The Heartbreaks: Bringing Seaside Love To Manchester

Finding inspiration from their hometown of Morecambe, The Heartbreaks have brought back a much needed air of romance to the UK’s music scene.  Relocating to the North’s capital Manchester, the band have set about making a name for themselves.

Fresh from releasing their second single ‘I Didn’t Think It Would Hurt To Think Of You’, filmed fittingly by the sea, Gigwise caught up with lead singer Matthew Whitehouse during their recent support tour with Carl Barat to discover what is set for 2011...

How is the tour going with Carl Barat?

The tour is going well, yeah. It’s been a really warm reception every night. I think we fit really well with Carl. With what people look for in his type of music, there are elements of that in the music that we make.

Are you at London tonight? Looking forward to it?

Yes we are, at the Scala. Very. It’s a great place.

Is this the band’s first full UK tour?

Well we have done small ones in the support of other bands but this is our first time on the road with someone else. It’s interesting actually, watching another band as well in a night.

What’s the best city that you’ve played in so far?

Nottingham. It’s always good, I don’t know what it is. 

The band relocated to Manchester in 2009 from Morecambe. What was the decision for that?

Yeah as simple as that really.  It wasn’t any huge ‘let’s go make it in the big city’ kind of move.  It just felt like time to leave really. I always felt like I was born a long way from where I was suppose to but then when I moved away, I realised that I was completely wrong and that Morecambe has had such huge influences upon me and the band and the band’s sound. Moving to Manchester clarified that actually.

What do you love about Manchester?

What do I like about Manchester? I don’t think that Manchester is as world leading as it likes to think it is. It’s a really radical place, and it attracts really radical people. I think that it’s a really interesting looking place.

How do you find the music scene there at the moment?

I don’t know. There’s nobody occupying the middle ground in Manchester at the moment. It’s either quite boorish or it’s so leftfield it’s sterile.

It seems to go in stages the music scene in Manchester...

Yeah, a lot of the people I’ve met in Manchester who are musicians,  most of the most interesting ones aren’t from Manchester. The fact that we were featured in a piece on Mancunian music, the other day in the NME and we won best band at the MEN demonstrates that.

What do you miss about Morecambe and being by the sea?

I miss the Irish wind, I miss the promenade, I miss sweet and cafe, I miss sticks of rock, I miss that feeling of only four people really understanding how you’re feeling. Where in Manchester there are so many people, where in Morecambe there was the four of us and it really brought us together.  And it’s kind of the last gang in town, ‘us against the world’ mentality.

The Heartbreaks - 'I Didn't Think It Would Hurt To Think Of You'.

How did you all come together?

I can’t really put any exact dates to it. Three of us played together before at various places, then Pete joined on a couple of years ago who plays bass for us.  As I said we were kindred spirits and it made sense to make the four piece ‘The Heartbreaks’. We used to rehearse in an old snooker hall on the prom. We spent the first summer when we first met, rehearsing every day in this abandoned snooker hall and that’s how we kind of got started.

What did you set out to achieve as a band, sound wise?

For everything that we do to be very natural and organic. Obviously a lot of music at the moment is pretty synthetic and detached, not in the sense that we really thought about it. But what The Heartbreaks do is try to make it very natural.

What are the band’s main influences or your own?

The band’s main influence is Motown, Suspector, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Blondie, Orange Juice. I think girl bands are an influence too.

There have been comparisons made between you and The Smiths - is that a compliment?

I don’t go up there thinking that we could be The Smiths.  Recently we have been recording some stuff that’s going to blow The Smiths comparisons out of the water.  One of them sounds like a real John Layton song and the other sounds like the finest example of plastic soul I’ve heard all decade.  I think were getting to a point now, when The Smiths comparisons have gone and its just The Heartbreaks.

How’s the recording going? When are you looking to release the debut?

We have one eye on the Spring/Summer and the other on just releasing singles until then. As I say, everything happens very naturally, no sort of over planning, even though our manager might disagree. I’m really enjoying releasing singles and touring. We’re meeting with producers this month, we met Steven Street the other day.

What’s set for 2011? What are you hoping for next year?

I want to release a debut album, as I say that will cease The Smiths comparisons, and that people will say that we’ve arrived at a distinct sound. To keep playing, I love being on tour, when you turn up in Stockton or something. I never tire of it and its always incredibly humbling.