Introducing Interview: Leisure Tank

Since forming in 2014, duo Leisure Tank have released debut album Wet Suit, and wowed crowds at the likes of Camp Bestival and Mellow Festival with their catchy alt-rock offerings.

Having just released the raw and dynamic energy of new single ‘Higher’, we caught up with Leisure Tank to find out more…

Hi Leisure Tank , welcome to Get In Her Ears! Can you tell us a bit about the band?
Leisure Tank is a female fronted indie rock duo. K.C. on guitar and vocals and Budi on drums. Style-wise we probably float around the area of indie rock; stoner, grunge-influenced, and a bit of punk attitude with some bluesy touches. Man, that’s the hardest thing to do as a band, describing your own sound.

How did you initially get together and start creating music?
We met in Berlin in the late nineties. Budi broke into my flat, helping a friend who had lost the key… Then we started hanging out, listening to music and creating it. We had a folk/songwriter band for 8 years, then created Leisure Tank as I started writing on electric guitar and wanted to get all loud and fun.

Your new single ‘Higher’ is out very soon – can you tell us what it’s all about?
I wrote ‘Higher’ after someone complained to me about their ex girlfriend. It was in such clear view, all the things that person had projected on her and she couldn’t possibly live up to and fulfil. Still, she was the one to blame. And I could not tell that person, so I wrote ‘Higher’ and became all brave and in-your-face, as music gives you that space. And it turned into a really fun song for us to play!

 

You’ve been compared to the likes of Blood Red Shoes and The Joy Formidable, but who would you say are your main musical influences?
Mm… I actually don’t listen to that much music from our own genre, I do have two Blood Red Shoes albums though and love their song ‘Don’t Ask’. I like The Band, Vampire Weekend, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, lots of songwriter music. Budi and I both like Led Zeppelin, Cream, some Jazz….

How is your local music scene? Do you go to see lots of live music?
We are based in London and really cannot complain about the music scene here. I wish I had more time to see more live shows though.

And what can fans expect from your live shows?
Well, it will be emotional but fun, I’d say.

As we’re a new music focused site, are there any new/upcoming bands or artists you’d recommend we check out?
Marine, Spy from Moscow, Frauds….

And how do you feel the music industry is for new bands at the moment – would you say it’s difficult to get noticed?
Yes, but also we can release music to our liking and make our own way through the musical jungle without relying on anyone’s approval.

Finally, what does the rest of 2018 have in store for Leisure Tank?
A video release, more shows in UK, Germany and Czech Republic, and hopefully more writing and recording.

Huge thanks to Leisure Tank for answering our questions! 

‘Higher’, the new single from Leisure Tank, is out now. And catch Leisure Tank live at the following dates:

29th March – Little Buildings – Newcastle Upon Tyne
30th March – Sticky Fingers – Middlesbrough

 

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INTERVIEW: Pillow Queens

“Kate, you’re two minutes late! We were worried about ya!” joked Pillow Queens guitarist & vocalist Sarah as I walked in to The Irish Cultural Centre to interview her and her band mates last week. I’s been walking in circles following Google Maps trying to find the venue, and I was relieved by her kindness and secretly impressed by her adherence to the clock. The conversation flowed effortlessly from there.

Before watching them play a knockout gig for The Irish Jam alongside TAYNE, Video Blue and Delorentos, I chatted away to Pamela (Guitar/Bass/Vocals), Rachel (Drums/Vocals), Cathy (Guitar/Vocals) and Sarah for what felt like no time at all. We spoke about playing gigs, their new EP State Of The State, and what it was like to be surrounded by dogs on the set for their music video ‘Favourite’ (spoiler: it was a dream come true…)

Hello Girls. You’re playing a gig for The Irish Jam tonight, what are your anticipations for the show?

Cathy: Fame…

Sarah: …and inevitably fortune. Today’s the release of our new record, State Of The State, which is coincidental, but it’s a very big day for us. What are we anticipating?

Rachel: A bit of craic?

Cathy: Definitely a bit of craic. We’re also anticipating breaking all of the gear we borrow off the other bands.

Sarah: We haven’t brought anything with us. We’re sharing everything. Sharing, borrowing, stealing…

Cathy: I just showed up with a plectrum and was like “I’ve arrived!”

Pamela: I guess we’re anticipating more London fans as well?

Sounds cool! You’re also in town for St Patrick’s Day tomorrow too. What are your plans?

