Longfellow Interview

You may have come across this Indie five-piece already, via Coldplay’s kind share of Longfellow’s latest and second release, ‘Siamese Lover’, on their website. Or, through BBC Radio DJs, as Longfellow was announced as the first BBC Introducing act of the year. We chatted to the 23-year-old alternative frontman of the group, Owen Lloyd, who ditched his science degree for his musical passions – and thank goodness he swapped the test tubes for guitar strings. Longfellow have resided and worked together as a band around East London for four years now, and they are finally getting the recognition they deserve from big industry names…

Hi Owen, how are you?
I’m good, I’m good. I’m just in Charring Cross. But I’ve been in a meeting so I’m now hiding in a pub.

You’re starting early on a Friday afternoon then?
Oh! No… I’m sober. I’m being sensible. I’m just using it as place to hide from road noise!

So what are you up to today, how are you kicking off your weekend?
I’ve just been in a meeting with the band – the band’s going really, really, well. So I’ve been in a meeting with a chap called Paul Adman who works at Global Publishing today. So it’s been a busy day. But later on it’s just relaxing. So it’s kind of a nice end to the week really.

Happy days. So the band live around East London, and you’ve played together for around four years. So how did the group all come together, and where did the music begin?
So the band started I suppose when I was at Nottingham University. I always had a kind of scientific upbringing, so I went to Nottingham University to train to be a dietician. And also I’d always been into music, I’d always been writing songs. So I was put on this campus in the middle of nowhere and there was just no real kind of output for music, I wasn’t meeting any kind of creative people or musicians. And I found it an incredibly frustrating time. So I started writing all these songs, and then playing at an open mic night. I started pulling in these different musicians around me, people I could find from Nottingham and some old friends from home… and Longfellow started to grow from there. I moved to London to start taking music more seriously, I abandoned a “sort of science” background for music and pooled some of the best musicians I could find on board. And we’ve moved from strength to strength from there.

Well that’s a big change in direction! Longfellow seem to be described mostly as Indie-Pop or Alternative-Pop. But how would you describe your sound?
Epic Indie-Rock. I think we’re kind of alternative. I know we fall into the Pop bracket, which is good. The Pop element probably comes from our hooks and some of the songs having chorus’ people want to sing back. Which is great. But I really love making expansive music, giving the songs really time to grow. I can’t wait to get to play more bigger stages, hopefully we are going to be doing the British Festival circuit this year.

How would you describe your latest release ‘Siamese Lover’, to somebody who hasn’t heard it yet?
I think we’ve refined the song and so very much refined our sound. We placed the piano with the guitar to work together. It’s quite anthemic, it’s quite a big song, and the release has done so much for us. It’s our second single. We did a self release ‘Gabrielle’ and we’ve done this one through Fierce Panda. We are very lucky to have Simon Williams the founder of Fierce Panda managing the band now. We’re also in talks now with Ken Nelson who did Coldplay’s first record.

The single was recently aired by Huw Stevens on Radio One as his first BBC Introducing Discovery Act of the year; how did that privilege feel?
It felt fantastic. Radio has been a such a good part of this release. And to have the BBC and people like Huw, Steven Lamaq and Jo Wiley’s give us a spin as well… to have that is really a brilliant feeling. To put so much work into something and then to have some DJ’s, especially from people like the BBC standing behind this and saying these guys are making something we want to promote as well, is a really lovely feeling. We can’t thank them enough for that, it’s been a really enlightening and enjoyable release for us so far.

You’ve also been shared by Coldplay, online with your latest music video. How did that feel – was that quite flattering from such a big band?
Completely, completely mental! You know before that we had the privilege of playing with Keane. I think Coldplay even shared the video on their website. These are the people who have inspired us in terms of song writing, they’re kind of heroes. I have to pinch myself after the last couple of weeks!

You seem to have a lot of influences. But If you were held at gun point and you had to pick a band that has influenced your approach to music the most, who would you pick and why?
This is really difficult! Manchester Orchestra, I’ve been listening to a lot over recent months, listening to kind of their depth and their entity of lyrics. I’d say they’ve been a really big influence. And Joanie Mitchell, for me listening to her first album ‘Blue’ the way she writes about experiences, you’re reading into her life when you listen, about her music and relationships. And having someone like that as an influence has been kind of a big thing as well.

If you could go on a night out with any other band in the world, existing or of the past, which band would you pick and why?
Haha! I’ve got a real man crush on Brandon Flowers and his writing and work with The Killers. I’d love to have a meeting with them.

As the lead I presume you are the mastermind behind the lyrics which add to the bands melancholic undertones, where do you often find inspiration for writing?
I always try and be quite philosophical with the lyrics. Siamese Lover, is an idea of how we can be so dependent, on relationships. And you know, certainly for me there’s been so many relationships, where I’ve been, kind of this conjoined existence. And really that’s no way to kind way to of live. I suppose, being a 23 year old male, a lot of it comes from relationships and feelings like that. They’re not at all religious songs. But just about, what it means kind of why are we here, what are we doing? I try and write things that I’ve experienced but that people can relate to and kind of put an interesting twist on them.

So what can we expect from Longfellow in the coming months?
We’ve not got much time to relax to be honest! We start work with Ken Nelson from early February. We’re pushing straight on, which is what we want. I think there’s no kind of time for breaks and we really feel that now is the time for us to start making a name for ourselves. We’re touring and really building a name for ourselves. We’ve worked so hard, getting the songs where they are, and creating the bands identity, but we haven’t really taken it out there and pushed it out into the world. And we are now so lucky to have people who are coming on and saying you can do this tour, you can play here and you can do this. And so I think the next few months we just want to be playing and pushing ourselves out into the world. I think there is going to be more releases certainly, but I think a real live presence is something we want to focus on predominately.

Lots of exciting tour dates to come then? We look forward to catching you at one of them. Thanks ever so much for chatting to us.

Watch out for Longfellow announcing those live dates on their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/LongfellowMusic

By Emily Schofield