Gentle Friendly Interview

The latest in our series of interviews is with Gentle Friendly. Their lo-fi, droney, looped up live show has proved an irresistible pull for me in the past and recent high profile support slots imply that word is spreading.

How did you meet and did it take long to land upon the format of the band as it is now?
 
I remember we first talked about making some songs together on Christmas Eve a few years ago. We’d met perhaps once before. I remember meeting Dan and then him falling asleep in somebody else’s bed, I dunno if he remembers that one. Anyway the basic format of what we do has never really changed, we mostly stick with the stuff we have, just use it in different ways. The longer the band goes on the harder and stranger it gets, and the more creative we have to be with how we use the same materials - its a blessing really, we can never get huge and orchestral, cus what we have to work from is old keyboards samplers and drums. In general i think bands either have good equipment or good songs.
 
I have been fortunate enough to see you live on a few occasions. First time I saw you (at Bardens Boudoir a couple of years ago), I remember there being a bit of dressing up as an american footballer and a simulated nose bleed. What was all that about? Apologies if the nosebleed was, in fact, genuine.
 
That was real - started just before we walked onstage, I barely had time to cram the tissue up my nose and wipe off the rest.
 
You seem to have a real love for outdated synths and they form a large part of the live show (and take quite a beating), do you suffer sleepless nights worrying about what will happen if one dies? They can’t be easy to replace.
 
You’re right they are real antiques - we know one other person in England with the MT40 I use, so when it breaks he will get the call in the middle of the night. But we’ve said from the start that the band lives and dies with the keyboards, so when their circuits finally melt that might be it. Sometimes you have to take things as a sign.
 
You recently switched labels from No Pain in Pop to Upset The Rhythm. I am a big fan of theirs as much as promoters as a label. What are your future plans with them?
 
More shows more wax!
 
Looking online people often compare you to Animal Collective which is a comparison I don’t really get. Who are your influences and how do they manifest themselves in your music?
 
Yeah, we don’t get it either, AC are a good band but I don’t have any of their records. I probably read more than I listen to music at the moment, but lately it’s been Cam’ron an awful lot; mostly rap music when I’m working on stuff. Obviously we come from a tiny island hundreds of miles from where all that stuff gets made so its an amazing and alien scene to us. There’s obscurity and weirdness there that you can’t really get from the indie scene, or whatever you want to call it. Usually for bands like us being weird and cryptic is the norm, but rap is the opposite, all about realness, being as real as possible, so when they hit you with something nasty and strange, it’s effective, it gets you in the gut, it’s exciting and beautiful, and coming from where we’re from we can’t understand the slang, the heavy accents, the millions of songs and tapes that are impossible to find, and so it has a real heavy mystery. I don’t know if that shows in our music - but at least we try to be as real as possible.
 
You recently supported No Age at the Scala. How was that? They seem to be doing really well for themselves these days.
 
It was great, they are lovely guys, very huggy. Amazing show. They are old school dudes, they do things right.
 
What are your plans for the future?
 
The new record RIDE SLOW comes out really soon, and we’re sitting on a load of other stuff, so then more records after that. Apart from that who knows the future!?

Ride slow comes out on Nov 9th on Upset the Rhythm.
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