INTERVIEW: The Murder Capital on their New Single – “It’s just what we were going through”

Eszter Vida on 8 December 2023 

Written by Eszter Vida
Edited by Eve Moat

Irish post-punk band The Murder Capital have been soaring to new heights with the release of their newest single ‘Heart in the Hole’, having just played on 8th November at Project House in Leeds. I had the pleasure of interviewing bass player Gab, who delivered plenty of personal anecdotes from shenanigans on tour away from Dublin, their connection with the Leeds music scene with a bit of love and appreciation shown towards a new fan of theirs, Cillian Murphy.

How’s life on the road treating you all? Any habits to cure homesickness? 

We have been doing great and have been fortunate to experience so many seasons in so little time – crisp winter in Sweden and sunny late summer in Spain. I love the acknowledgment of the homesickness though. It’s hard for the people we’re closest to, to be away so much. It’s a sacrifice on both ends. 

Obviously, touring is very ‘gig and go’, but have you seen any sights so far? 

I saw a man do keepie-uppies while hanging from a lamp post up outside the Sacré Cœur Basilica in Paris, just before we played at La Cigale. It’s a feat of athleticism I don’t think I’ve seen matched even at actual football games. 

Any pre-gig rituals? 

The only thing that we do every show is get in a huddle. It grounds us and helps remind us that no matter where we are we, it’s just the 5 of us on the stage and that’s where the home is for the next wee while. Damian does some skipping as well. That’s not really a ritual though; it’s to get his heart rate up to match the intensity it’s at during the show. He’s a fit man. A big strong boy. 

Who’s been your favourite band to tour with so far?

We’ve loved any opportunity we’ve had to perform before IDLES. They are always incredibly good to us. When we supported them in Electric Ballroom, it was the first time we had a crowd that big in front of us and felt like “oh, so doing this and getting a big crowd is possible.” I had also seen Bowen backstage with his new-born baby and thought “oh, you can do this and still have a family.” Being around the IDLES men for an evening has been a great encourager and focuser for us. 

Favourite venue to play in Leeds?

My favourite in Leeds and one of my favourite venues in the world is the Brudenell Social Club. I’ll never forget the first day we got there. Nathan has always just been so supportive to us in his own quiet way. We wouldn’t be where we are without people like Nathan.

Do you have any personal anecdotes to how you formed as a band?

We used to march around Dublin doing karaoke in The Workman’s Club or Whelan’s together; next thing I knew, I had a bass guitar in my hands playing ‘More Is Less’ in the Other Voices tent at Electric Picnic in 2018. The rest is history in the making. The past two albums have just been us expressing how we had been feeling through music in a way that was clearer than how we spoke. I think that’s why we all started playing music in the first place. 

My favourite quote from you is one I found from a Fred Perry fashion article where you claim your style is ‘Hungover Cillian Murphy’.

Ahahaha, I remember us writing that vividly. Since then, we’ve had the opportunity to meet the man himself and shake hands one afternoon in the Irish Museum of Modern Art. He’s a fan of ours as we are of his. It was nice to hear him say our name and play our tune on his BBC 6 Music radio show as well. It’s good for the young people of Ireland to have a man like Cillian to look up to as someone who has achieved so much success through a masterful grasp of a craft. But if I had to give another triple fócal summary of our collective style, I’d say we’ve evolved into Simone Rocha Cowboys. 

What was the moment you felt like you truly evolved from being a local band?

I don’t think that feeling truly came until we played Glastonbury. Especially because we were booked for it, and it never happened in 2019. I’ve always had a bit of imposter syndrome being in the band as we’ve grown. It’s been hard to admit to myself that this really is what we do, maybe because we’re still fresh. Playing KEXP in Seattle was a moment like that too. Since I was sixteen, I felt like playing that radio station kind of meant that you were a real band or act or whatever. 

What do you think is the line for artists writing with political intent?

If you’re choosing political themes that you have no experience or understanding of, for the sole purpose of getting eyes on the band, I’m not sure that’s the best place to start. Lyrics can also be innately fictional, like in literature. Becoming a voice for other people can silence or dampen the voices of those who have went through the suffering first hand. 

Any favourite moments from the ‘Heart in the Hole’ music video while filming in Dublin?

Just to be working with Charlie again is something I do not take for granted. I feel like he has such accuracy when telling a story about The Murder Capital and sees us how we are The video feels quite light-hearted, contrasting to some of the heavier topics. I think the video was a snapshot of who we are now, draped to the backdrop of Dublin, where the band began; a good place that is conscious of all the work and life that had to happen to get us here. 

