NEEVE aren’t afraid to do things differently. Composed of two brother pairings, the Stuttgart-born quartet have seen their rise in the music scene shoot up this year following the release of their debut album chaos of my mind. The record is an open diary of the band’s whirlwind four years, addressing personal changes in the life of 26-year old frontman and drummer, Felix Seyboth, whilst fearlessly attacking dated social stereotypes along the way.
From the small indie-pop band that began in his grandma’s basement in South-Germany back in 2018, Felix, along with his brother and cousins: Axel Seyboth, Marius Spohrer and Philipp Spohrer, reveals the band are ready to bring the energy to venues across Europe next spring for their first headline tour. He also discusses the power of social media to build a safespace at gigs for fans, eradicating toxic masculinity, and accidentally hitting a fan in the face with a water bottle on stage - all spoken from the comfort of his grandma’s basement.
GW: It’s been a crazy year for NEEVE; the release of your debut album chaos of my mind, a mini-European tour which included playing in the UK for the first time, and now a debut headline tour due next Spring - how do you put this year into words?
NEEVE: It's been unreal! We’re a band that always aims to drive forward and are always thinking about what comes next. Looking back, especially with Spotify Wrapped, we looked at 2021 and I think we had around five or six thousand monthly listeners and now we’re settled at around 175,000 without big editorial playlists.
We try not to focus much on numbers, for us it’s more the fanbase and support around the band that I’m really proud of this year. Due to COVID, it all felt like a bit of a glimpse through social media which was fine because a lot of progress was made online, but to have people back in front of the stage and chat with them after the shows again - that has been really special! It meant we could really get a feel for how much the band means to people and then how much that then means to us. People were coming to shows hours before to queue, and for a small band like us that felt mental to have people waiting for us and buying merch.
Then coming to the UK… it was huge! Brexit was a huge fuck-up because it’s so stressful to register equipment and it makes it so difficult for artists now. We were supposed to be supporting The Snuts in Paris and Belgium back in September but they couldn’t make it for these troubles so it makes things very difficult because it costs so much and it's such a bureaucracy in a way. But there’s been so much going on and I’m super proud of what we’ve achieved as a band and how much work we’ve put in for years, so seeing us get something from it is huge. We’re really looking forward to next year too so we’re in a good state of mind right now.
"We started when we were teenagers, then you go through periods of growing up, listening to different music and your character develops but the four of us always developed together."
It feels like you’ve come a long way quite quickly from starting the band in your grandma’s basement back in 2018 - Is the NEEVE of today what you hoped it would be four years ago?
I’m in my grandma’s basement right now! We use it as our studio in the same house we’ve been making music these past few years. We’ve come a long way as we had a different band that made different genres of music, but as the same four guys, we decided to find a new name and concept of a band, and our style changed to a more synth pop sound. But now we’re going back to our roots with more alternative indie rock music with real instruments.
We started when we were teenagers, then you go through periods of growing up, listening to different music and your character develops but the four of us always developed together. It feels like it has taken forever for us to get to this point, but it has only been four years with two or three during COVID so it’s great to see huge progress.
You touched upon changes to your sound over the years from synth pop to a more alternative indie sound today, which artists have influenced that change?
The 1975 had a huge impact on us in 2018 when we discovered them. It’s probably funny to you because in Germany, these bands aren’t as big as they are in the UK or America so we’ve just kind of discovered bands that are already huge elsewhere, but they had a big influence on our sound, as well as artists like: COIN, The Neighbourhood and Sam Fender. We’re trying to make our sound even more distinctive but I totally get where the comparisons with these artists come from, definitely.
September this year marked the release of your debut album chaos of my mind. How did you find the process of putting together essentially four years of work into just 40 minutes of music?
It was a natural process because we’ve always just been these four guys that make music together, so it just came together so naturally. Plus my brother (Axel) has been mixing and producing everything bar one song where someone from outside co-produced it, so the album was done basically from my bedroom. We used to release a lot of singles, as everyone does, then one day I said “we have so many good demos, let’s write ten more and put an album together”, and we wrote some more and my brother produced it all which makes it really special!
It’s clear how deeply personal chaos of my mind is to you by exploring themes of mental health struggles, toxic masculinity and the pressures surrounding social relationships. Were these themes always the inspiration for the album?
Around the time of writing most of it COVID was still going on and I’m also not much of a socially outgoing person so I don’t write songs about partying or taking drugs so it gave me a lot of time for self-reflection. When I found out I had ADHD, and there was some other stuff going on, I just wanted to write from my chest because it was a tough time.
I started to be more open about things in songs or online which I think helped build a community because fans felt seen and I felt seen because of them. People always curse about social media but I’ve found, especially with our generation, there’s a community for everyone like an ADHD bubble on TikTok where people connect together and don’t have to feel alone. I’m trying to be really open about it and people seem to appreciate that, and the boys just let me go with stuff like that in the lyrics.
There seems to be a real family feel within the NEEVE fandom. I loved the ‘gig rules’ you made before your tour back in October which covered fans dressing how they feel comfortable, supporting each other socially and over health concerns. How important is building a positive fan relationship in the music industry today?
The thing is, on social media you can always reply to fans with the classic thank you response with love hearts which is cool but the moment we truly feel connected with the people is on stage. We actually had group chats set up for every city on tour because we knew they’d be people that didn’t want to go to a show alone and to prove there are people that care about you because of course we want them to still come to our shows! We just want fans to be okay and have a good time. I remember one show when I was onstage I asked people working at the venue if they could put more water at the bottom of the stage because we know people aren’t always mentally stable or people could panic in a situation or get anxiety so we try to take regular breaks between songs and throw water bottles out. Although, I once threw a bottle in somebody’s face accidently. I asked her if she could catch it and she said yeah but she didn’t…
But yeah we want to create a good environment and I think this is why some people came to several shows, it was crazy to begin to recognise people in smaller venues that you’ve spoken to on social media before. Previously, it’s always been like why would anyone care about our shitty band but it’s so nice to have that back-and-forth relationship that we care about them so much and they care about us.
The opening track to chaos of my mind, ‘piece of art’, acknowledges identity and toxic masculinity and links back to one of your older songs ‘BYE BYE’ for the same reason. You seem fearless to address the dismantling of toxic masculinity in your music?
It’s really important! So ‘BYE BYE’ is actually the last song we play live on tour, and then I do this short speech about how anyone can love anyone and we don’t ever let anyone tell us how we should dress etc so it’s a big bye-bye to toxic masculinity and gender roles basically. I’m really proud of this because it’s a really direct, in-your-face song. We all grew up in a small village and have a more arty personality and are not like the general nine to five working kind of guy with a girlfriend, then kids, then a house lifestyle… so when you develop a different sort of character, you often get a lot of looks so the song is about that generally.
I want it to be the ending of a chapter and that’s what I associate it with by letting go of a negative chapter of my life. It’s really hard because for our hometown show, our whole family were watching in the audience and it’s not easy to talk about that kind of stuff and open up a lot whilst already doing that with many of the songs. Our songs usually have a fun melody to them but then addressing themes more seriously in-between songs is very different but I’m really glad I get the chance to be an openbook and to know that it’s hopefully helping people in the audience as much as it’s helping me work things out.
chaos of my mind is out now
