Glasgow four-piece wojtek the bear dropped their new single 'tonic youth' yesterday Friday (May 3) - the first of four singles being released by the band during 2019, which will be collected on a limited edition 10” vinyl, 'old names for new shapes', in the autumn via Scottish Fiction.
Who are you?
I'm Tam Killean, lead vocalist, and then there's Graham Norris, Martin McClements and Paul Kirkwood, and we play a selection of drums, bass, guitar, as wojtek the bear.
Tell us something about yourself and how you came to be where you are today.
We’re based in Glasgow and released our first album, “a talent for being unreasonable” on Scottish Fiction Records last May. We’ve been supported by the likes of Lauren Laverne and Tom Robinson at BBC 6Music and Huw Stephens at Radio 1, and were particularly excited when we were featured on the legendary Seattle station KEXP last year!
Give us an idea of your musical style and influences.
We describe ourselves as “smart casual indie pop” and are influenced by bands like Real Estate, Mac DeMarco and Beach Fossils.
Explain the production and writing process behind your songs.
I’ll normally bring the bare bones of a song to the others and we’ll then tear it to bits and build it back up again until we’ve got something we’re happy with. It helps that we’re pretty self-critical and end up releasing about 10% of what we’ve actually written, which could mean we’re great at editing ourselves or 90% of what we write is utter pish....;)
Tell us a little about your new single.
When I first moved into Glasgow in my early 20s I quickly encountered people at parties I'd never been exposed to before; kids who'd never worked a day in their life, spent their summers in Val-d'Isére or Biarritz and all seemed to have fucking ponies. This song is about how initially on coming into contact with them, I had a bit of a crisis of confidence, thinking that I'd wasted my life by just getting absolutely smashed from the age of 15 onwards.
Can we catch up with you at any forthcoming live shows?
MAY
04 Stereo, Glasgow
09 Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh
10 The Green Room, Perth
18 Songs From Northern Britain, Stockon-on-Tees
JUNE
01 Castle Hotel, Manchester
15 Surf Cafe, Tyneside
JULY
06 The Tooth & Claw, Inverness
19 MacArts, Galashiels
How's the year looking, plans-wise?
More singles!
Where can we hear more of your music?
SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube.
What social media platforms can we find you on?
Facebook // Instagram // Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment