What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio about you.
Eyre Llew are an ambient-rock trio from Nottingham, UK and since forming in August 2014, they have released nine singles and a self-recorded 12 track debut album entitled, Atelo. Their debut reached #24 in Drowned in Sounds Top 100 albums of 2017 and was critically acclaimed through Kerrang, BBC Introducing, Louder Than War, Fred Perry Subculture, Getintothis and many more! Having extensively toured 20+ countries across the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific independently the band have now been selected by 14+ Showcase Festivals over thousands of bands to be amongst “the 104 most promising artists in Europe” making them INES#talent 2019. Their 2018 kickstarted the band with three nominations for the Unsigned Music Awards at The Great Escape under; Best Live Rock Act, Best Album & Best Video. Being championed by Gigwise as “one of the most exciting bands in the UK right now” they are really not one to miss…
Provide us with some info about your latest release…
We released our debut album Atelo last year. The recording process for Atelo began over two years ago, with the band developing their sound during a run of 8 single releases from 2014 to 2016. The band had always set out to make a self produced album from their home and creative hub, BSV Studios in Nottingham. Having initially recorded over fourteen tracks, the final cut includes eleven on the release with a hidden track on the CD. The recording process took them all over the country, gathering sound samples from locations such as London’s Kings Cross station and waves crashing upon beaches in Norfolk. The record really started to take shape though when the first parts of instrumentation were done.
They spent a week in Lincolnshire tracking songs on a grand piano, one of the key layers to many of the songs on this record, striving to capture as much rawness as they could. It was here, in a rural house somewhere in the countryside that Atelo was properly born… Taking this back to their hometown studio in Nottingham, the band recorded and re-recorded this album over and over again until they found a level of satisfaction where they could happily say they would let this go out into the world. Being the first body of work the band would ever put out on physical format, they felt they had a lot hanging on its anticipation with the release date coming up three years after the band started.
To complete this album though they felt like they had to include the people that had supported them from the beginning somehow. So, hosting a group vocal day at their hometown studio, they openly invited fans of the band to come along and sing with them to their song, Edca. With 50 people from all different backgrounds of the band’s history, they squeezed into a live room and sang their hearts out before an after party commenced where fans became friends with each other. This event was the final part of the recording process on the album, and arguably the most exciting and enjoyable to boot. It was a lovely experience. A pinnacle moment to their story which redefined the band’s thoughts on how to name their debut.
Atelo came from the word Atelophobia which is the fear of not doing something right or the fear of not being good enough. Quite simply put it’s a fear of imperfection. Over the two years the band self produced this record whilst touring up and down the UK, experiencing numerous emotional lows and highs along the way. Having spent so much time on this record while developing their sound and live show they’d somehow forgotten whether their work was how they originally intended it to be or whether or not it was even good any more. Nevertheless, the group vocal recording day re-defined that feeling to them, going away with hope and encouragement from witnessing the few reactions from their fans, friends and family’s first listen of the album’s material. It was then that the band’s Atelophobia was gone, through the uniting of people who got together and experienced Eyre Llew’s two years of hard work for the very first time.
Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?
Music wise we frequently listen to artists like; A Winged Victory For The Sullen, Hammock, Phoebe Bridgers, Sigur Ros, Bon Iver, S.Carey and loads of others. No musically, I guess film has played a part in how we see our future as we’d love to experiment with film scoring some day. The film ‘Tracks’ has one of the coolest soundtracks we’ve ever heard and that was by an artist called Garth Stevenson. His work is just beautiful and has been an influence on our debut album for sure!
In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?
Well we get categorised with Post-rock stuff all the time, probably because they are some of our influences. However typically post-rock music do not have any vocal melodies so we’ve never been an exact match with bands like that – even if we love what they do. We’ve called ourselves Ambient-rock recently, because we have these dynamic parts and melody driven chorus’ with ambient layers and sections in our songwriting. It’s so difficult to fit into any one genre nowadays and honestly I often think “would I be interested if we were just an Indie band? Or just a rock band? What does that mean..?” Most of the bands we discover on the road whilst touring are categorised or categorising themselves into one sound but very often dont match with it. We believe the listener should decide what they think.
Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…
Sam’s…
ALBUMS:
1) A Winged Victory For The Sullen (self titled first album),
2) Alexisonfire – Crisis
3) Sigur Ros – Heima
MOVIES:
1) Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
2) Almost Famous
3) The Holiday
BOOKS:
1) A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawkings
2) Gringo Trails – Mark Mann
3) Into The Wild
Do you prefer studio or performing live and why? What should the audience expect from you of your live appearance at 2018’s SpaceFest?
We love writing music and touring. It’s like anything I suppose touring for three months straight without breaks can get very tiring after a while. After our Asia tour we were really exciting to get into the writing studio and work on new material for the second record. Give it a couple of months and we’ll miss playing live again though. For SpaceFest we are really looking forward to playing a
large stage again. Even though our music sounds relaxed and ambient on record our live show is much more energetic and emotive – taking the music to another level. 🙂
Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?
e – ta
Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?
Edca for us is a special one, we hosted a group vocal recording day for our fans during the recording process so that’s all our fans, friends and families on that track. Live it’s a fun one to do as well. Havoc is also a personal favourite of mine with it starting our video series off. We’re also really excited about our new material coming out next year…
Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?
In April 2019 we are releasing a five track Split EP which we recorded in South Korea whilst on tour there last month. We will be announcing an EP launch tour after SpaceFest to promote that and towards the end of next year working on putting out our second album.
Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…
What is the ‘secret’ to your sound..?
Playing a Fender Thinline Telecaster guitar with P90 pickups into a Strymon bluesky reverb pedal and out of a VoxAC30 amplifier.
Curated by: Christos Doukakis
Recommended listening:
Connect with Eyre Llew:
@eyrellew