Pamela: We’re in Camden all day. We’ve got an acoustic set at Voodoo Rays and then we’re playing the Dr Martens boot room.

What would you be doing if you were back in Ireland?

Pamela: Staying. Away. From. Town. (laughs)

Is it really that bad?

Pamela: It gets pretty hectic. Loads of the roads in and out of town are closed, so it’s hard to get anywhere. Usually on St Patrick’s Day I go to my friends house and we get all of his couches and we put them out in the back garden and we take the TV out there and we chill out and watch movies.

Cathy: Why, is it always sunny or something? (laughs)

It won’t be this year, apparently the ‘Best From The East’ is back so it’s going to snow…

Congratulations on releasing your EP State Of The State today! How are you planning to celebrate the occasion?

Pamela: We’re probably going to be quite tame this evening because we have gigs tomorrow.

Sarah: We’re quite tame generally speaking though. Even last year when we were on tour, I was always like “alright girls, come on, time to go to bed!”

Cathy: That didn’t mean that we weren’t hungover though…

Pamela: I didn’t drink for most of the tour really.

Rachel: What? How did I miss that?

You were drunk?

Cathy: (To Pamela) You did fall down the stairs though…

Pamela: Ughh yeah, I did do that. No wait, I fell up a step! I think we’ll just celebrate by having a good time and hopefully making people buy our record.

Sarah: We sold our first one today! The record is so nice. You know when you see an album on your computer screen and you’re like “that looks like it could be amazing” and then you see it in real life, and it’s just like “Oh my God, it’s actually perfect”.

Pamela: They probably don’t have any songs on them or anything, but they look cool.

I’ll be grabbing one after your set this evening!

On a surface level, your songs are upbeat and catchy but your lyrics touch on darker emotions like guilt, paranoia and frustration about situations you’re trying to change. Do you think it’s important to take negatives emotions like this and turn them in to something positive? Is it a conscious decision you make when you’re writing new music?

Pamela: I know it’s something I definitely do, because I absolutely love writing pop songs. I love being like “d’ya know what? I’m gonna make people sing along to a song that’s actually really fucking sad.” That’s the way I’ve always done it. I love seeing people bobbing away and singing and being really happy, but if you actually listen to the lyrics, you’ll realise I’m dead inside.

That’s my favourite kind of music! It’s like you’re tricking people…

Pamela: Yeah definitely. I love listening to sad music as well, but sometimes I feel inclined not to listen to it just because it kind of puts you into a warped sadness. You want to divulge when you’re sad, but you don’t want to get sad, so if I’m like that I’m sure other people are like that too. Which is why I want to trick them. So if you want to listen to a banger that will make you dance, well, I’ll give you that – but I will also give you all my emotional baggage too.

Nothing wrong with that. I’ll take the baggage. Do you each have a favourite song on the EP, or one that you’re most proud of?

Sarah: For me, it’s ‘Puppets’. I know that’s narcissistic because it’s the song that I sing on and it’s a song that I wrote, but for me it’s a song that I’d listen to even if it wasn’t by us. That’s probably because I find it to be really relatable, obviously, because I wrote it, but I think it was due to me learning song-writing techniques whilst being in the band.

It’s kind if like what Pamela was saying, where you take negative feelings and turn them into a sing-along, it’s an empowering thing. That’s really attractive to me. When I listened back to ‘Puppets’ I was like “God, I was so sad when I wrote this, but now it sounds so happy” and that just feels great.

Cathy: I’d say ‘Puppets’ too, because I felt like it was the most challenging song and we all went outside of our comfort zones a bit. I’m just so happy with every track on the EP, there’s nothing I would change.

Rachel: It’s really hard because I love them all, but it has to be ‘Favourite’. I’m sorry Sarah.

Sarah: It’s okay! It’s not a competition. If Pamela and I ever had any sense of rivalry, it would be about how much Vietnamese soup we could eat in one sitting, I don’t think it would ever be anything to do with song-writing. What’s your favourite song Pamela?

Pamela: It’s not actually one of my own, it’s ‘Cuckoo’. I learned how to play the bass on that track. It’s the first song where I felt like I’d played the bass really well.

