Thursday, April 26, 2018

Sing & Tell :: Lhymes


Credit: Chris Bernard


Formed early 2017, Little Indue first heard Darlington four-piece Lhymes in late summer with their debut single 'Is This Life', which they followed with 'Christo Rey' in November. The band have just released latest single, 'Looks Like Rain' - which was premiered on BBC Introducing Tees - today, April 26.


Who are you? 

I'm Ben Connor, vocalist and rhythm guitar for Lhymes, playing alongside Kieran Elliot (bass), Joseph Allen (lead guitar) and Jack Haywood (drums).

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

Growing up in the little sunny town of Darlington, I always had an interest in the arts. It's always been in the forefront of my life. My dad taught me how to play the guitar when I was about 12, but it never went further than just playing it in my spare time and even then it was only on and off. It wasn't until my brother, Joe Connor, bassist for Teesside band Llovers (who I play synth for) got me involved in his current band at the time. Since then I've found something that gives me a continuous supply of interest and I love every second of playing with both bands. All the guys are great to work with and just a joy to be around.

Give us an idea of your musical style and influences.

Well, the band takes a lot of influences from a fairly wide range of artists with a few different styles, going from The Beatles to Pond, and from The Growlers to Ty Segall, combining them together in our own way to make something, hopefully, our own.

Explain the production and writing process behind your songs.

The writing side is a simple "whenever there's a free minute, I'll be attempting to write something." But we've got a few songs lined up which we currently want to record. We've started to take that writing into the practice room now to see what can come from that; so far so good, but there's still a lot of work to be done. As for the production and recordings, we're getting to grips with it, but it's a big learning curve! We've only recorded three songs together and each time we're learning something new, but we all love it in the studio and can't wait to be back in there!

Tell us a little about your new single.

After living the energetic and seemingly never-ending life of an adolescent, the inevitable and sudden realisation that you're 'not as young as you once were' will eventually creep up, but, although the concept is not usually met with great appreciation, it's not necessarily a bad thing, just more of a different way to view your life and the world you currently live in.

In terms of style, we wanted to go for a more fuller, rounded sound on 'Looks Like Rain' to accentuate the levels between the vocals and the instruments, making them different enough to identify separately, but still running along side each other to create some form of balanced sound as the two meet.



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

Absolutely. At the minute our upcoming gigs that we're playing are Music Box Festival in Darlington on the 3rd of June followed by Evolution Emerging on the 9th of June, which we're all looking forward to, the line-up of all the different venues for both of the events are unreal and we can't wait to play both of them! We're looking to get a few more gigs in between now and then, but we'll also want to use any spare time we've got to write and record some new stuff.

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

Well, we've got a few plans, but obviously plans can change depending on the current situation; something might come along that could change our direction, but so far we're keeping it simple, getting loads of gigs in, really working on our writing and recordings and upping our promotion game! Promotion is essential now and that's still something that falls by the wayside for us. But as I said, we've only just started, we're still testing out different sounds to find out what we're most comfortable with and fundamentally, what style is best fitted to us. It's going to be an exciting year!

Where can we hear more of your music?

Both of our current releases are on all major platforms, Spotify, Deezer, iTunes etcetera, as our next release will be also!

What social media platforms can we find you on? 

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