Five O'Clock Heroes & Agyness Deyn: This Summer's New Look

Clutching a comforting cup of tea, Anthony Ellis is recalling the first time he met Agyness Deyn. It was, he says enthusiastically, “four or five years ago” in a kitchen in the North of England where he was touring with his band the Five O’Clock Heroes. “She had longer hair,” he remembers, leaning over to signal just how long with his hand, “and she was very sweet even then.” As he continues to describe the encounter, which came some time before Deyn was proclaimed by fashion critics as the next Kate Moss, Deyn chats away obliviously to the man beside her. That man is Sam Embery, the band’s drummer - someone with whom she shares a sibling like bond.

As they giggle at a private joke, Ellis glances at them like a proud father. “You crazy kids,” he says, as if right on cue, before returning to his story. “I remember it very well and then when she came to New York, Sam was actually there at the time and those two would hang around a lot.” Seemingly, invigorated at the mention of her comrade, Deyn switches conversations. “We used to run around New York together,” she enthuses, in her sweet Mancunian accent, “we’d be like the kids and he’d be like go play, go play.”

All three are gathered together on an uncomfortable sofa in East London to talk about Deyn’s collaboration on Five O’Clock Heroes new single ‘Who’, a task that is made harder by the fact that all are nursing hangovers of differing intensities. It has, after all, been a heady few days. “It’s been so much fun though,” says Deyn, who has taken a break from her modelling career to help the band promote the single. “It’s felt like a month, this week, because we’ve been so busy.”

‘Who’ is the first song to be taken from the bands new album ‘Speak Your Language’, which, by Ellis’s own admission, is a far fuller record than their debut ‘Bend To The Breaks’, which was released in 2006. The guitars rhythms are more complex, the drum patterns steely and infectious, and the experimentation with brass has given Five O’Clock Heroes a far greater depth. Of course, it’s Deyn’s collaboration that for the moment has garnered all the attention, however. Which is something that, until this week, hadn’t even crossed Deyn’s mind.

“No because we were always like…I’ve been learning guitar for like a few years already and Anthony’s always been helping me with my music anyway, you know, so that was never really an issue,” she says. “But, I think, in the last week it’s been like shit - this is a bit crazy. Especially how fast it’s happened - from us messing around in the studio, having a laugh doing it and then how fast it’s gone from then to now, and now we’re here playing gigs and it’s kind of like a bit unbelievable, it’s really crazy.”

‘Who’ was never consciously written with Deyn in mind. It was originally the produce of a writing session that Ellis had with a French friend and it was only after Deyn heard the original version at his apartment in New York that Ellis decided to translate it. Already it’s proved to be a wise move. On the night before we meet, the band, and Deyn, pre-recorded a performance on Channel 4’s Sunday Night Project. A slot they could have only dreamed of in the past.

The interview continues on the next page...here