North London group Gengahr uploaded their catchy, 90’s tinged ethereal tunes to BBC Introducing and have had support from Huw Stephens and 6 Music since then. Tey’ve signed to a label, are playing loads of festivals this summer and their debut album has just been released. Tey play Latitude this month and also at Norwich Arts Centre in October so you’ve got no excuse not to catch this group on the up and up. I spoke to lead singer Felix about playing at SXSW, his falsetto vocal style and what the record industry’s really like.
Gengahr
Where did you get your name from? We had a name but had to change it because someone else had it already. In a moment of frustration we realised that all the names we came up with sounded quite pretentious, so we thought we’d come up with something silly. Gengahr is our favourite Pokemon. We didn’t really think it through. Who’s your inspiration as a songwriter and also your vocal style? How did you find your own singing voice? I think early on Lou Reed and David Bowie were who I wanted to write like. As far as singing stuff goes, we were trying out a few songs in falsetto and I really didn’t like it, I though it sounded terrible, but the rest of the guys thought it sounded pretty cool. I’d never really tried it until then, but since then I’ve gotten a lot better at doing it so I don’t mind it anymore. I think it’s easier than singing normally when you’re touring a lot, I’ve not lost my voice, even from doing two shows at Te Great Escape. Te first track I heard by you was She’s a Witch. What’s the story behind that song? I was talking to someone on Facebook Messenger and they said something like “maybe this, maybe that” and I used that for the chorus and then built up a story around it. It’s very fictitious, there’s nothing deep that happened behind that song. Generally I just try and build
26 / July 2015/
outlineonline.co.uk
“Gengahr is our favourite Pokemon. We didn’t really think it through.”
narratives; even if they come from somewhere real, I embellish and add elements that weren’t there before. It’s pretty bonkers how you only had 3 demos but played Glastonbury and supported Wolf Alice and Superfood on tour. Has it all been a bit of a whirlwind for you guys in the past year? I don’t think it’s been as weird for us as it appears from the outside because we’ve all been doing this for a long time now. Some of us have been in bands for ten years. It felt good this time. Tere hasn’t been a huge amount of pressure to put the album together; although we had put a few songs online, we held some back. We though it would be better to put some choice things out there. In this day and age when people have a short attention span,
if you give them five songs they’re almost less likely to like it than if you give them one good one. We’re pretty focused, and whenever we have down time we try and use it. Like, I’ve got my guitar in my hand right now! I think you only get stressed out if you’re unprepared and we try and make sure we’re ready for every step as it comes. What was it like playing at SXSW, the first time you played in America? What sort of response did you get? Tat was amazing! It came through because of BBC Introducing. Tey’ve been really good to us. Tat was our favourite thing we’ve done so far; we’d love to go back there soon. We didn’t really know what it was going to be like…whether 10 people would turn up or 100, and we ended up playing to 800 people! We had no expectations; we played two shows and at the second show people were watching through the window! We were on a real buzz after that. So your debut album’s just come out, A Dream Outside. How come you decided to call it that? It was poignant for me. I’ve been trying to do this for so long…I’d been dreaming about playing Glastonbury for years and years before we actually got to do it, and I felt sad that as you get older your dreams become less exciting and more realistic and pragmatic, so I thought the album itself should be about dreaming above and beyond your expectations. Where I Lie and Dizzy Ghosts remind me a bit of Pavement with the start stop nature of it and woozy guitar. Which 90’s bands or sounds have influenced this album? Essentially we are of the 90’s; we’re 25 so we came in at the back end of all that stuff. Bands like Radiohead and other really good British guitar bands from that era are particularly important for us. And other bands like Nirvana, and Pavement and Dinosaur Jnr are some of my favourites as well, I’ve always been into the grungier stuff, especially as a teenager. So yeah I think there are those influences in there, especially in our guitars, but we like to offer a new take on it.
Lizz Page
INFORMATION
Gengahr play at Latitude Festival this month and at Norwich Arts Centre on 13th October. Tickets from
ueaticketbookings.co.uk read this interview in full on our website.
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