Sing & Tell :: Earhart

London four-piece Earhart  - named after Amelia Earhart - released their debut single, 'A Cross' last week (February 9) via Fauna Records. According to their bio, they are about: 'Outsider tales, and feverish dreams set amongst hissing electronics, burning petrol riffs and Super 8 pop hooks; the cargo cult found recordings of a legendary lost guitar band.'


Who are you?

I'm Joe Tennant, vocals/guitar, with Earhart. And there's Harry Lane on drums, electronics and percussion; Aaron Dolby, on bass, synth, backing vocals, and Daniel Green, guitar, keys snd backing vocals. We're a multi-tasking bunch. We get bored easily.

Tell us something about yourself and how you came to be where you are today?

I’m from Somerset, which is in the deep south of England if you like. I kind of see it as the Tennessee of England. I came to London with an old band but somehow I ended up in this one. Harry is Cornish, Aaron is from Kentish Town and Daniel is Tel Avivian.

Give us an idea of your musical style and influences.

I first discovered music through 90s film scores and I think that got in to the bloodstream early on. I was also indoctrinated with The Stones as a child. The bands we grew up listening to are now engrained in our DNA, whether we like it or not: Eels, Queens Of The Stone Age, Mark Lanegan Band, Rolling Stones, Dandy Warhols, Neil Young, Elliott Smith, Arcade Fire.. And more recently Wilco, Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam, Sporto Kantes, Young Fathers... to name a few.

Between the 1920s and the 1940s, before rock’n’roll came around, I love the style of things then. I love the audio, the way things were recorded. We use that sound a lot in our music. I like their fashion sense and the way the whole era has been romanticised. I think a lot of our songs have that element of old picture shows and old home movies and bits and pieces from the past that got coloured by bad recording or bad tapes. I’ve always preferred the sound of old recordings. We’ve tried to put a modern twist on that. Otherwise what's the point? I guess we’re a 'guitar band' with mod cons.

Explain the production and writing process behind your songs.

The songs are self-produced. Producers can be expensive and in my experience they can sometimes detract from the initial idea. The spirit and identity of a song can get bastardised and whittled down to mediocrity through compromise. It can lose what makes it unique. It can lose it's jagged edges.

When I first moved to London I was on my own and relentlessly writing/making demos with this project in mind. It took a long time to find the right components to flesh the ideas out. These days I'll introduce a song at an earlier stage and we’ll mould and tailor it from its initial splurge in to full-band-form as more of a collaborative process.

Tell us a little about your new single.

It's called 'A Cross', and it's out now through Fauna Records on Spotify, iTunes, Apple Play etc... It was mixed by Kristofer Harris (Bear's Den, Ghostpoet), and the cover art is a piece entitled 'The Girls And The Diver' by Netherlands artist Jaco Putker - look him up, he's bizarre.



Can we catch up with you at any forthcoming live shows?

Yes! We're getting ready for our first show of 2018 which is this Thursday, February 15, at the Old Blue Last for DISORDER. We also have our first ever headline show next month in support of the single release: March 27 at Paper Dress Vintage, Hackney.

How's the rest of the year looking, plans-wise?

We plan to work more with Kristofer Harris possibly being involved from an earlier stage: it's a growing relationship. A lot of this year will be us playing things by ear and working with what we have budget and time scale-wise. We're only just coming in to existence and it feels as though we're at the start of a long journey. Right now we're just excited to share what we’re passionate about and what we've been working on for what feels like a life time.

Where can we hear more of your music?

In the not-so-distant future. At live shows and through our social media and upcoming releases...

What social media platforms can we find with you on?

Instagram // Facebook // Twitter // Soundcloud