Wallflower - an Interview

Given our current unfortunate circumstances being stuck at home under quarantine we at WALLFLAG_ haven't had much on our plate lately, Luckily London based Alt-Rock group Wallflower came out the dark to rescue us with news of their debut album 'Teach Yourself To Swim' and an exclusive new single 'Hungry Eyes', geared with a notes app full of questions we dusted off the old Skype account, switched on the old voice recorded app and said hello to Vini (vocals and guitar) and Sam (lead guitar). Talking about what the bands been upto between their releases, getting all the gossip on their much anticipated debut LP and discussing the effects the Covid-19 pandemic is having on not just the music industry as a business but the people who make it up as well.

WALLFLAG_ : "So before a couple of weeks ago it was nearly 2 years since we heard any new music from you? So let's talk about the gap there! What did you get up to? Been writing and touring away no doubt?"

VINI: "Yeah I mean that's that's about it really! We were pretty much gearing up to get this release right if that makes sense, we've kind of been sitting on this record for a bit longer than most people usually would but there's good reason for that, we wanted to make sure that every moving part of the release was was right, everything that we've done is a sort of self-release so everything's funded by ourselves, we put everything together ourselves, so we just wanted to make sure that we can give it the same time and effort we can be happy with so it's taken a bit longer than some people might want but oh well haha!"

WALLFLAG_ : "But we do finally have the details of 'Teach Youself To Swim' your debut album coming June 5th!
But as you mentioned you have been a band for quite a while now, first releasing music in 2016"

SAM: "Christ has it been that long!"

WALLFLAG_ : "Exactly! And you've got a good selection of EPs and other singles released but when did you finally decide it was the right time to record and release a full album as Wallflower?

SAM: "We actually very nearly did one quite a while ago, we had our heart set on doing one around the time that we did our last EP, we had a few songs ready at that time and had quite good run of tours and that sort of thing but we decided that we needed to get the songs that we had out there quickly and that's what ended up being 'Where it Fell Apart', our last EP, but it has been something we've been thinking about for a long time now.

VINI: "I think the thing about us is it's definitely a case of we are our own worst critics, so we always wanted to make sure that every single thing that ever comes out under our own name is something that we are extremely proud of and we can look back on so I think it was just a case of making sure of that. I think timing these things is more important to getting the quality than just getting songs out there and we've never been a band that just wants to get songs out there! Haha I mean there's a couple of songs that we're not we're not huge fans of now looking back on them but you know we move on and we progress I guess."

WALLFLAG_ : "That brings me to ask about your last release actually, talking about 2018s 'Magnifier', a great song bur it's not on the album tracklist? And no other previously released singles are either, so we're getting a full fresh album right?"

SAM: "We're very much a band that likes to do things once and move on from them, still probably one of my favourite songs we've done by the way but I'm not much of a fan of re-recording songs and that kinda stuff, 'Magnifier' is a mainstay in our set and will continue to be but it's already out there and were happy with how it's out there."

VINI: "To continue on from that I think there's so much energy and stuff that you just can't recreate sometimes by re-recording a song you know? From a kind of thematic side of things I really look at 'Magnifier' like a like a prequel to 'Teach Yourself To Swim' and the things we talk about, so it just makes sense to almost be an entry point to what the songs on the album are talking about. It probably wouldn't have fit in with with the Twelve songs that we've got from that perspective because you know all of those bases are covered in different ways already it's just done really well on its own, as it's own thing and you know we're glad to have it!"

WALLFLAG_ : "So that brings us to your latest release 'Hungry Eyes' which dropped last month -a sightly heavier sound than usual maybe? Is that any direction for what we'll be hearing on the album?"

VINI: "I think it's probably one of a couple of really heavy ones that are on the record, I think one of the really cool things about the record we're going to release is that it does a lot of things! there's a lot of different styles and there's a lot of different vibes from a lot of the tracks and that's something that we really really wanted to capture, we wanted to go to all of our influences and not approach it with too much of one track mind, I mean it's definitely a heavy song and we're very well aware of that and you know as you said we haven't released a song for 2 years so we wanted to make sure that the first one back really grabs people's attention!"

SAM: "Another big thing going into this record as well was that in the past we've had this sort of reservation to do some certain things and go certain places musically and when we came to putting this LP together we just went 'well why? Let's just do it!' there were times in the past where we all go, 'well we can't do this or shouldn't do that' but yeah, actually we can!'"

