Liverpool five-piece Paris Youth Foundation released their new Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Clean Cut Kid)-produced EP, ‘The Nights Are For Thinking About You’, last month; describing the four dreamy riffs with heartfelt lyrics tracks, as "the story of a long distance breakup”.
Who are you?
Hey! I’m Kevin Potter from Paris Youth Foundation and thanks for having us. I’m the singer in the band and we have four other members: Tom Morris Jones and Jamie Hives, both on guitar; Paul Bates on bass, and Jonny Alderton on drums.
Tell us something about yourself and how you came to be where you are today.
We're a five-piece indie band from Liverpool. Well, four of us are and we have Jay who's now an adopted Scouser. We all grew up loving music and following our favourite bands and I guess we thought we'd like to see if we were any good. Luckily enough we found each other and it clicked straight away. We uploaded our first single to the BBC uploader and a week later we were BBC Introducing Artist of the Week and they asked us to play our first ever gig at Reading festival. I know that sounds too good to be true, but I promise it happened.
Give us an idea of your musical style and influences.
The best thing about us is that we all like different things. If we all just wanted to recreate a band we all had in common in may get a little boring but we're lucky that we have a wide range of influences that then all go into making our sound. My favourite band is The National, but on the other hand Tom's a massive dance music fan and probably spends most of his time listening to that. John loves a bit of hip hop and Paul loves the classics like Bowie. Last, but not least, Jay loves The Japanese House. It's a weird and wonderful mix but hopefully it means were always pushing each other in new directions.
Explain the production and writing process behind your songs.
The writing process starts on my two string guitar at home. This will be chords and melodies. If you can strip a song back to the bare minimum and it sounds good I always think it's the best place to start. I will then do some work on it at our practise room on a guitar that is actually fully functional, and once I'm done will play it the boys. As I say, this is the chords progressions the melody and lyrics. Once all of the boys have played it through and put their stamp on it it becomes Paris Youth Foundation.
Tell us a little about your new EP.
Our new EP is something that were really proud of. We've worked hard behind the scenes for a while now and to see it go from the two string guitar to full band to the studio to now hearing it all fully recorded, is always amazing. If you're familiar with our band you know that we love heartbreak as a theme and this is very much along the same lines. It's about a long distance break-up and the all the silly things we do for love. I wanted to write sad songs, but not conventional ones. I wanted them to be upbeat and melodic. So hopefully they're sad songs you can dance to.
Can we catch up with you at any forthcoming live shows?
Yeah! We will be back out on the road at the end of May with an amazing band called Vistas. We're doing most parts of the UK from Glasgow to Manchester to Bristol so hopefully we will be in a town close to you. We've just announced a special showcase for prs and Ben Sherman at the old blue last in London on the 6th of June which were really excited about. We always love a trip to the capital.
27th May - Bristol, Crofters Rights *
28th May - Birmingham, The Sunflower Lounge *
29th May - Leeds, Oporto *
30th May - Manchester, Night People *
31st May - Glasgow, St Luke's *
1st Jun - Newcastle, The Think Tank *
6th June - London, The Old Blue Last ***
26-28 July - Cornwall, Leopallooza Festival
*** Supporting Life
** Supporting Sun Silva
* Supporting Vistas
How's the year looking, plans-wise?
The year's looking great. I'm writing this on the eve of Sound City in Liverpool, which is a massive deal for us Scousers. We play two shows at the festival this weekend and then are off to Dorset to play another festival called Teddy Rocks on Sunday. We are then off out on tour with the Vistas boys as I just mentioned, followed by the London showcase for Ben Sherman on the 6th of June. We are playing Leopallooza in Cornwall in July with some great bands like The Vaccines and Friendly Fires, which were really excited about. Then somewhere in between we need to get some new music recorded and out there in time for a great summer.
Where can we hear more of your music?
You can hear our music on all streaming platforms. We would love it if you checked out our new EP. We worked really hard on it so would mean the world if you could. We have a YouTube too and all our latest releases are uploaded there. Check out our Instagram, Facebook or Twitter for all our news.
What social media platforms can we find you on?
We update all our socials daily so you can keep in touch with us all over on any of them.
Website // Facebook // Twitter // Instagram
No comments:
Post a Comment