In this day and age with so many new bands emerging every second, sometimes unfair comparisons are made to attract attention to the newcomers. England's Zulu Winter have drawn comparisons to Coldplay, White Lies, The Vaccines and could not be further from what those bands sound like. Zulu Winter are an atmospheric pop band with so much potential they may be one of the biggest breakouts of this year. Maybe Zulu Winter drew comparisons to those bands simply as to how massive Coldplay, The Vaccines, White Lies have become? If that is the case, then yes, call them "The Next Vaccines" and so on. As the band just released their debut, Language, in the U.S., we spoke with guitarist Henry Walton about the band's origins, recording their debut and those comparisons. Take a look at our interview with Walton below:
You have gained
tremendous buzz in your native country, The Guardian even called you “The New
Vaccines,” how do you respond to it?
We try to not pay to much attention to it to
be honest. We're very grateful that people are excited by the music but
sensible enough to know that focus their attention on the next big thing very
soon.
The Vaccines are great and good guys but
anyone's that heard our music will know we're pretty different to The Vaccines
so you take these things with a pinch of salt.
Are you nervous you may not live up
to the hype?
We don't know what we're meant to be living
up to so not really! We've been working hard on this record for a long time so
we're a little nervous that it won't be received well but mainly we're just
excited about it coming out. We're really happy with it and proud of it and
that's the main thing in the end of the day.
Plus we're already writing for the next
record so we're a little more concerned about that.
You have only been officially around
for a year and so much has been said about you, when you started off, did you
know straight away you had something special?
From the songs on this album, Let's Move Back
To Front came very early and from a jam. We knew we had something there that we
all liked and were excited by. This served as a template of sorts for the rest
of the record… The fact that it came out of a jam was pretty satisfying too.
While officially you have been
together since 2011, you have been playing together for 12 years now. How is
your debut LP arriving now?
Good question! We've played together for a
long time but only really focused upon it seriously the last couple of years.
Before that we were more concerned with drinking and partying. Now we're a lot
more concerned with sound, effects, writing and making sure that we're into the
music we're making. Sounds simple but it's easy to forget sometimes.
How would you describe your sound to
someone who has never heard of you before?
Left Steering pop songs with strong danceable
grooves and layers of atmospheres and textures? The hardest question in music!
Where does the name ‘Zulu Winter’
originate?
Tiredness, boredom and frustration probably.
It's one of the hardest things to sort out and it's not that fun really. You
spend days sitting around trying to come up with a name when you should be
making music. Then you people keep asking you about it and you feel bad for not
having a more exciting story to tell!!
With so many bands coming out of
London these days, how did you manage to stick out from the crowd?
With the music hopefully. If it's not because
of that then I want out now… Joking. Kind of… If it's not about the music then
you probably a bit screwed to be honest. After that maybe our blog helped a
little. It's a bit different from your usual myspace and Facebook band pages.
It was mentioned in your press
release that you were inspired by 19th Century literature. How have you manage
to write songs about those from another time?
It's mainly down to imagery. A lot of our
lyrics are quite ambiguous and focus upon creating vivid imagery. When you have
that focus it's easy to draw inspiration from the most unlikely sources.
Many in the British press have
compared you to Coldplay and White Lies, are you inspired by those bands? Who
are some of your biggest inspirations?
No, we don't draw on them for inspiration.
They do very well but we tend to draw our inspiration from older lesser known
music. We all have very diverse tastes though. We've all been listening to a
lot of Modeselektor, Aphex and Four Tet recently which is the first time in a
while we've all been listening to the same sort of stuff.
What is the song writing process like?
It varies a lot. Sometimes they come from
jams, sometimes Will bring in some chords and a melody, sometimes someone else
brings in a few idea. There's no rules really. If everyone is into the idea
then it will get worked on.
We've also started working on demo's a lot
more which is good for the process. Then a some o the atmospheric and textural
stuff won't get completely finished until everything else is completely and
fully recorded.
Many of the songs have perplexing meanings and twists to them lyrically,
songs like “Silver Tongue,” “Let’s Move Back to the Front,” are you doing that
on purpose to have fun with the listeners attention?
There's an element of that for sure. There's
quite a few subtle references in the lyrics that some people will pick up on
and others won't. We're not so concerned with 'say what you see' type lyrics.
Lyrically this mirrors the music in a way.
There are subtleties in the lyrics and music that you may not pick up on first
listen but might after a bit. That's very important to us.
For your debut LP, you signed with Arts and Crafts, how stoked are you
to be apart of that family and label?
We're really excited. It's a label with a
great history and we're proud to be a part of that.
Who would you love to work with and why?
Very happy with these four people at the
moment thanks.
