Brother: Interview

They've barely been around five minutes, but Brother have already become one of the most talked about bands around, drawing comparisons to Britpop groups like Oasis and Blur, and proclaiming that they want to headline Glastonbury.

So when Gigwise caught up with singer Lee Newell to find out what all the chat was about, we weren't surprised to find him in the same confident and outspoken mood. Here he lifts the lid on their forthcoming debut album, Britpop and that Glastonbury claim.

How have things been at the moment?

Things are all good. We're just in the studio at the moment recording our album and we’ve actually just finished tracking it so that’s all exciting. The label have just come in to listen to what we’ve done so it’s a bit of a tense time.

How are you finding all the recent attention?

It has all happened incredibly quickly for this band. I don’t find it weird because if I’m being truthful it’s something that I’ve always thought about in my head and down to every fine detail of how it would be. Of course it is weird that it is all finally happening for us but it’s not something that I feel uncomfortable with. I feel very lucky but we’ve just got to live up to it now.

Do you find that bands have a lot of pressure put on them?

We’ve worked very hard on the album and though a lot about how we wanted to sound live, and we’re very happy with everything now so this really is the best we can do. If people don’t like it or take to us then at least we have done our best.

How did the band form?

We started about eighteen months ago, we’ve known each other for about five or six years but we all played with local bands back in Slough. We all decided to get together after a few pints. The first time I met Josh he was firing fireworks at somebody in Sam’s house. We’re all lunatics and we all decided that we wanted to take over the world. We locked ourselves in a barn in Slough and just wrote and wrote for a year before people had heard anything to make sure that we were ready and good enough.

Did you all have the same idea for what the band should be?

Sort of. We all have a few mutual bands that we’re all into like The Stone Roses and The Smiths but we all listen to different music, so it brings a lot of views to the table when we first started choosing a sound for the band. Sam and Josh really like dance music more than I do, they really like M.I.A and Chemical Brothers. The last great era which people keep labelling us is Britpop. I guess that was our last big influence because we were just about old enough to see the tail end of it. So that is where that sound comes into our music.

Brother - 'Darling Buds Of May'

How do you find the comparisons to Britpop and Oasis?

I don’t really mind. Journalists will compare us to things because that is what they do. They like to pick out comparisons all the time. They want to know what we sound like but until you actually listen to our music I don’t think you really know what you’re talking about. I don’t mind because like I said it was the last great period of music and so that’s cool. Hopefully we can create our own period of music that won’t be the same as Bripop but like that. We like to call it Gritpop or what you want, but all I care about is getting guitar music back on the radio where it belongs.

When did you start work on your debut?

It was really fast actually; we recorded it all in about three weeks. We’ve got a couple of weeks left so I think we’re just going to spend it hanging out and going Go Karting. It was supposed to come out in summer but it’s been pushed forward, which I’m really happy about because it was going to be out in September but now it’s going to be out in late June. We’ve sorted out our new single ‘Darling Buds Of May’ which is getting more play on the radio now which is really good.

How do you like to write and record as a band?

It’s all completely mutual. We all contribute fairly equally to the writing side of it all, I write all of the lyrics and the melody but we’ve all written individual songs musically. There isn’t one sort of set way, it’ really split 25% each; we’re all working as a team to achieve our goal and it’s good to have the whole band contributing in that way.

Who has produced the album?

The producer we worked with is called Stephen Street, he’s a massive hero of ours because he’s worked with some f*cking legends like The Smiths, Morrissey and Blur. I think he also worked with the Kaiser Chiefs, who I don’t like but I suppose they did well. He was the one who wanted to work with us, he heard us on the radio and got in contact with us. We were over the f*cking moon, we were like ‘what the hell is going on’.

Are you quite ambitious as a band?

Incredibly ambitious, I think we have been slated for being outspoken about what we want and that we believe we’re going to achieve it. We do eventually want to headline Glastonbury and be the biggest band in the world and we’re not too scared to say that. I think bands should be ambitious, I think they haven’t been in the last few years and they’re happy to play the same little venues their whole lives but that’s not what we want. We want to keep developing.

What are plans for this year? 

We’ve got our own headline tour and then were going on tour with The Streets, which will be great, then we’re heading over to America to do some shows in New York and play SXSW. Then hopefully we can make a name for ourselves over there. It’s really busy at the moment but I can’t wait to get the album out and play it live. To all the people who don’t get the hype I think they will once they have seen us live.