by adding just enough sun-drenched pop to keep things jauntily rowing along. The result is a sound that whilst touching on twee, is cute, sometimes funny and infectious without making you want to spew-up into your coffee.
Recently featured on the Guardian’s New Band of the Day feature, and having just got back from a UK tour with Mariners Children, it’s pretty safe to say that the future is looking pretty bright for these dudes. I caught up singer Tristram and celloist Becca in Islington for a quick chat and some impromptu antique shopping.
Right, first up, on your last EP there was a song about a bike. Care to explain the story behind that one?
T: It wasn’t even that great a bike, I just liked it and it got stolen. I was feeling a bit un-happy anyway, so I decided to write a song about it. I never really expected anyone to listen to it.
What was the bike?
T: It was a like one of those mountain bikes mixed with a road bike things, a hybrid even...
B: It doesn’t sound like a nice bike.
T: It wasn’t. I’ve got a road bike now and its loads better.
Had any spectacular crashes yet?
T: I crashed the day before yesterday actually. I was late for something so I was riding through Victoria Park and went over some wet leaves and just sort of slipped off. It looked pretty spectacular, the front wheel came off and everything. I sort of wish I watched myself do it.
B: I got knocked over the other day as well. I was going by some traffic and a car came out of a side road assuming no-one was coming and sort of crashed into me in slow-motion. I cried a bit afterwards.
So, the last time I saw you years ago you were a solo artist and now you’re a band, how’s that working out?
T: It’s definitely been a big change. Both me Becca and Tom (drums) were on a course together in Brighton, and Greg joined soon after we moved to London. To start off with we were just doing band arrangements of my solo stuff, but now we’ve started writing stuff together and the sound has starting evolving quite a lot.
B: This new EP has a lot more input from the other people in the band. Most of the time Tristram will come in with songs and we’ll rearrange them or whatever, but there are one or two songs we’ve done where we’ve basically written it together. I think it has seen us move away from being quite a twee band into something that’s a lot more gutsy.
So are you guys jamming more often?
B: I’m not a fan of jamming really; you end up faffing around on parts that never get used. I am relaxing a bit more though, and we’re definitely getting better at playing together and knowing what each other are doing next. Most of the time.
Are you guys still a folk band? Are you comfortable play to a room of old men smoking pipes.
T: I think we’re still kind of a folk band, it’s the closest comparison that’s for sure, and once upon a time we definitely were. We’re kind of moving away from all that now, and I wouldn’t know what to call it really.
B: We’d scare old men smoking pipes now. The songs are a lot let obvious. We’d weird them out in a gentle way.
T: Yeah, old folk songs usually have quite a circular structure and our new songs definitely don’t follow it. We’d leave old men bemused.
Now you’re a band, does it bum you out playing to a room of talking people?
B: it’s a bit discouraging sometimes, I mean as a band you want people to listen rather than be the back-ground music to their conversation.
T: Well we’re a bit noisier now, so you don’t notice it as much, but I kind of think it works both ways – if you play quietly, people tend to quieten down to listen, but when you play in a full band people sort of assume that’s it’s OK to talk. We’re in some weird middle ground, where-as we’re a full band but has some quiet bits.
B: I try not to look at people anymore. We had quite a weird gig in a pub in Exeter where we had to sneak in after a production of Hamlet and then basically played to a bunch of people talking to each other.
T:To be honest I don’t get that annoyed now-a-days; I just treat those shows as another band practice.
Tristram will be celebrating the release of their new record with a show at the Macbeth on the 29th of November.
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