have got into different sorts of music and that’s reflected in what we write.
Both of your releases so far (‘I Am The Riv- er’ and ‘Five Twenty Seven’, both available on iTunes) have been EPs. What were the reasons for this - do you plan to release a full album at some point? ALL: MONEY. NB: It’s all done by us, everything is paid for by us – practice, recordings, videos. It’s all been financed out of our own pockets. We’d love to go and record an album now, just take two months off work and go and do it. GG: Yeah, we’ve got the material to record an album, we just can’t do it. OR: It’s not financially viable whatsoever. NB: Does anyone want some bruschetta…?
You obviously have quite an eclectic and unusual sound, coloured by a multitude of instruments – where do you draw your influences? Do you think the mix of nation- alities within the band contributes to this? JM and NB: 100%, yeah. JM: Our music has changed quite a lot, and then we had Gulli come into the band and it drastically changed. He started doing vocals as well, which made our sound very differ- ent. NC: He gave us the capacity to do it as well. JM: Yeah, what I used to do was write the piano parts and then we’d blag it. Then, Gulli came along and literally made it ten times better. And we’re all into different music, so we’ve all got different opinions on what’s good, what’s catchy, you know. It all comes together and blends into something beauti- ful. GG: Oh, I like that! NC: Gulli IS Hello Mexico. NB: We’ve grown up – to be honest we all started in heavy metal. NC: Us three (John, Nick and Nick) were all
in metal bands, and Oli was in a death metal one. We just wanted to do something a bit more melodic. NB: We tried but it wouldn’t work with the scene though. If we played what we play now in that scene, it would have just alien- ated us. We had to just completely be clear of that and start from scratch.
Was the dramatic shift in sound since your first EP (‘I Am The River’) - to something subtler and more atmospheric, a conscious decision, or did it come as more of an inadvertent consequence of changes in social/personal circumstance and prefer- ence etc? NB: It’s both, isn’t it? John started changing the sound way before Gulli joined, but we didn’t really give it a chance. NC: We didn’t have the capacity to do it. Our friend Luke Welch was in the band do- ing the shouting, and the new music we were writing just didn’t fit with that. Luke left and Gulli came in, allowing us to become more atmospheric. OR: Well, we had some really soft songs way before. John had written some songs but we just couldn’t use them, and then we were able to.
How often do you write – is it a collec- tive united operation or do you each try to contribute ideas, melodies etc perhaps dreamt up previously in your own time? JM: We all contribute ideas, it starts off as say a riff, or a song, pretty much done. Then in the studio or practice room, we all put our own ideas in, and it does change quite a lot from how it started off. NB: John is a heavy musical force in the band. OR: Yeah, he comes up with most of the ideas. We have a written a few all together, but most of the songs are ideas that John has come up with. He’ll send it to us, and we’ll
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give our feedback and change bits. NC: He’ll write the basis of the song, drums, vocals, keys, guitar ideas – then me and Nick will work from that. JM: Then Gulli will work his Icelandic magic over the top.
How do you deal with potentially con- flicting ideas in the writing and recording process? Or is it quite fluid? OR: To be perfectly honest, everyone is very understanding and liberal-minded… JM: Laidback? OR: Yeah, me and John basically shout at each other constantly until one of us lets the other one win - ‘you can have your idea’. It happens a LOT. JM: I’m usually right. OR: See, this is how it usually begins… NB: Nah, we know where each other stand. NC: Personally, I don’t like to talk about writing style and things too much, as I think it all changes once you play together anyway. NB: The song I was most against, is the one I like the most now – ‘Space to Catch My Breath’. When we started practicing that, I fucking hated it. You just need to take a step back to appreciate it. OR: I’ve had to do that a lot in this band – since it first started, our taste in music has changed hugely. John would write stuff, and I’d always tell him to change it – he wouldn’t – then after he’d stood his ground, I’d listen to it afterwards and think ‘yeah, you were right, it sounds really good’. JM: …. So you just admitted that I’m right?
What specific meanings or themes are there behind the songs? Are they autobio- graphical, drawing from personal experi- ences? JM: The new ones that we’re about to record have gotten really personal. For me, when I write something, I find it a bit naff
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