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You probably don't need me to tell you that The Brute Chorus are a bit buzzy at the moment.
They've been together since March last year and in that short time they've picked up a whole heap of favourable press coverage and some choice radio play - Steve Lamaq called them his "new favourite band".
Their latest single, 'Grow Fins', is out now and they headline Twisted Licks at The Last Days Of Decadence in Shoreditch on 5 Sep.
We spoke to frontman James Steele. |
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I wrote my first song when I was five. It was about bombs and I was in my grandparents' house. They had lots of tin waste paper bins and I collected them all and turned them upside down to make a drum kit. My grandparents' house was in London (I lived in Wiltshire at the time) and full of my grandfather's war memorabilia. So this song was called 'The Bombing Of London'. Looking back, I think it was set to the tune of 'Walking On Sunshine' by Katrina & The Waves and it went something like "It's the bombing of London... woah ooh woah woah!..." Over and over and over. I made my Grandma listen to it. "That's very nice dear," she said.
Q2 What inspired your latest single 'Grow Fins'?
It came out of nowhere really. I've always been interested in the idea that everything we know will be flooded out by the time I'm old. Lots of our songs mention floods, biblical and otherwise. I was living on the sixteenth floor of a tower block when I wrote it, which is where the "Glory! Glory! Way up on the sixteenth storey..." comes from.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating an album?
I'll have to let you know.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
There's lots. I made a playlist for the van while we were touring recently. It's got ESG, Velvet Underground, Dirtbombs, Beck, Toots & The Maytals. They, among many others, have all had an influence on the music we make but we don't really sound like any of them. We try to listen to as much as we can and sound like all and none of it the same time.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Not much. We don't try to influence people's opinion of us or care what they think. We want the music to speak for itself. If they don't like it; no sweat. If they do; see you at the next gig. Bring yer mates.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest single, and for the future?
We wanted this single to get more airplay than the first and it did. We just want to be able to keep making music and playing it to people everywhere.
published september 2008