Rachel: That’s it! It’s the sense of accomplishment within the band. All of the tracks for me are absolute bangers because they’re about the coming together of the band. That’s why I like ‘Favourite’ so much. I had a sound for it in my head and we achieved exactly that sound. I listen back to it and I get goosebumps, I’m like “Wow, we are soooo good!” (laughs). Peter helped us to get that sound as well. He’s our friend and he produced it.

Pamela: He really captured what we were looking for and I don’t even know whether knew that was the sound we wanted? But it turned out really well and I’m so proud of it.

That’s great. Speaking of favourites, the video you released for the track is brilliant. Talk me through how that came about…

Sarah: We love dogs. We really, really love dogs. We met with the Director, (Bob Gallagher, but initially we were a bit worried about working with external people on videos because it’s kind of a personal thing. Pamela directed the video for ‘Rats’, so we all had an input. But as soon as we sat down with Bob, he didn’t want to go with a romantic element, so he suggested a dog show and we were like “that’s the most perfect thing you could say to us.”

Cathy: We didn’t need to hear his other ideas. We were just like “That’s it. We’re going with the dogs.”

Sarah: I was like “Do you need any help? I will be at all of the dog shows if you need me to be there!” and I was. 7am the day after Christmas? I was like “Let’s do this, my Mum’s gonna drop me over.”

Pamela: I wasn’t sure how he was going to make the parts filmed at the dog show and the parts filmed with the actors be cohesive, but now I don’t think you can tell who are the actors and who are the normal people? There are some just, normal people who are acting like they’re mad, like, there’s someone who smacks her head with her mobile phone…

Rachel: Is she not an actor?!

Pamela: No!

Sarah: Straight after that scene there’s a bit where a guy who wins the dog show blows on a woman’s hair and although he’s an actor, but that’s improvised!

Pamela: When we were filming at the National Show Centre, two of the people didn’t have dogs. They were just running around pretending to hold leads!

Rachel: I wish you and Sarah had been pretending to be the dogs.

That really would’ve been really impressive. The footage looks great though!

You’re back in London at The Sebright Arms on April 10th…

Sarah: Ohhh, is that how you pronounce it? We were like “Is it Seh-bright?”

I say it like it’s “See-bright”. I hope that’s right? It’s in Hackney…

Cathy: Hackney? I can’t wait!

It’s a great venue. I’ll be there!

Sarah: Will you be late again?

I’ll never be late to anything again after tonight…

After London, you return to Ireland to close your tour by playing your biggest headline show to date at The Workman’s Club in Dublin. It must feel pretty good to be finishing the journey with that in mind?

Pamela: It’s going to be great, but we’re also going to feel tired and a bit shite, and we’ll be a bit smelly, but our fans will be there and they know how bad we smell. So it’s going to be great!

Cathy: Do you not have a shower in your own house? We’ve sold a lot of tickets apparently, so it’s all good.

As a new music blog, we always ask bands what new music they’ve been listening to. Are there any new bands or artists that you can recommend to us?

Cathy: I’m listening to Totorro. They’re a math-rock band from Belgium (I think).

Sarah: I’ve been listening to a lot of Soccer Mommy.

ME TOO! I missed her show at Moth Club earlier this month…

Sarah: She’s touring again in September and we’re like “please can we support you?” that’d be amazing. I found her on YouTube and there were all these live sessions and I just think she’s great.

Rachel: You all know what I’m going to say…

P/S/C: Ailbhe Reddy!

Rachel: I can’t help it! She’s an Irish artist and she’s great. She knows I’m obsessed with her. She’s savage, and Phoebe Bridgers. Strangers In The Alps is my album of the year.

Pamela: There’s an Irish folk band called Lankum that I’ve been listening to who are great.

I’ll have to check them out! Finally, what does the rest of 2018 hold for Pillow Queens?

Sarah: Jesus, we’ve no idea…

Pamela: Festivals!

Sarah: Yes, but we haven’t announced them yet. I’m always living in fear of them just changing their minds last minute and just being like “mmm, no”

Kathy: We can say that one of the festivals is in the UK and one potentially in Europe…

Sarah: I never went to festivals growing up because it was too expensive, but now we get to go for free!

Cathy: We’ll have the craic at festivals and then I think we need to write.

Sarah: We have new ideas that are being shaped and we’re actually just discovering now how we write together. Now all four of us are contributing to every stage of the writing process so we’ve got a lot of learning to do, but a lot of really fun learning to do as well.

Thanks so much to Pillow Queens for answering my questions.

