Hi TRAAMS, how are you?
We’re good thanks.
I hail from West Sussex myself and until recently Chichester was my nearest city, so I was interested to learn you come from the same neck of the woods. You formed, in a roundabout way, because of the fairly abysmal Chichester clubbing scene? How did it bring you together?
I met Adam and Leigh through a club night I put on with my best mate Liam. We set the club night up to basically play our record collections and party. We ended up putting on bands we liked as well. They were in this sweet band we liked, we put them on all the time. Everyone knew everyone else at the club, and so we all ended up being mates.
I’ve seen other interviews with you guys, and people seem to find the sound you produce surprising because of the quiet part of the earth you’re from – do you think that’s fair?
Yeah, I suppose. It is a pretty sleepy place. I think most bands from small towns just look to bigger cities and stuff though. As soon as we started gigging we knew we were going to have to travel to Brighton and London, etc. We’ve been pretty lucky with the bands we’ve played with and promoters we’ve met and stuff. We’ve managed to gatecrash a few local scenes.
Your debut album Grin is out in just a couple of weeks, and we’ve had a sneaky listen already. It’s sounding good, are you happy with it?
Thanks very much. Yeah, we’re really happy. We had a fun time making it, got to hang out and make a record with a couple of really lovely, talented producers. And that was awesome. BFFs.
Did you find that recording a whole LP differ much from the production of your EP? More stress?
No, not really. We sort of had everything done. We recorded everything over about a year in separate sessions (3in London, one in Leeds ). Then we had to choose what went on the EP and what went on the LP. That was the most difficult bit, working out what went where. As we all have different favourites and all that.
You’re heading out on tour soon aren’t you. It’s good to see you’re playing in Chichester – tends to be missed out on tours…
Yeah that sucks. There’s not really any venues that can accommodate a touring band. We’re actually doing a in store at the HMV in the town centre. So that’ll be weird. Playing amongst the dvds.
Yeah that sounds like it might be a touch bizarre. Looking forward to your own tour dates? How does it compare to support slots?
Yes! That should be great. We’ve done a few headline shows and they’re always fun. I like not having to rush in case you’ve overran your time slot and getting your gear off stage and stuff. It’ll also be great to play some places we’ve not played before. I’m looking forward to it.
Most recently we’ve seen you thoroughly gunged in the video for ‘Flowers’, it reminded me loads of the 90’s children’s TV classic ‘Get Your Own Back’. Was it as much fun as it looked? Did it take much convincing?
Haha, yeah it was really fun. James Burgess basically sent over three ideas. I can’t remember the other two but the Gunge one was the one he seemed the most excited about. When we told him we thought that sounded great. He was like, “Yeeesssss”. I think he’s always had aspirations to Gunge someone. He’s like Noel Edmonds or something.
Grin is released September 16th on FatCat Records, to preorder your copy today and get an immediate download of the Ladder EP just click here, and watch the trippy gungy video for ‘Flowers’ below.