The Murder Capital will be back in Leeds in no time, I’m sure!

A chat with The Goa Express ahead of their first headline tour of the UK

Benjamin Forrest on 15 May 2022

Originally formed as teenagers in Burnley, The Goa Express have since been claimed by every music scene from Manchester to West Yorkshire, their unique brand of psychedelic, garage-punk influenced indie music gaining them a sizeable following. The group have been steadily rising in popularity since their initial release, ‘Reincarnation of the Lizard Queen’, in 2016 and are now set for their first headline tour around the UK – including a date at Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds on the 18th May. I spoke to lead singer James Clarke, and his brother Joe who plays keys in the group, to get their thoughts going into the tour and find out a little more about The Goa Express. 

The Burnley quintet includes two brothers – James and Joe – James states boredom as a predominant reason for the formation of the group, “We came together largely through not having that much to do in Burnley and largely through meeting in school. We all met in school, always to hung out together and then didn’t really have that much to do other than going to each other’s houses and muck around, there’s limited opportunities in small towns”. Speaking of small towns, though, The Goa Express has been heavily tied to the rising scene in the Calder Valley. Todmorden and Hebden Bridge seem to be breeding grounds for great groups at the moment, with the likes of Working Men’s Club, The Orielles and The Lounge Society putting these towns on the map. At the epicentre of this scene is The Golden Lion, a pub and independent venue established in 2015 which now also operates as a record label (Golden Lion Sounds), releasing records for artists such as Henge, The Lounge Society, and even Jarvis Cocker! Asked about this thriving local music scene, James explained, “Waka – Richard Walker – who runs the Golden Lion with Gig, we’re both from Todmorden so we’ve grown up there, we know the faces quite familiarly, we’ve just known him for ages. Although it seems like quite an unsuspecting place and a, sort of, little hidden little town in the middle of nowhere it’s probably not that unsuspecting when you’re there. It’s full of crazy characters and wacky people. Golden Lion was a bit of a refuge for us growing up, when we didn’t have anything else to do, anywhere to go, anywhere to listen to the sort of stuff we wanted to listen to”. The Golden Lion is a prime example of the absolute importance of independent venues for the development of new artists and music scenes, and the existence of bands like The Goa Express would surely support that claim!

Thus far, releases from The Goa Express have all come from independent labels, with early singles on Wrong Way and Eli Records and their recent singles on Ra-Ra Rok Records. The single ‘Be My Friend’, which received praise from Steve Lamacq on BBC 6Music, featured on the Counter Culture 20 compilation by Rough Trade. The Goa Express are an undeniably independent band, Joe detailed the benefits of this approach for the band, “Luckily we’ve still managed to maintain a good level of control over what we do and the people we meet and what trajectory you want to go down. I think eventually we won’t be against having the support of a label but we’re trying to do that on our own terms and keep as much control as possible”, he went on to explain “We’re not gonna spend our entire music careers being independent but it works for now and we’ve not needed anything else. It’s quite difficult coming from no involvement in the music industry to just all of a sudden having a shit ton of deals in front of you, managers and lawyers and all this kind of thing. It’s been nice for us to take it slowly and build up trust with different avenues”. The band are currently witnessing a great deal of success being signed to Ra-Ra Rok Records so, presumably, there are already a few major labels sniffing around – watch this space!

Blending psychedelia, pop, garage rock and indie, The Goa Express have a fantastic and thankfully non-generic sound to them. Asked about their influences, James lists, “A lot of Spiritualized, a lot of Brian Jonestown Massacre, a lot of stuff that was revivalist of 60s stuff but came later on in the 90s. Obviously your generic Britpop stuff and things that were dead catchy but largely the stuff that remained a little bit underground and revived certain movements that were lost in a bit more of a contemporary way”, before adding, “As well as all the classic shit that everyone listens to”. The psychedelic influences were definitely more noticeable on the bands earlier tracks, and that is something the group will admit to, “We’re less psychedelic now, none of us like that track [Reincarnation of the Lizard Queen] at all, we probably borderline hate that track. It’s funny to look back on and thing that that long ago we were still trying to get our stuff out there”. Describing the reasons for the development in sound, the band said, “We’re a bit more selective, the sound has just kind of evolved gradually, it’s never been coordinated to end up in a certain genre”.

