The joys of working 18 hour days...
If 2012 has taught us anything, it’s that the balance of power has definitely shifted away from London in the last 12 months. In the last couple of years, Leeds in particular has produced bands as good as Spectrals, Eagulls and Hookworms, and now they’re giving us Slowcoaches. Sounding like a cross between No Age and glove box full of old metal tapes, and armed with a razor sharp post punk demur, they make loud, distorted noise pop, that is as messy as the aftermath of an earthquake in a cake shop.
Slowcoaches' debut EP has sold out twice now. The first pressing was all snapped up in a week, while the second batch, released back in the autumn disappeared within a month. Clocking in just over 12-minutes in length (despite featuring 6 songs) 'We're So Heavy' captures the attention with an aural bombardment of explosive punk that's a loud, catchy composite of pop and hardcore.
Even though they’ve been together for a couple years now, 2012 has seen Slowcoaches launch into a flurry of activity, travelling up and down the country to get their noise heard in the midst of working full-time jobs. Late night finishes followed by early starts can take their toll, but from what they say about how raucous their shows can become, they're certainly not having much effect on these guys.
Slowcoaches - Proper Job by Art Is Hard Records
How did you guys get together?
Heather: About three years ago I shouted across the road at Matty one night that he looked like Kurt Cobain. He used to have really long hair. I think he told me to get screwed or something. Later on that night he was skating right down my road and I dunno, after that somehow we just hung out for all time since.
Me and Callum decided to start a band 'cause we were bored and Matt was obviously gonna play drums cause he was always moping around at my house. So we wrote a lot of stuff with Callum and played some shows. Callum left and we didn’t do anything for a while and then Sam joined on drums and Matt plays guitar now.
Did you all like the same sort of music before forming?
Me and Matt like a lot of similar music. Like, if he tells me about a band or something I usually like it too. I guess that’s how we got to hanging out a lot.
The band must be a reflection of stuff we listen to in some way or other. It just means that we’re coming from a similar place in terms of how you listen to sounds. Like Sam comes from a totally different musical teenhood and sometimes we’ll play him something we think is awesome and he just thinks it sounds like total shit and doesn’t understand why we like it. It’s hard to explain that to someone when it just doesn’t translate.
Who are your punk influences?
As usual, loads of stuff. Desperate Bicycles, Wipers, Wire, 3Ds, GBV, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers. Neil Young, Pavement, Die Kreuzen, X, Flipper. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Total Control.
How have you found the reaction to your material so far?
The first EP sold out in a week which was pretty unexpected. We’re just trying to get something else together for early next year. It’s good playing shows to people and stuff. That’s all we wanna do, play shows. So as long as some people come see us or whatever, that’s alright.
With regards to your new song ‘Proper Job’, how important is it to you to make a career in music work and avoid the dreaded 9-5?
We wrote that song when Matty was working two jobs, day and night, all week and I was working full time in this shit place and just felt like I had no energy or time do anything to see anyone. Then when I'd go out I'd just sit and look around and wanna go home. But it’s never been like “hey, let’s try and do this cause some day maybe we can just hang out and play shows and party and never go to work”. It’s more like we all just have our heads down and get on with stuff because you have to. We play out and then we go home then get up in 3 hours and go to work so that we have money to do that.
What’s been the band highlight of the year so far?
Touring Poland. We played in the Palac Kultury, the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. It's the tallest building in Poland. When we came out the subway and saw where we were playing we thought that Maciek, the promoter, was lying to us.
What have you got planned for 2013?
We will make a record that’s going to be totally different to the stuff we released this year. We are touring Europe in April. I’m starting a new band that’s a secret right now and Matt just released a new solo record. It’s called ‘Passing by with Beer’. So basically we’ll be doing more stuff like that.
You can listen to 'We're So Heavy' over on Tye Die Tapes.
http://slowcoaches.bandcamp.com/
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