Spring King Interview

We speak to Tarek Musa, front man of the Manchester foursome, Spring King, ahead of their first ever visit to Australia as they play Splendour In The Grass 2016 as well as sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney.

Hi Tarek, how are you?
I’m good thanks, how are you? Yes very well!

Where are you right now?
I’m in Manchester, but heading down to London later on.

Well it looks like it might be brightening up here…
It’s grim here in Manchester.

So you’re heading out to Australia soon, how are you feeling about it?
We’re really excited. It’s actually the first time any of us have ever been to Australia, so we can’t wait. We’ve actually got a couple of friends there. Our friend Fraser A Gorman is going to hopefully show us around Melbourne and show us the sites whilst we’re there.

Are you hoping to have a few days off in between shows? What do you want to do?
We’re hoping to really explore on our days off. And I can’t wait to visit all the record shops and hopefully find some cool new stuff, and do a bit of sight seeing.

So, you play the drums and sing at the same time… that must be exhausting? I mean, how on earth do you do it?
We were really worried at first about me playing and singing at the same time as I could only get through two songs before having to take a break and we didn’t know whether I’d last a whole set. But I got healthier and now I can do it. It’s like a real work out and requires loads of energy, so I always come off stage really buzzing. It’s great to combine music and health. Watching Isaac from Slaves was exhausting. How he plays so hard and runs around is amazing.

What’s been a career highlight for you guys so far?
We toured with Courtney Barnett, which was really great. We learned a lot about professionalism from them. And also playing with Slaves, we basically learned how to tour from them.

And we saw you were on Jools Holland a couple of weeks ago. How was that?
Performing on Jools Holland was always a huge dream of ours. I always watched the show growing up and one of my favourite bands At The Drive-In played it. I remember watching that performance and losing it! Being asked to play was a great moment and to be there alongside Elton John and Bloc Party was a special moment for us.

How did you get approached for the show?
We received an e-mail about a week or two before the show! We were all very surprised.

Your sound is really tight, how long have you guys been playing together?
We’ve been playing together for 3 years. The first year was spent trying out different members, and various people left due to other commitments with work, or other bands. It’s solidly been myself and Pete, who plays guitar for 3 years though.

Your songs are, on the whole, really upbeat, what is it you want to put across with your music?
We want to put across our energy and play really fast and furious. But we do have some slower tracks but they are all “noddable”, you know, you can move to every song, or jump about.

You’ve got a pretty exhausting tour schedule coming up around your Australian tour, and you don’t appear to be stopping until nearly the end of the year, how do you feel about that?
We love playing out, we would do it every day if we could. But financially we can’t at the moment, but we love it.

So, your sound is pretty eclectic and is a really fresh take on standard Rock music, so who are your influences and inspirations?
Songwriting wise we’re really inspired by the Beach Boys. We’re all into different things though, Andy was a real metal head, but now only listens to Jazz, James is a producer and he’s into his house beats, and we also like a bit of garage from people such as Black Lips. As a band though I’d say our main influences are the Clash, Arcade Fire and Beach Boys.

You can really hear all your influences in your sound, I listen to a lot of hip hop but tracks such as ‘Rectifier’ really appeal to me ‘cause of the heavy bass…
That’s really cool. I haven’t heard that before. Yes we don’t want to just be standard rock, or be pigeon-holed. With all our different influences I think our next album is going to be really different from our debut one.

So what festivals are you looking forward to playing at this summer?
We’re doing Bestival this year, which none of us have done before. And we’re also doing Reading & Leeds, which we did last year. The crowds there were just insane and we’re playing the NME stage this year, which is bigger, so it’s going to be great.

By Hannah Shakir
@hanshak

Don’t miss Spring King at the Splendour Side Shows

Spring King Australia Tour Dates:

Wednesday 20th July – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney
Sat 23rd July – Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay
Sun 24th July – Corner Hotel, Melbourne