Speaking to the Goa Express brothers it was refreshing to see their lack of pretentiousness in their approach to music and their band, perhaps it’s their Northern roots or the fact that they are fairly early on in their trajectory of success – either way, it is clear to see that The Goa Express exist largely through a simple love of good music between close friends. Prior to setting off on tour, which began in Nottingham on the 10th May, I asked the brothers about how they would approach their first headline tour, “Just go and enjoy it and embrace it. This time around, considering it’s our own and it’s a headliner, just try and make a good impression and not take things that seriously. If one show is wicked that good, if one show is bad and no one shows up then so be it, who cares?”. The two highlighted the Leeds gig at Hyde Park Book Club (which you can purchase tickets for here) as one they were particularly looking forward to. The group were supposed to play on the Oporto stage at Live at Leeds last year but had to pull out the night before, if the disappointment felt within those attending the festival is anything to go by then the Leeds gig is sure to be a good one, and James assured us “We’ll be there on time and in top form”. 

Sleeper’s Louise Wener talks ‘The It Girl’ ahead of the 25th Anniversary Tour

Benjamin Forrest on 21 April 2022

Formed in London in 1992, Sleeper quickly became one of the biggest British bands of the nineties – with eight top 40 singles in the UK and three top 10 albums across the decade. After reforming in 2017, the group are now set to tour their 1996 platinum-selling album The It Girl, including a date at the O2 Academy here in Leeds on the 22nd of April. Ahead of the tour, I spoke to songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Louise Wener to get more of an insight into the history of the group and their current tour.

The tour is primarily to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the groups most successful album The It Girl, the follow-up to the incredibly successful debut Smart. Louise described how The It Girl differed to their debut, saying, “We’d had success with Smart and we loved that, but I think we felt like this the one that was really gonna break us through to a different level”. The album certainly did break the band through to the mainstream, achieving four Top 20 singles in ‘Statuesque’, ‘Sale of the Century’, ‘Nice Guy Eddie’ and ‘What Do I Do Now?’. The band, though, were seemingly unaware of the extent of their success at the time; Louise recalled, “We were very much living in the moment in those days, but it was great! When you get asked to go on Top of the Pops and stuff like that, that’s when your parents go ‘my kids doing something proper’, but even when you’re in the middle of it you’re always looking over your shoulder to see what everyone else is doing – it was a very hypercompetitive environment”. 

It is easy to see why that would have been the case, the mid-90s is viewed as a sort of golden age in British rock and indie music – with incredible bands like Pulp, Elastica, Oasis, Blur and Suede rising to prominence (among countless others). Asked about what that period in musical history was like to be a part of, Louise explained, “You have a much broader sense of that retrospectively but what was present was that feeling of…it felt very celebratory, like it was an explosion of guitar music and indie music – there was a feeling that anything could happen at that point – it was very joyful, I suppose”. Many music historians cite the rise of British guitar music, or what has been divisively referred to as ‘Britpop’, as a reaction to the grunge scene of the early 90s.  “The demographic had shifted, people getting played on the radio that hadn’t previously”, Louise said of the rise in indie bands at the time, “Radio 1, specifically, opened up to guitar music. It’s the same with all movements, it’s just something that grows and catches and divides and becomes something”. 

Due to the fact that Sleeper had supported Blur on their Parklife tour, as well as the fact they were making predominantly guitar music in the mid-90s, Sleeper have always been tagged with the Britpop label. The term ‘Britpop’ has divided opinions, with bands like Suede being quick to distance themselves from the term, “I couldn’t give a shit about it, it’s just something some journalist came up with”, said Louise of the ‘Britpop’ label, “I don’t know if like new romantic bands get asked the same question – how does it feel being new romantic? or how did it feel being grunge? It seems so specific to Britpop, it’s very strange to me. I don’t think any of us really care”. 

One of the singles from The It Girl, ‘Statuesque’, in addition to a cover of Blondie’s ‘Atomic’ featured on the soundtrack to the iconic film Trainspotting (1996). The soundtrack is often hailed as a gold standard for indie film soundtracks – featuring the likes of Lou Reed, New Order, Iggy Pop, Pulp and, of course, Sleeper. According to Louise, though, it didn’t feel like such a momentous occasion at the time: “It was just a bit of fun and then obviously became this sort of cultural moment, I guess”. The film undoubtedly brough more attention to the band, and the track ‘Statuesque’ peaked at number 17 in the UK singles chart in 1996.

Now, 26 years later, Sleeper are back performing tracks from The It Girl to audiences across the country, “They take on a new life and a different kind of meaning because of the intervening years – the interval has made it something different so that’s what makes it feel wonderful to play them again”, explained Louise. 

Sleeper are set to perform at the O2 Academy in Leeds on the 22nd April, tickets are available for purchase here.