WALLFLAG_ : "When you spoke about 'Hungry Eyes' previously you talked about it's relation to the numbness and indifference people have these days, does the album have a similar theme running through it? What's this album about?"

VINI: "I think if you talk about 'Hungry Eyes' and you look that as an individual song it's probably one of the most sort of politically driven songs that that we've done but you know usually a lot of our songs are a lot more self reflective and a little bit more personal. I think that it's important to remember that all of these things are part of our personalities you know? it's only one reflection of some of the anger and other things that we all might feel, so it's those parts of it that definitely put the feeling around the record, you know that feeling of like helplessness and feeling a little bit trapped. A lot of the other songs talk about much more sort of personal experiences though and I think the one thing I will say about all of the songs is that they are all very much a collection of 12 songs where they're all coping mechanisms for different things and different problems."

WALLFLAG_ : "Wow so a lot of thought and feeling has gone into this project then, So what's the process been like behind the scenes? In the writing of this full LP compared to other things you've written and recorded as a band?"

SAM: "Probably 'Magnifier' played a part in this because it was a real break in the way we're used to writing songs that kind of help get our head down and really start, then there was this couple month period where we were pumping out a couple of songs every other week when we normally work agonisingly over ourselves.."

VINI: "..Yeah I think there was this moment where there was a good three months where we were doing this album and everything that we were doing felt like banging our heads against the wall and nothing was coming out how we wanted it and then all of a sudden there was a moment where it's like we went 'well wait, why are we limiting ourselves? why don't we just do what we want to do?' and then all of a sudden that was it! We just started writing songs in such a short space of time and they were all ones that are really happy with as well.. which doesn't normally happen with us as we usually second guess everything haha!"

SAM: "Quite a common thing for bands writing albums is they usually end up with another entire albums worth of songs that didnt make it but every song we wrote ended up making it on the record!"

VINI: "We kind of broke a really MainStay rule that most people would tell you when you write a record, people always say write the songs first and then figure out the order of the record second but we actually had 12 gaps and we were writing songs like 'we know we want a track 4, what does track 4 have to sound like?' and it was just like the actual idea of it being a cohesive record that you can listen to start to finish where you can actually enjoy it as a whole piece, that was a really important part of the writing process as well for us and I think that actually made it a lot easier for us, weirdly, it's almost like when you say to someone 'we need a song that's like this' then we have an actual path that we can go down, whereas sometimes we let ourselves loose and its just been like 'what should we write next?' and it just gets a little bit out of hand and you know there's a lot of people in the band who have all got really good ideas, like theres 5 of us here and sometimes you just gotta sit yourselves down and really say no we're gonna go this way with the work or it can just get ridiculous!"

WALLFLAG_ : "So talking about his much time and effort went into this album our current events haven't worked in your favour unfortunately with Coronavirus bringing most of the music business to a halt, a lot of bands are postponing or pushing back upcoming work due to it so did the situation that we're in effect your decision on releasing 'Teach Yourself To Swim' at all? Or even announcing it maybe?"

VINI: "There was a conversation, I'd be lying if I said that from the get-go we were completely confident about just going forward with it all. When you think about it we've been gearing up so long for this and then there's definitely a certain level of irony when it's like a couple weeks before we're about to click go on the record..."

SAM: "...Just to put some perspective on it we recorded the record in... I think it was August 2018? so at this point we've been sitting on it for 18 months!"

VINI: "A point that a lot of other people have made to do with postponing releases, I completely understand why they're doing it and no criticism in there because you want to make sure that you're release is getting the most attention possible, fingers crossed this all blows over you know in the next 3 or 4 months but when everyone is releasing their records come September/October time there is going to be so much noise about that no one is going to really be able to focus on one thing so you know there are a negative side to things. We're not going to be able to tour for the foreseeable! You're not being able to promote a record in that way at all and we haven't done a tour in ages so we were really excited, I think we were meant to be touring in less than a week! So obviously there are downsides to that but there are positives too, we've really been given a good opportunity to sit at home and Sam can probably agree with me because he's been doing a lot of stuff to do with us recording and doing some covers and things like that, it's a really good opportunity to just actually focus on what we love and connect and get out heads down."

WALLFLAG_ : "Yeah so since we're all cooped up at home, bored, we'd sure love some new music to keep us going... nudge nudge..."

VINI: "What are we allowed to say Sam?"

SAM: "I'll trust your judgement here mate haha!"

