ION INDIE MAGAZINE March 2016, Volume 22 | Page 85

that as teenagers suited us perfectly. Also, I think at the time, the American accent
sounded much cooler and more passionate to us than the British accent when sung. The
fact that we could replicate those songs in a band and play them live at school (badly),
made them all the more influential.
JN: You’ve been quoted as saying, “You have to be your own harshest critics if you’re
going to write songs that you hope people want to listen to”, but are there any specific
themes and topics you try to focus on when going through your creative process?
RC: We cover many themes in our songs, but we draw a lot of inspiration from our past
and present relationships, be they romantic, family or friendships. We try not to make
our songs too specific, so that people can relate their own situation to them in a
meaningful way. We go through our individual creative processes in different ways-Charlie and Stu seem to thrive in group debate situations; whereas I like to take a walk
in the countryside on a sunny day and draw stimulation from nature.
JN: You have discussed how you continually look for i nspiration in making new originals
from influences--including MUMFORD & SONS, BEN HOWARD, NOAH AND THE WHALE-but what is it about these particular individuals that you find most inspiring?
RC: We really enjoy listening to all those artists and they have all inspired our
songwriting. The attraction of their music for us is the simplicity of it--we realized long
ago that you don’t need distorted guitars and heavy drums to make a song sound great-and in actual fact, you get a better experience from listening to music like that because
you can pick out the individual instruments and components of the songs much more
easily. Or perhaps our musical tastes have just matured a bit over the last few years!
JN: As you’ve have played gigs in both the UK and United States, have you noticed a
difference in how your fans react to your music depending on the country you’re in?
RC: We only got the opportunity to play a couple of gigs in the US so far, both of which
we received a warm reception, so it’s difficult to compare. We love our fans and they
always give us so much support when we play to them live wherever we go, but the
reaction varies sometimes when we play to people who’ve never heard of us before at
clubs and festivals. Some people become really animated and get really vocal, but others
are more subdued and just politely applaud. I think perhaps more people in the US who’d
never heard of us were more willing to get visibly enthusiastic about our music. Hopefully
it wasn’t just down to the alcohol!
JN: You released your debut EP “Somewhere in Between” in 2012, and since that time,
what have you learned about yourself…both as musicians and individuals?
RC: I don’t think we’ve changed that much as musicians since 2012 in terms of our
abilities, but I think our songwriting and technical knowledge has improved massively.
We’re much quicker to agree how long a chorus or a verse should be and whether there
should be an interlude or not, for example. We seem to work better as a team now and
have learnt to be more efficient with time, as we all have to negotiate full-time jobs
around the band. I guess having played so many gigs (sometimes two a day) over the
last few years has meant we’ve all become a lot more confident as individuals.