By Kevin Donnellan
Esben and the Witch are a threesome hailing from Brighton. Shortlisted for 2011′s BBC Sound of… their sound has drawn comparisons to My Bloody Valentine, HEALTH and The Big Pink. By me, just there. Anyway I caught up with the band ahead of the release of debut album Violet Cries on January 28th.
How did the band first get together?
Rachel: Dan and Tom met about 3 years ago and started making music together and I known Thomas a good number of years and we became reacquainted and met Daniel and they were looking for a vocalist so i thought I’d try my hand at it.
So then you self-released an EP which attracted a lot of attention…
Dan: It was originally to have songs recorded to play to people we wanted gigs with. We didn’t give it too much thought and then the deeper we got into it the more we [wanted] to make it the best possible thing.. So it ended up becoming something that was described as self-released which we always thought was slightly grandiose. Knocking together the sleeves in Rachel’s old bedsit… burning onto the white printable CDRs so it looked like we had real CDs…
You’ve progressed quite quickly from there, how have you found the pace?
Thomas: It was unexpected, we didn’t have any great design it was, lets’ play some shows and then lets release an EP there was no formula and it’s confusing in a way, it still is. It all seems so fast moving there’s loads of new stuff that we’re trying our hand with, its quite exciting.
How did you feel about a label like Matador coming in for you? Were you aware of their rep?
Thomas: We were fully aware of who Matador are so grew up loving the bands that they’ve had on their roster so it was really amazing when they approached us… We’ve been allowed to retain full creative control over all aspects, over everything we work on, which is not something we just appreciate but something we consider to be essential. So yeah we’ve been really happy working with those guys it’s amazing.
Recording of the album, how did you approach that?
Daniel: It was a case of starting recording it February/March of last year. We got to record the whole album apart from the vocals and drums at home. So we had all the time and freedom to figure out how we wanted the album to sound and play around with things. But without the pressure of being aware that someone was sort of bankrolling it… It was quite a refreshing experience for Rachel to be able to sing in a professional studio when we got around to it. Prior to that we had her holed up in various bathrooms to record the vocals, it possible made her take it slightly more seriously than staring at the contents of the bathroom.
Have you guys been in bands before?
Dan: I kind of did the standard play guitar in bands in school type thing but this was Thomas and Rachel’s first band. The first time they ever performed was at our first gig which was kind of hurrying along for them. It was like ‘if we just get it out of the way that’ll be the best way to approach this.’
How did you feel about being included on the BBC Sound of 2011 shortlist?
Rachel: Quite a surprise to be honest seeing ourselves on the list none of us were expecting it at all so it was quite humbling and quite flattering. I don’t think we feel a particular affinity with the artists on the list and it wasn’t a great surprise that we weren’t in the top five. But there are artists on there like James Blake and Warpaint and Jenny Williams who create interesting stuff. So if it gets us out there to people who might not have listened to or heard of us that’s obviously a bonus.
And what are the plans for touring?
Daniel: The albums out at the end of the month so we’re touring through February and the plan is hopefully to go as many different places as we can. The most exciting element is to go to countries we want to visit, it’s amazing to be able to play in these countries. Its a great experience playing live but also feels quite odd looking down and seeing an entire German audience who are aware of who you are.
Standard influences question now, in terms of the band do you have certain acts that you aspire to?
Thomas: Health, British Sea Power, Wild Beasts, those are the kind of artists that we like, even if we mightn’t sound like them but they’re individual and they’re artists that we greatly respect.
You have supported a lot of different band over the past year, Foals, The xx, Wild Beasts. Have they given you an
advice?
Thomas: Definitely, in particular, we went to the States with Foals so that was a steep learning curve seeing a band who’d been on the circuit a long time and were established. Seeing there were very simple things that we could do to make our lives manageable. And we’ve been really lucky in that all of those bands, people like The xx and Wild Beasts have been so so lovely and genuinely really nice people, it doesn’t escape us that the support slots over the last year have really helped.
Violet Cries is out January 28th.