VINI: "Let's say that we've got a new single coming out very very soon and there will be more music coming out over the course of the next couple of months before the record comes out."

WALLFLAG_ : "Well as we've mentioned you're not going to be able to tour this records release which is an interesting position to be in but what other things do to have in mind to help promote this album instead?"

SAM: "Theres always the usual things most bands do like we've been pushing behind the video for 'Hungry Eyes' and a couple bits of promo to go alongside that, theres been a lot of people doing stuff online at the moment and we've spoken about doing something like that but its very limited at the moment on what we can actually do... the real big thing will be seeing when this all blows over and hopefully what we'd love to do is get round to some headline gigs at the end of the year!"

VINI: "The real problem with this is that there is such a level of uncertainty... you know if we could a headline show the moment we're allowed out of out of houses then we'd do it! but yeah the problem is committing ourselves to something that we just don't know, we just don't want to make promises that we can't keep. We'll definitely just try and improvise I think and just try some fun things over the next couple of months, I mean as we said earlier on there's so many people just sitting about doing nothing, myself included! We released a cover of a Bon Iver song at the beginning of the week raising some money for charity and I think we're going to try and do a few more covers as well, obviously within the means of not getting too much in the way of our actual singles but just making sure we've got loads of stuff for people to come and get involved in, one of things that we really like doing is just chatting to people and getting involved with them, just spending that time almost socialising with people even though we're stuck indoors! That's just what we're all going to do a lot of over the next few weeks!"

WALLFLAG_ : "So still talking about out circumstances with quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic, how are you as musicians being effected? How are you finding practicing? Promoting the album? Even basic conversing between industry friends and workers?"

SAM: "Well it's really difficult because the people that we usually turn to who are really amazing at what they do and help us out with booking and management and things like that but of course with this situation those people have everyone they work with turning to them and asking the same things over and over so it's difficult for all of us you know, everyone's looking for guidance really! I think we've got a few positives out of this terrible situation though with people who are able to get in touch with their creative side and have a little time to do things they arent always able to do."

VINI: "Yeah it's difficult and speaking about it from from a more personal side of things, me and Sam chat a lot and we always like keeping up to date with what we do and how there's been some days where I've got up and I've been like 'I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that!' and I get it done it so this whole staying at home thing is really working out well for me haha! but of course there are some days where I just don't do anything and it's a common thing now, even outside of this quarantine stuff we as people sometimes just seem so hard wired to just constantly guilt ourselves if we're not getting things done so I think it's a really good opportunity for all of us to understand because you're in a certain mindset that doesn't mean that other people necessarily are as well, some people at the moment are like 'all systems go, I'm going to get this, this, this and this done!' which is great and some people just don't cope as well and that's also fine, we're all kind of in a situation we've never been in and respecting other people's boundaries and respecting other people's space in this current situation so much of it is so important and so much of what's important about this is to really respect each other and you know really try and make it a real community-based thing that we do and just get through it all together. There's so many boundaries you always have to set yourself within your own space which you never had to in the past because not only is it where I sleep now it's my workspace, it's my creative space, it's everything! So I'm here all the time and everyone else is kind of going through the same thing. So yeah, it's a weird, weird time for us but you know I think we're all starting to really finally figure out what you're supposed to be doing now."

WALLFLAG_ : "You're definitely spot on there! That's about all we had to talk about today but I wanted to finish by asking directly to people in the business what is the best way to support you and our other favourite bands in times like these?"

SAM: "A big thing at the moment is if people are even just streaming the songs it helps us, obviously we're really grateful when people pre-order the record and that sort of thing like contributing to the fundraiser that we set up with the cover that we did and that sort of thing but honestly just listening to the music and watching the video, that sort of thing is just as appreciated."

VINI: "At the moment some of the stuff people don't know about when you're talking about the way that music is consumed nowadays and so much of how smaller bands like ours are pushed to other people mostly down to algorithms and stuff like that, generally just talking about the bands that you like and making playlists and sharing posts! Almost yourself as a consumer becoming a tastemaker or becoming some person that people look to, I mean you're doing a bit of it yourself with this very publication and it's great! I think it's important that just because you don't necessarily make music and you're more of a listener of a band if you want to support that band in whatever way you can, just generally being an active user on the platforms that we we all communicate with each other on is actually a really helpful thing for not just our band but any band! Just generally like communicating, sharing, streaming and stuff like that is so important, just talk about the bands you like!"

Wallflowers 'Teach Yourself To Swim' is set to be released on June 5th.