You can buy State Of The State here

Catch them on their upcoming UK & Ireland tour. Click here for more info.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Premiere: MeMe Detroit – ‘Soc Med Junkies’

Following singles ‘How She Runs’ and their distinctive rendition of Bowie’s ‘Ashes To Ashes’, MeMe Detroit have spent the last year wowing crowds across the country – including us at The Finsbury! – with their immense raging energy. And now, the Birmingham band are ready to share a brand new video.

Blasting out racing, raucous riffs and thrashing beats, ‘Soc Med Junkies’ is a gritty slice of infectious rock ‘n’ roll. Commenting on modern society’s addiction to social media, it’s filled with raw, seething vocals and an impassioned, rousing magnetism, with shades of the likes of rock legends Foo Fighters. And then, just as you start to find yourself utterly immersed in the track’s soaring energy, you’re greeted by a disconcerting pause in the middle of the video as you wait for it to ‘buffer’ (a nice touch to the social media theme), before being penetrated by MeMe’s riotous power once more.

Proving once again that they’re a sonic force to be reckoned with, MeMe Detroit remain firm favourites with this insightful and enjoyable latest offering.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

Photo Credit: Jennifer Stone Photography

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Interview: Katherine Deal

Having recently rocketed back into the limelight, thanks to an interpolation of their classic ‘I’m Too Sexy’ from none other than Taylor Swift on her recent single ‘Look What You Made Me Do’, Right Said Fred have worked their way firmly back into our hearts.

We caught up with the band’s saxophonist Katherine Deal to find out about her time with ‘The Freds’, and her experience of being a woman in male-dominated industry.

Hi Katherine, welcome to Get In Her Ears! Please introduce yourself.
Hey! Thanks very much. I’m a saxophone player/multi instrumentalist living in London getting to do what I love and travel the world, and of course, the saxophonist for Right Said Fred!

What’s it like being the saxophonist for Right Said Fred?
A lot of fun! The first time I played ‘I’m Too Sexy’ whilst cat-walking around the stage was awesome. The guys are great to work with, really funny and really intelligent, I’ve learnt a lot from them.

The mash up of Taylor Swift’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do / I’m Too Sexy’ looked like a lot of fun to perform, can you tell us a bit about the the experience of recording it?
It was. It was great. We were all in a room for the recording and mashed-up the two songs, which is sort of a challenge when you’re so used to playing the original but we had a great time, the guys did a great job. I think we definitely had the ‘Swifty Spirit’.

Who would you say are you main musical influences?
I’m very into soul/pop/gospel. In terms of sax players, my favourites are Kirk Whalum (Whitney Houston), Mike Phillips (Jill Scott) and the legendary Bob Berg. In terms of artists I’ve always been a big fan of the likes of Miles Davis, Destiny’s Child, Run DMC, Lauryn Hill, N Sync.

Have you found that being a woman in a male-dominated industry has affected your experience?
Yep, it can’t not in such a male dominated industry. Most musicians are male; most managers and agents are male. Audience members think they can touch you simply because you’re a woman (It happens a lot!). There’s also this stigma about female musicians, especially at pop gigs, that they’re only there because they look good but can’t actually play well. So, I’m all about smashing that persona and supporting other women doing the same. There are so many incredible female musicians around. I have, however, been very encouraged by a lot of top male musicians around me for how encouraging they’ve been and how they’ve looked at me and treated me as an equal and looked out for me in that respect, making sure nobody is taking advantage of the situation. That’s powerful and what we need more of. Luckily, we are living in a great time thanks to the bravery of key female figures and the awakening of the press, and the tables are slightly turning. Nevertheless, I and a lot of other female musicians have too many stories of harassment and situations that a male would never find themselves in within the industry.

What can fans expect from the RSF live show with the full band?
Vibes! Fun! Lots of jumping, reflective moments, big drums, big synths, just a big sound with a great vibe. Oh, and some epic outfits from Richard.

Are there any other projects you’re working on at the moment?
I’m just mainly either gigging or in the studio recording for artists.

And what does the rest of 2018 have in store, do you have any live dates coming up?
Yep, we are going to LA, which is going to be amazing! We are also doing this festival in Amsterdam with a 60 piece orchestra and 65,000 audience. Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities in the world, so I can’t wait! It’s going to be a good year.

Right Said Fred‘s I’m Too Sexy EP is available to buy now via their official site, Spotify and all good online outlets.

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