(Musos Guide, March 30, 2009)
Interview
Post War Years: A simple vocal underpinned by an insistent piano, for all the world another singer-songwriter with angst on his mind.
But suddenly, a pounding drum beat comes in, and the atmosphere takes on a dance groove. It’s a shock to the system, but ‘Black Morning’ is a perfect example of the shock to the system that Post War Years offer. An ambient band shot through with purest indie, they’re here to save us from musical boredom by charming and disarming by any means necessary.
Living together in a little basement in Dalston “starved of light and oxygen” - that’s how frontman and singer Henry describes the crazy topsy turvy world of Post War Years. “We’ve been in this place for about a year and a half,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it’s healthy for a band to spend quite as much time together as we do.”
Something of the Monkees about the arrangement, no? “Well, we’re not there yet.” Henry laughs. Henry, Tom, Simon and Fred - Leamington lads - met the way bands do - through friends of friends. The university diaspora scattered them, but the will to rock together drew them back in and, post-tertiary education, as Henry puts it, they were all ready to “give it a push”. And pushing they are, with sensational single ‘Whole World On Its Head’ out now. Like their other songs, it’s a curious mix of indie sensibilities and electro atmosphere, ambient ideals and melodious verses.
Is the single a good example of PWY?
“I’d like to think the single is a mid-point between all this stuff we do, because there’s definitely a melancholic side as well as some really sort of brash, exciting, really upbeat, driven stuff. We like to experiment with sounds a lot, so ‘Whole World On Its Head’ has got plenty of different stuff to wrap your ears around. We thought it was a reasonable representation of what we do, which is hard because we’re quite a varied band.”
So varied that it is tough to pigeonhole their exciting, often experimental sound. Does that put people off?
“We certainly don’t want to alienate people - we want people to enjoy it, but we do want to do something different. We get very easily bored, so from song to song it really varies. If we ever realised that we were completely alienating our audience, then we’d probably have to rethink it, but so far, people seem to stick around when we play!”
Stick around in droves, it seems - and audiences are sticking around this week at South By Southwest, where the Leamington boys are setting out their varied stall. “There are loads of bands we know or like playing out there - and also Gomez are playing, and I haven’t seen them for years.”
As well as enjoying what essentially sounds like an elongated work night out with musical colleagues in Austin, the boys are hurtling towards the release of their debut record. How’s that coming along, then?
“It will come out sometime in May, hopefully. We’ve written something stupid, like 30 or 40 songs for this album, and obviously only 11 or 12 make it, so you start to lose perspective. You swing through differfent emotions - one minute I love it, the next I start to question, but I think we’re fairly settled with it - I’m really excited about it.”
What tracks are still setting Henry alight at this stage?
“We’re still working our way through some of the stuff from the album, currently I would say ‘Black Morning’ the first single, which won’t feature on the album, it’s always quite euphoric. Can’t help but bust a groove to that occasionally. When we get onstage you just get into a mode and carry on with that. I wouldn’t say that anything specifically that I favour - hopefully it’s all good!”
What influences are really write large across the Post War Years catalogue, then?
“Before we started recording, we definitely listened to a broad range of stuff, which we still do, but I think we have noticeably stopped listening to music as much. In the past we have been guilty of taking maybe a little too much influence from stuff, and then we became aware of what we were doing. There are a few things that always stick around - we’re big Talking Heads fans and big fans of Bjork, and we do keep up with the London music scene - we’re good friends with a lot of bands from here.”
Personally speaking, Henry’s got a musical hero who may come as a shock to Post War Years fans. “Some people try and make me feel embarrassed for this, but I am a massive Prince fan - I think he’s amazing.”
Post War Years - the surprises just keep on coming…
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