Alt J

Alt J have stunned the world with their amazing debut album ‘An Awesome Wave’ and having been touring like there’s no tomorrow. The band are made up of Gwil, Joe Newman (on guitar and vocals), Gus Unger-Hamilton (on keyboards) and Thom Green (on drums). They all met at Leeds University in 2007. Gus studied English Literature; the other three Fine Art. In their second year of studies, Joe played Gwil a handful of his own songs inspired by his guitar-playing dad and hallucinogens, and the pair began recording in their dorm rooms with Gwil acting as producer on Garageband.

We finally managed to catch up with drummer Thom Green about their amazing year so far, and learned all about their hugely versatile genre inspirations which create the unique sound that is Alt J.

Hey guys, so we hear you’ve been majorly busy…how has your summer been so far?

Indeed we have! It’s been great, we’ve been all over. The audiences have been very welcoming at every show, Japan, the US, the UK and Europe, it’s quite humbling.

You recently played Way Out West festival in Sweden, how was it? Did you get to enjoy any of the other bands whilst there?

Way Out West was great, we’d never been to Sweden. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to see any other bands, we arrived that day after flying from New York, then we had to leave straight after our show to fly to Sicily so we literally only saw the venue. It was a great show; the crowd were really nice and we got to meet some fans afterwards.

You’re performing and have been pretty much back to back all over Europe, which has been your favourite place whilst on tour?

That’s impossible to say! Each place has been equally enjoyable. Sicily was particularly memorable mainly for its location. Up a hill in a tiny village surrounded by the sea and beautiful scenery. We had our own pool for the afternoon, which was surreal. We also love playing in France as we have such a large following there – it’s almost like a second home.

How was it playing in Japan? Are the crowds really different to the European lot?

Japan was weird, weird in a good way. It was seriously hot – the humidity was insane. It took a while to settle in I think, usually when we travel we can get by through the language barrier but Japanese is completely alien. The festival was great – it was massive. Japanese fans seem to be a lot more nervous around us, they were so delighted to meet us.

Where did you most like playing in America this September?

New York is always really exciting, the fans there are crazy – same in LA. We can’t really say one particular place because all of our experiences so far of the US have been mind blowing, Chicago, San Fran, Brooklyn, they’re all great.

Your sound is really unique, yet some people are putting you in the same bracket as Django Django, how would you describe your “sound”?

We can see why, Django Django are new – we’re new, they’re different – we’re different. We always find it hard to describe our sound because we don’t actually know what it really is. We just concentrate on making music that sounds interesting to us, we never compromise in a track, we make sure it’s always progressing and stays interesting. There are a few obvious sounds though, Indie, Electronic, Folk but we don’t gear toward any particular genre.

It seems to move and shift with different influences from different genres from track to track, how do you find so much variety to put into your music?

We’re lucky in that we all have quite unique influences so when it comes to writing we have a lot to choose from. It’s all very natural too. We don’t look for things to add we just bring out what we already know.

You’ve been around since 2007, but now you guys are really starting to get a more mainstream recognition, how does that feel?

In a way it feels quite weird yeah, it would do for anyone, but at the same time we can understand why this is happening. We’re working towards everything we’re doing – it doesn’t come out of nowhere. We work a lot at refining our presence as a band in the industry so we know where we want to be. I don’t think we’ll ever get used to having actual “fans” though, that’s weird.

Do you want to stay exclusive to the musos or do you mind having the affections of the masses?

The main thing for us is that people get the opportunity to hear our music, whether they are “musos” or not. We aren’t musos at all so we never intended to be a band that are considered to have a particular audience. There are some areas we probably wouldn’t want to be involved in but when it comes to people everyone’s welcome.

Where do you find inspiration for your lyrics and who does the majority of the song writing?

Joe does the lyric writing and the majority of the song writing before bringing it to the group. He’s mainly influenced by things like films, books, art and anything that moves him really. There’s no pigeonhole we go to, to find things for a new track it, comes from what we love. Whatever that is.

Could you give us a few examples of the kinds of music you guys listen to in order to produce such a varied and unique sound?

Gus listens to a lot of early and choral music, as well as contemporary music like Grimes. Gwil gears toward Hip Hop artists like Das Racist, Hudson Mohawke as well as folk music such as Mountain Man. Joe tends to listen to whatever we are all listening to while I listen to a lot of Metal, Death Metal, Dub Step, Hip Hop, anything with a heavy progressive edge.

You’ve also been described as having quite a folk sound, is this something you were going after?

Not particularly.

If you could sum up Alt J in three words what would they be?

Focused, lucky, interested.

What’s the general response been like for new album ‘An Awesome Wave’?

We’ve been lucky it seems to have gone down very well. We’ve had some great reviews from all over the world. We’re really excited for its US release on September 18th.

And how did you come up with the name for the album?

It’s a line from the book ‘American Pyscho’ which is one of our favourite books.

Lastly, what is Alt J’s message for 2012, to their fans and fans to be?

Thank you for being there with us along this weirdly intense journey, we’re looking forward to seeing you all at our shows and we’re honoured you like us enough to come.

By Hannah Shakir

Check out the BBMLive Spotlight Dance Music Podcast mixed by So Called Scumbags.