For those who haven’t heard your latest track “Believer”, how would you describe it?
Tom: We wrote most of this album at a really dark time, when I thought music was done for me, before my daughter was born. This song happened when friends and family rallied around and said ‘you need to do this, you love doing this’.
The lyric is from Isabel. She said ‘if you find yourself fighting a battle, even if you lose, you see who comes to join you.’
Now this song is for our friend who’s struggling with addiction, a family member searching for what to do with her life. It’s for our daughter learning to walk. Sometimes the value of dreams is not in whether you achieve or fail, but in the belief that it brings in those around you.
First thing’s first, we’re loving the video! It has a pretty strong narrative to it, care to explain?
Isabel: The spark came from the BP portrait Award exhibition. The power of those paintings, their intimacy, how looking at a stranger’s face can fascinate and move you even without any story.
We saw it as an opportunity to make portraits of people that we love. The sofa, rug and lamp are ours –they are the first things we bought when we moved in together, and so for the friends and family who are sitting on it, there’s genuine history there.
People have been driven by deliberate government policy into dangerous places or away from their communities. Families living in one room, tower blocks that are unsafe. Its not enough to put a sofa into a room and call it a home, people need so much more than that. There’s a seed of anger in the video too.
Let’s get into your heads. How do you approach the songwriting process?
T: Songwriting is a way of unpacking those dark corners of your brain, this process was therapeutic. We didn’t expect anyone to hear these songs, they were for us, and our family. There are songs on the album that will be a little scary to talk about, so in many ways it’s the unveiling process that’s hard now.
Are there any artists that you feel have heavily influenced your sound?
T: Buckley, Nina Simone and Portishead are really important to me, but in the time we were writing and recording this album we listened to Motown constantly. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 was in heavy rotation. We also love the new Denai Moore album, and the Sampha album is beautiful.
Have you managed to catch any festivals this summer?
T: There are so many now- we all know about the massive ones but we had a great summer checking out smaller boutique festivals and there are some amazing grass roots ones in London too.
One of the most amazing things we saw at a few festivals this year was the ‘Safe Gigs for Women’ initiative, loads did social media campaigns before hand a few artist like Frank Carter gave it shout outs in their sets.
Have there been any live performances over the course of your career that stand out for being particularly crazy or eventful?
I: We once we did a series of gigs on the London Overground between stops. It was for a TFL endorsed festival rather than just some irritating busking!
Most embarrassing moment/experience to date? (it’s fine, we’re all friends here)
T: When I was kid I fell out of a tree and lost my vision for three days.
Woah, that’s half impressive, half terrifying. So now it’s time to confess: what are your guilty pleasure tracks?
I: No such thing as a guilty pleasure. When I was three my mum had a ten year old cassette of Peter Gabriel’s ‘So’ in the car and I wouldn’t let us go anywhere without her putting it on for a whole year.
We love new music, what three emerging acts would you recommend to keep an eye out for at the moment and
why?
T: Tender, Kiah Victoria and not an emerging band but a producer in her early 20s, Steph Marziano – just did Denai Moore’s We Used To Bloom. Incredible talent.
• We’ve featured Steph before actually! What a talent, great shout. So, we have a tradition of asking bands which 3 items sum them up (it can be as weird and wonderful as you want). What would your 3 items be and why?
I: Easy, the red sofa, lamp and rug from the video.
Well, there we have it!
