Following the recent release of their debut single ‘Young Souls’ and on the eve of their show with F**k Art, Let’s Dance and Penny Black at Cabaret Voltaire, FEAST met with Beeches for a chat.
How long have you been making music together?
A long time! Me (Oscar), Robert and Walter have known each other since before school and only began writing p in 2010. We met Amadeus in 2012 and asked him to play Bass while we were under the name ‘Chordless Beaches’. It all started from there really. It was around December 2013 when we changed to Beeches.
Is there a story behind the name?
We thought of Chordless Beaches at the very beginning of our band with a slightly different sound and line up, so by late 2013, we felt that it was right for us to change to Beeches. There were quite a few names in the running but Beeches just seemed to fit best I guess.
Who are your musical influences?
Hmmmm… always hard one. We have a pretty large variety of Influences. Bombay Bicycle Club, Dry the River, Jeff Buckley, the Maccabees and that kind of stuff influences our style directly. I would also say that the other genres of Music we’re into (classical, RnB, Jazz, prog. rock) affect the overall outcome of our music quite a lot too.
What process goes into the way you write songs?
Usually Oscar will write something on just one guitar, and then bring it to the others to ‘Beech’ it up. The finished product sounds pretty different from the original ideas quite a lot after this. Sometimes we do just sit down as a band and write a song together if we’re in the mood.
What can people expect from your live shows?
We like to think that we have a pretty dynamic live show. Loud, soft, ambient, upbeat, mental… We try to vary the moods and atmospheres in our songs to suit a live crowd and (hopefully) convey something to the listener.
The crowd usually goes mental too.
Funniest thing that’s ever happened at a gig?
Hahaha, I’d love to be able to say we destroyed cab vol one time, or that I broke my ribs stage diving off a humongous PA… but in reality our gigs seem to run pretty smoothly. At our last gig we covered 7 days by Craig David and that was pretty funny.
What can we expect to see/hear from you in the future?
We had our single launch for our first official release under ‘Beeches’ at the Liquid Room on the 15th of March. We hope to record some more in summer too, and hopefully this will be released before autumn 2014.
In general though, Beeches will be gigging and music..ing as much as we can 2014.
Beeches play Cabaret Voltaire tonight (Friday 27th June). Doors 7pm. Tickets available