Author: Get In Her Ears

Table Scraps produce black-hearted garage punk which fully embraces the good, the bad and the ugly of rock ‘n’ roll’s twisted lineage and various mutations. Receiving support across the industry from the likes of Joe Talbot (IDLES) and BBC 6 Music’s Tom Ravenscroft, this trio are worth paying attention to.

With the recent announcement of their new album Automony‘s release date, we caught up with Table Scraps to talk about their beginnings, being DIY and their new single ‘Sick Of Me Now’.

Welcome to Get In Her Ears! Can you tell us a bit about Table Scraps and how it all started?
As a teenager I was in a pop band who were “tipped for stardom” in the days when a label could afford to put up four teenage girls in London for two weeks while recording an album. When the industry collapsed, my new next-door neighbour back home in Birmingham – Scott – had a similar story of being promised the world before everyone realised they didn’t have any money anymore. Our houses were also, weirdly, mirror images of each other in that they are both absolutely stuffed with priceless rock’n’roll memorabilia and vintage tat. Clearly it was meant to be.

We understand and totally respect that you produce all the music yourself, have you always and will you always want to do this?
Scott and I (and later Tim!) wanted a setup where we could record and release as quickly as we could write – and we didn’t want to lose any of the anger or energy of our live show in a sterile studio environment. Saying that, if the right person were to come along who was on the same wavelength as us and had a cool studio… Never say never. Plus, it would save us a lot of hassle pressing record before running over to our instruments.

You’ve gained some notable fans from the likes of Joe Talbot (frontman of IDLES) and Tom Ravenscroft – it must be great to receive this sort of support from the music community?
Joe is a legend and I’m absolutely made up for what an amazing year IDLES have had. It’s obviously a huge source of pride that a band we really look up to appreciate what we’re doing. When Joe played us on 6 Music in August it kinda legitimised a lot of what we were doing overnight. Huw Stephens and Lauren Laverne were very kind about us and Tom Ravenscroft really came out for ‘Sick of Me’. We definitely owe Joe a couple of drinks.

We’re loving the new single ‘Sick Of Me’ at Get In Her Ears HQ, can you tell us a bit about the song and what inspired it?
Thank you! ‘Sick of Me’ is about the frustration of people – friends even – who become a drain on you and you end up tolerating them for some reason. It was one of the first tracks we approached as a trio and, with the additional space of having our bassist Tim on board, we were really interested in seeing how much we could strip a song back and focus on its key ingredients. All three of us love the simplicity and immediacy of the songs that you might hear from girl groups and garage bands of the sixties.

So you’re playing a series of tour dates all over the UK, ending in your album launch at The Shacklewell Arms on February 28^th, what can people expect from your live shows?
Table Scraps shows are short, sharp and straight to the point. I think we probably say about six words between the three of us in between songs. No theatrics and absolutely no cock-rock! Drinks do still get spilt and people go a bit primal, which I love. We favour promoters who strive for (at least close to) gender-equal bills, so it was a no-brainer for us to go straight to Kelly at We Can Do It Promotions to put on the album launch at The Shacklewell Arms, alongside the amazing Josh from Roadkill Records. One of our favourite shows this year was with Polly and Ollie from BITCH CRAFT, so we also had to go with them for our Brighton show!

And what can we look forward to on the record Autonomy?
All killer, no filler. We poured all our heart (and bile) into it and held nothing back.

Finally as we’re a new music focused site, are there any other new/upcoming bands or artists you’d suggest we check out?
We love Slowcoaches and Death Valley Girls.

Huge thanks to Table Scraps for answering our questions!

Table Scraps’ new album Autonomy is out 23rd February 2018 via Zen Ten Records. The album launch is at The Shacklewell Arms on 28th February via We Can Do It Promotions.