Circa Waves interview
Indie rockers, Circa Waves, are fresh from yet another year's amazing Summer festival season. In November, lead singer, Kieran Shudal is one of the Artist Speakers at this year's BBC Music Introducing Live event in London. In February 2019, the band are special guests of The Wombats on their European tour dates.
Elly Bailey had the chance to interview Kieran, and bass player Sam Rourke, before their main stage set at Y Not Festival. Cheeky, sarcastic and full of humour, here’s what they had to say;
Photography by Elly Bailey
Elly : "How are you guys?"
Kieran : (laughing): "Just both really great, both so good, we both look really attractive, we’re great."
Elly : "Your first album ‘Young Chasers’ was more of a good vibes, fun, summer album and your second ‘Different Creatures’ was more heavy and even politically themed, what are your plans for the third album? Will it be following a theme?"
Kieran: "We’ve been talking about this quite a lot; we’re hashing it out currently. The music is done so now we just have to figure what it means.
I’m not a songwriter that writes with a specific theme in mind but subconsciously in your head you write with a track running through"
Sam: "Kieran comes up with these songs and then it’s our job to read the tea leaves and find the meanings."
Elly : "Was there anything that made you make that jump in sound from the first album to the second?"
Kieran: "Nothing specific really, when we did the first album we’d just started and it was all demos I’d made in my bedroom, and then the second record we played live for about two years and got to see the reaction to certain songs.
We’ve always enjoyed the reaction to the heavier songs and I think our aim was just to make the live shows as chaotic as possible so we made songs to achieve that. Whatever made people lose their shit the most, that’s what we wanted to do."
Elly : "Which song do you find people go most crazy to?"
Sam: "Goodbye from 'Different Creatures'. – I never thought we’d be a band that has circle pits, but apparently we are and I love it."
Kieran: "You see people who are up for it and then people that are terrified, and those people kind of move out the way and let all the crazy people run forward. It’s fun but I wouldn’t do it."
Elly : "Do you find that the change in your albums has changed your audience or helped you to gain new fans?"
Sam: "I think we made enough of a difference on the second album that our originally fans stuck with us but also people who hadn’t listened to us before were turned on by it."
Kieran: "Sexually turned on by it..."
Elly : "You’ve been playing festivals up and down the country and around Europe; does the audience change depending on where you are?"
Kieran: "Well, Community Festival in London was pretty mad but it tends to be the further North you go the crazier it gets. Scotland is always pretty wild, Glasgow is a really good crowd, but then it always feels kind of the same, people are just people.
You notice it more in smaller rooms though, when you’re starting out and playing to 50 people. In Scotland people will be going for it, but in London they would be standing with their arms crossed. But then as it gets bigger it all turns into one big mushy fan base."
Elly : "Do you find that have to win over the audience at festivals?"
Kieran: "Yeah, but that’s what I like though, seeing someone who at the beginning isn’t really that into it, but then by the end is on someone's shoulders having a great time"
Elly : "If you could build a dream festival three day headliners who would they be?"
Sam: "It’s got to be The Beatles"
Kieran: "I’d say Beatles, Wings and then... The Beatles again."
Sam: "The Beatles, Wings and then Paul McCartney… and then John Lennon."
Kieran: "Like a split headline, on the same stage, they can take it in turn to play songs each."
Elly : "Anything else you want to add?"
Sam: "Don’t do drugs"
Kieran: "Keep it real."
Sam: "Wear sun cream, drink water, phone your Mum."
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